A federal courtroom in Houston, TX was packed this week to hear testimony in the lawsuit involving a gay couple and the United Airlines employee who they claim removed their giant purple dildo from their luggage, slathered it “with a greasy, foul-smelling substance,” and duct taped it to the outside of their duffle bag before sending it out onto an airport baggage carousel in Virginia back in 2011.
Related: “Mortified” Gay Couple Sues Airline For Putting Sex Toy On Display
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt initially dismissed the lawsuit in December 2012, but a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel reinstated the case in 2013. This week, it went to trial before a seven member jury.
Christopher Bridgeman and his husband, Martin Borger, are suing the airline for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress for the humiliation they suffered upon seeing the luggage emerge at Norfolk International Airport’s baggage claim.
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“I truly believed this happened because I am gay,” Bridgeman told the court earlier this week, after explaining that the toy had been discreetly tucked between neatly folded clothes prior to being removed from the bag.
As a result of the incident, the men claim they experienced “such a high degree of shock and embarrassment that they felt compelled to call two friends to come to the airport to assist them.” In the years following, they suffered from anxiety, paranoia, sleeping deprivation and body weight fluctuations.
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But lawyers for United aren’t buying any of it.
“What really happened is that the plaintiff’s bag was overstuffed,” defense attorney Edward “Teddy” Adams said during his opening remarks, adding that, as a result, the zipper on the duffle busted and the sex toy popped out.
Emmanuel “Jack” Fortunat, the now-retired baggage handler at the center of the scandal, firmly denied tampering with the couple’s bag or sending it out onto the baggage carousel.
“As God as my witness,” he told jurors, “I would never take a bag in that condition and put it on a belt to send it up to a customer. You have to take pride in your job and I did.”
But Bridgeman insisted to the jury that his bag wasn’t overstuffed and the zipper wasn’t broken.
The trial continues.
Related: City On Edge After Man With Giant Black Rubber Dildo Terrorizes The Subways
James Sigmon
Clark35
Why were they traveling with a giant purple dildo?
Brandon R. Fani
With everything REAL going on in the world today…….this?
Vairo Velasco
Good for them
Glücklich
Anyone shocked? United is THE. WORST. I avoid them at nearly any cost. Avoid legacy carriers like the plague.
bnard620
@Clark35: better question, how can you not? 🙂
Luis Collazo
How would the employee know they were gay a lot of women have dildos oh it was a purple dildo that explains it!
GG
“What really happened is that the plaintiff’s bag was overstuffed [and] as a result, the zipper on the duffle busted and the sex toy popped out.”
Emmanuel “Jack” Fortunat, the now-retired baggage handler at the center of the scandal, firmly denied tampering with the couple’s bag or sending it out onto the baggage carousel.
– Um, if you didn’t send it out onto the carousel, then how were the couple able to claim it??
derek mcgillicuddy
I worked for United for many years when I was a boy. There are many mean, bitter, homophobic men under their employ. I was only surprised that the baggage handlers/agents didn’t tape a profane sign on the duffel bag as well.
Bob LaBlah
If the trip is under one thousand miles I simply drive. I can not deal with the intrusions of airlines. I find it hard to believe how many people are arrested every year at airports for carrying a few joints. I can understand a switch blade or gun but over all, I think the airlines have too much power over the personal lives of the public. Not too long ago singer Dionne Warrick was arrested for having in her possession roughly ten joints. I ask you, where does it stop?
My sincerest hope is that the couple took pictures of their bag right there in the airport. Video surveillance is almost none existent in the baggage processing area once it leaves your hands and they take it. That is how people lose cameras, laptops etc……remember when Little Kim’s baggage was robbed of thousands of dollars of bling during a trip a few years back? As I said, if the driving distance is reasonable, I drive. The “possible” hassle simply is NOT worth it to me.
Mark Holbert
My opinion is don’t travel with items like this if you don’t want any airport employee to see it…people will never learn…
enfilmigult
@GG: What he means is that he sent it out, but not in that condition.
enfilmigult
@Mark Holbert: An airport employee seeing is one thing; an airport employee seeing it, taking it out of your bag, and taping it to your bag for EVERYONE to see is another.
GG
@enfilmigult: How do you know what he meant? It was the article’s author who wrote: “Emmanuel “Jack” Fortunat, the now-retired baggage handler at the center of the scandal, firmly denied tampering with the couple’s bag or sending it out onto the baggage carousel.” Note the period. The author did NOT say “[the handler] denied tampering with the couple’s bag or sending it out onto the baggage carousel in ‘any particular’ condition” (or words to that effect). Moreover, according to United’s attorney, the bag had burst. Thus, the disputed condition cannot meet both criteria simultaneously.
My previous question stands.
NateOcean
@Clark35:
“Why were they traveling with a giant purple dildo?”
Because the blue one was at the cleaners.
musctop
@Luis Collazo: A bunch of men’s clothes and a dildo is a pretty decent indication the baggage holder is gay.
Bromancer7
One giant niggling question: how would a baggage handler know a dildo was packed neatly inside someone’s duffle bag? I mean, they don’t get x-rayed when coming off the plane, so how would he know? That’s the part I just can’t reconcile with the gay boys’ claims. So it seems logical that the duffle bag tore/burst open and it came flying out. Now whether or not that was because it was overstuffed or the handler was overaggressive I do not know.
