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An angry passenger didn’t get satisfaction from the Transportation Security Administration two years ago when he asked them to detain a family who kept bumping into his luggage.
California resident Justin Ngo didn’t get it this week, either. On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd dismissed his nearly $100,000 lawsuit against the federal government, Honolulu Airport and State of Hawaii employees on jurisdictional grounds.
According to the facts detailed in the order, Ngo filed suit following a Feb. 24, 2014, airport incident, which he said subjected him to harassment, negligence, false imprisonment and emotional distress. According to the order, Ngo was waiting in a TSA line when a mother and a child, who were playing, bumped his luggage. When Ngo asked them to stop, the father kicked his luggage and told him to “lighten up,” the court document said.
Following the incident, Ngo asked a TSA manager to detain the family. Instead, he said he was turned over to airport police, who questioned him for about an hour before escorting him to his flight. Later, Ngo asked the TSA and the state Department of Transportation for a police report but was told that none had been filed.
“When standing in the TSA security line, it’s best to just keep calm,” Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin said in a news release about the case.
In his order, Lloyd said that Congress created the TSA two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to guard against future attempts to commit airborne terrorism, not to referee disputes between the travelers who wait at security checkpoints.
“When Ngo entered the security checkpoint, the TSA was a gatekeeper obliged to determine whether he should be permitted to pass; the TSA had no duty to detain a family at his command, even if the children bumped into his luggage, and even if the father kicked his luggage, and even if the parents shouted at Ngo when he demanded their arrest,” Lloyd said.
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