Judge Punishes Southwest for 'Defiance' of Previous Ruling in Pro-Life Flight Attendant's Case

A U.S. District Court judge has ordered Southwest Airlines to pay the most recent legal fees of a flight attendant who says she was fired for expressing her opposition to abortion. The judge ruled the airline had "twisted" his words and disregarded his order.

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr found Southwest in contempt for the way it explained a case last year after losing a jury verdict.

As CBN News reported, a federal court ordered Southwest and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) to give Charlene Carter her job back after she was reportedly fired over her stance on abortion. 
 
It was a five-year legal battle and a jury awarded Carter $5.3 million in a lawsuit that she filed back in 2017. Starr reduced the jury's original $5.3 million in damages to $810,180, which includes $150,000 in back pay because federal discrimination law limits damages that companies can pay in such cases.

After the ruling, Southwest released a misleading "Recent Court Decision" notice to its roughly 17,000 flight attendants.

The notice minimized the airline's significant rights violations found by the Court. 

National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), Carter's attorneys, claim the notice implied that Southwest will be the final arbiter of what kind of religious speech is acceptable in the workplace while characterizing Carter's speech challenging the TWU union's political positions as "inappropriate, harassing, and offensive," and thus worthy of punishment.

"First, Southwest Airlines violated Charlene Carter's rights by firing her at the union's behest. Now, the airline is doubling down by misleading other workers about its wrongdoing in defiance of a federal court order," said NRTW President Mark Mix.

In a 29-page order, the judge said the airline acted as if its own policy limiting what employees can say is more important than a federal law protecting religious speech.

The judge ordered Southwest to pay the flight attendant's most recent legal costs, gave them a verbatim statement for Southwest to relay to employees, and ordered three Southwest lawyers to complete "religious-liberty training" from Alliance Defending Freedom, a  conservative Christian legal advocacy group.

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A Southwest spokesman said Tuesday that the Dallas-based airline plans to appeal the judge's new sanctions. The group has already filed an appeal of last year's judgment in May. 

As previously reported, Carter joined the Transport Workers Union in September 1996 but resigned from her membership in September 2013.

She discovered that her religious views did not align with those of the union on topics such as abortion, according to the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW). 

Even though she had ended her membership with the union, Carter was still forced to pay fees to TWU Local 556 as a condition of her employment.  

In 2017, Carter learned that TWU Local 556 president Audrey Stone, and other officials, had used union money to attend the Women's March on Washington D.C., which endorses groups such as Planned Parenthood. 

Carter denounced the union's attendance at the event on social media and sent messages to Stone about a recall effort against her.

Southwest managers met with Stone regarding her social media posts and questioned why she posted them. 

Southwest authorities claim Stone considered the social media comments to be a form of harassment toward her, and the airline company subsequently terminated Carter's employment.  

Last year, Carter thanked Jesus after winning the lawsuit. 

In a Facebook post, she commented, "Thank You all for your PRAYERS … I GIVE JESUS all the Glory for this WIN."

Meanwhile, the airline was ordered to tell flight attendants that under federal law, it "may not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs."

Instead, the airline told employees that it "does not discriminate," and it doubled down by telling flight attendants to follow the airline policy that it cited in firing Carter.