But do I think whoever taped it to the outside of the bag did so as a homophobic gesture? Absolutely. Do I believe the boys’ claims of enduring grief and sorrow? Bitch, please. If you’re adult enough to use it, you’re adult enough not to be publicly shamed by it.
derek mcgillicuddy
@Bromancer7: It is an open secret among airport PSR/CSRs that baggage agents and ramp men pilfer the contents of luggage. Also, most of the time when a high value item (such as a camcorder or smartphone) is turned over to lost and found, it ends up in an employee’s car at the end of the shift.
Glücklich
@Bob LaBlah:
Never check valuables. My jewelry and electronics go carry-on. None of that stuff leaves my sight.
DarkZephyr
@Bromancer7: I agree that this “In the years following, they suffered from anxiety, paranoia, sleeping deprivation and body weight fluctuations” is probably a crock of shit but they need a good case to win so I understand why they are saying this. They were probably coached to say it by their lawyer and its what they have to do to have a chance of really winning and having justice.
DarkZephyr
Personally, I don’t don’t find the use of toys during sex with another person to be very erotic. But to each their own.
Miguel Garcia
Pack light Romeo Trevino, Raul Cisneros
Bauhaus
@DarkZephyr:
I agree with you on all counts.
Bromancer7
@derek mcgillicuddy: So are you suggesting that one of the handlers went thru their bag looking for something valuable but instead found the dildo? I guess that’s possible. Either way they’re going to have an uphill battle.
lauraspencer
I was sympathetic until I read “In the years following, they suffered from anxiety, paranoia, sleeping deprivation and body weight fluctuations.”
Seriously??!!!?! They lost all credibility with me. I doubt the body weight fluctuations were from the dildo and more from too much ice cream. This case really takes away from serious hate crimes.
Captain Obvious
I worked in an airport before. I watched two people rip sex toys from a bag, call more employees over to laugh/mock, and kept pulling sex toys out. They handled this persons toys in their hands, passed them around, played around with them, and went off to do other things to them.
You really arrogant enough to think this stuff doesn’t happen? Think again.
I watched them pull food from people’s bags among other things and not everything even makes it back into the back. Don’t you dare travel with money.
And no your lock doesn’t mean crap. They WILL cut it off with a giant pair of cutters.
This was the TSA by the way, at first I wasn’t going to say… but honestly they’re much worse than the airlines. I regret ever applying for that job every single day.
They’re horrible people in baggage where they can’t be seen by customers who would hang them from the nearest tree if they knew what they were doing and saying with their belongings in their hands.
As a newbie I was just in there doing their jobs and that pissed them off. They were too busy playing with people’s personal items like a bunch of little kids who’ve never seen sex toys and holiday food in luggage before. They did very disturbing things, worse than what you’ve heard about fast food places.
Don’t be so naïve, these things are commonplace. And no these men are not making it up. When your privacy has been invaded revealing something that humiliates you you do tend to suffer from anxiety, paranoia, etc because you start to see patterns everywhere feeling like you have no privacy. That’s how the human mind works.
I see we can all get mad over some irrelevant woman claiming gay people caused a train crash, but gay men being publicly humiliated over a dildo by an airline is a-ok. They must have deserved it for having one in their bags and it was certainly a terrorist threat so they had to go in the bag. Oh wait the bag was just so overstuffed that it exploded everywhere like in a cartoon… right.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
Good for them.
DarkZephyr
@Bauhaus: Thanks. 🙂
@Captain Obvious: “Oh wait the bag was just so overstuffed that it exploded everywhere like in a cartoon… right.”
OK. It doesn’t happen often but I agree with you 100% about this AND you managed to make me laugh with that last line of sarcasm. Which actually is kind of a feat since I just had to put my dog to sleep and I am very down right now.
stranded
It seems like they’re milking it, but then again who can know how they’ll react when something so embarrassing happens. I mean i’m 30 and every so often out of nowhere i’ll remember something embarrassing that happen to me in high school or middle school. I get a weird tense feeling, not quite a anxiety attack, and it goes away and after a while it’s gone from my head. What must they be haunted with? Remembering a bunch of strangers laughing, taking pictures, the embarrassment of having to claim it, knowing everyone is watching while you try and hide it in the bag again. yikes.
jwtraveler
@Clark35: It’s irrelevant.
@Mark Holbert:I was about to write essentially what @enfilmigult said. Are you actually suggesting that it’s the couple’s fault. What is it that “people will never learn…”? That they don’t have the right to expect to be treated with respect and to have employees of companies they do business with to act professionally?
All that being said, I think there’s a lot of lying on both sides. I don’t believe the baggage handlers excuses. I believe that the intent was to embarrass the men. But also don’t believe that “In the years following, they suffered from anxiety, paranoia, sleeping deprivation and body weight fluctuations” as a result of this incident. I gay couple in this day and age who travel with a purple dildo certainly ought to be a bit more thick-skinned. I’m not dismissing their feelings; I just think they’re exaggerating.
martinbakman
These kind of stories keep coming up with United, Delta and American.
This could be a lesson to bring more accountability, but doubt if anything will change. Airlines are so focused on next quarter’s profit, and enrichment of top management.
There are two or three airlines that I trust and that’s it.
derek mcgillicuddy
Some guys here have blamed the travelers for transporting a toy in their luggage, as if it is their fault that a baggage handler/lost/found CSR pilfered their suitcase. To use that logic, is it their fault for having it in their bedroom night table when a burglar broke in and found it?
The logic is chilling for privacy and concerns for individual rights.
lcandela123
@Bromancer7: Bromancer, It is wrong to shame someone else for something like this. They were the victims here, and their feelings are valid. I’m glad they had the fortitude to push their case, and not slink off with their tail between their legs, and have to internalize some unfair BS. I think their actions have been quite adult.
heckles202
@Brandon R. Fani: What is your comment supposed to mean?