U.S. Supreme Court Holds Airline Entitled To ATSA Immunity In Pilot Defamation Case

Jerrold Ganzfried is a Partner in our Washington D.C. office Judy Nemsick is a Partner and Sarah Passeri an Associate in our New York office

HIGHLIGHTS:

In Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that immunity may not be denied under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA) to substantially true statements. According to the Court, "a statement that would otherwise qualify for ATSA immunity cannot lose that immunity because of some minor imprecision, so long as 'the gist' of the statement is accurate." In Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper,1 the United States Supreme Court held that statements by an airline official to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) concerning a potential security threat were protected by the airline immunity provisions of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA).2 Under the ATSA, airlines and their employees are granted broad immunity from liability for reporting potential security threats to TSA and law enforcement, subject to the narrow exception where the statements are made "with actual knowledge that the disclosure was false, inaccurate, or misleading" or "with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of that disclosure."3

The Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court's 4-3 decision, which had affirmed a $1.2 million defamation verdict and denied ATSA immunity to Air Wisconsin because its employee's statements to TSA concerning the potential threat of a soon-to-be terminated pilot were imprecise and made with reckless disregard as to their truth to falsity.4 The Court held, as a matter of law, that any inaccuracies in Air Wisconsin's report to the TSA were not material and, therefore, the airline was entitled to immunity under the statute.

Material Falsity Required

Writing for the Court, Justice Sotomayor stated that the exception to ATSA immunity is "patterned after" the actual malice standard found in First Amendment defamation cases,5 and requires a determination of whether an airline's disclosures of a potential security threat are materially false.6 The requirement of material falsity also serves the statute's purpose by encouraging immediate reporting of suspicious activities by airline employees without concern for minor inaccuracies. The Court held that "[i]It would defeat this purpose to deny immunity for substantially true reports, on the theory that the person making the report had not yet gathered enough information to be...