Delta Air Lines Sanctioned for Withholding Evidence in Suit
February 08, 2012, 7:09 PM ESTBy Laurence Viele Davidson
(Updates with response from spokeswoman in third paragraph.)
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Delta Air Lines Inc. must pay plaintiffs’ legal fees in an evidence-gathering fight with customers, a judge said after finding the carrier wrongly withheld 60,000 documents in a lawsuit claiming it colluded with another airline.
Because there “is no smoking gun” implicating Delta in a conspiracy with AirTran Holdings Inc. to charge $15 to check the first bag as alleged in the 2008 suit, paying legal fees and costs is sufficient, U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten wrote in an order.
Betsy Talton, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Delta, said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation. Delta is the world’s second-largest carrier. AirTran is now a unit of Dallas- based Southwest Airlines Co.
The withheld documents turned up in a related civil investigation by the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division.
The case is In re: Delta/AirTran Baggage Fee Antitrust Litigation, 1:09-md-02089, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta).
--With assistance from David Beasley in New York. Editors: Charles Carter, David Glovin
To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Viele Davidson in Atlanta at lviele@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
