Flight attendants allege Dodgers only wanted ‘white, thin women’ on their flights

Two United Airlines flight attendants who alleged that the company provided youthful, white female attendants on its charter flights for the Los Angeles Dodgers at the team's request will have to strengthen their lawsuit to keep the team as a defendant in the case, a judge has ruled.

The suit was originally filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in October 2023 by Darby Quezada and Dawn Todd, and alleges that United engaged in discrimination by removing the only minority female flight attendants from the Dodgers charter flights and replacing them with "young, white, thin women who did not have to interview for the highly coveted positions."

Quezada, who is 45 years old and of Mexican, Black and Jewish descent, claims she was called the "flight's maid" because they needed "a Mexican to clean the bathrooms," was told to stop speaking Spanish with a Dodgers player because "We are in America" and endured antisemitic comments such as "You know Jesus died for you even if you don't believe" as well as "You don't look Jewish," the suit alleges.

Todd, a 51-year-old Black flight attendant with nearly two decades of experience at the airline, alleges she suffered retaliation after complaining about the demotion of Black flight attendants, the denial of benefits and perks to Black flight attendants on the Dodgers flights and the racism and ageism she allegedly experienced herself.

Quezada and Todd say they were "abruptly demoted and removed" from the Dodgers' charter flight program during the 2023 season and replaced by younger, white female flight attendants who were hand-selected without being interviewed.

United twice removed the case to federal court on jurisdictional grounds, but each time a federal judge sent the case back to Superior Court. While the case was in federal court, the plaintiffs' lawyers added the Dodgers as defendants.

On Tuesday, Judge Gail Killefer ruled that the flight attendants' attorneys had sufficiently shown for now that the Dodgers had exercised significant control over the two women. However, the judge also found that the plaintiffs' attorneys need to amend their complaint in order to answer defense claims that their allegations against the Dodgers are barred by the Railway Labor Act. The team's lawyer maintains that the flight attendants' lawyers' interpretation of the Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement is wrong.

"Did the JCBA impose limitations on how the Dodgers selected its flight attendants or was the Dodgers' right to make selection requests unfettered?" Killefer asked in one of many questions posed to the plaintiffs' attorneys in her ruling.

Killefer gave the lawyers 10 days to file an amended complaint. The Dodgers' attorney argued in previous court papers that Quezada and Todd exclusively worked for the airline. The lawyer cited a sworn UA discovery response stating that it is the Dodgers who decide which flight attendants will staff the flight crew.

A hearing regarding the amended complaint and a case management conference are scheduled for Nov. 19.

Additional reporting by City News Service.