The 62-year-old Ogletree, you see, was headed to Las Vegas on December 30 when he stopped at a pizza place in the Houston airport. Upon departing the food court in Terminal C, Ogletree somehow forgot to take his “expensive black leather coat,” an XL Polo model (with a fashionable plaid lining) worth $800. Not surprisingly, the coat subsequently disappeared. Now Ogletree is threatening to sue the City of Houston, Continental Airlines, and the food court’s management company for failing to have “collected the coat, kept it in a secure place and held it for a reasonable time” until he was able to reunite with the garment. These prospective defendants, Ogletree reasoned, “breached their duty” in connection with how they “manage lost and found items for which they are responsible.”
He wants $800 not to sue.
Now, I’m not sure what duty exists here to monitor for and determine the moment a jacket has been lost.
It’s also not clear there’s any proof that such a jacket exists and was left in the food court.
I have no idea what Continental Airlines’ liability ought to be in all of this, since he left his jacket in the food court rather than on an airplane.
Somewhere in this the fact that he left his jacket certainly ought to play into the responsibility somewhere.
Now I’m not much of a fan of the TSA or overzealous government enforcement of silly rules. But in this case I might make an exception. It seems to me that this lawyer is admitting to leaving his personal items unattended in an airport. Surely there must be an administrative fine in there somewhere!
(Hat tip Dan R.)
This guy should be disbarred for making such frivolous lawsuit threats that his sanity must be called in question. Continental should counter sue him for damages related to contaminating their plane and gate with fumes from the crack cocaine he must be smoking constantly to come up with the idea of filing this lawsuit. With all the parties he is suing, why not throw in Star Alliance, the TSA (who provides airport security related to suspicious abandoned objects), the FAA (which regulates the airport and should have standards for this kind of thing), Texas, the USA, Mexico (due to its prior association with Texas), and the store where he bought the jacket (since they point fingers by telling him no one returned the jacket to them)? Too bad I flew out of IAH the next day or maybe I would have scored a free jacket.
Really? Come on, now. That is all I have to say.
Someone needs to find out exactly what coat that is, get one, wipe it down with some explosive, take it into the airport, and hide it somewhere.
Then call the cops and report “finding” it.
Does he also sue airlines when he misses a flight because he left his house too late?
Well, thank God it wasn’t a pair of pants.
I work at that pizza place and he is also going around saying he received rude service.He is nuts.And he just assumes an airport employee took the coat.What about the hundreds of travelers?I want a class action suit against him for defaming airport employees.