The High Cost of High Handing

Atlanta-based Delta Airlines has reached an out-of-court settlement with company pilot Karlene Petitt, who sued the air-carrier, claiming she’d faced retaliation after raising safety concerns about the airline’s flight-operations and pilot-scheduling orthodoxies.

The terms of the settlement remain undisclosed, but plaintiff’s attorneys have intimated Petitt’s award is “consistent with” a 2020 arbiter's ruling which put forth she deserved $500,000.

Aside from being a protracted and unseemly blight on Delta’s brand image, Petitt’s case was a point of contention in the confirmation of former FAA administrator Steve Dickson. In 2020, a Labor Department judge ruled that Dickson, while serving as Vice President of Delta Air Lines, was complicit in fabricating and weaponizing claims of psychological unfitness against Petitt—claims by which the senior pilot was unscrupulously coerced into undergoing a psychiatric evaluation which resulted in a specious and since-debunked diagnosis that she suffered a bipolar mental disorder—the sort of diagnosis that sees aviators permanently grounded.

In court, Dr. David Altman, the physician whose misfeasance nearly ended Petitt’s thirty-plus-year flying career, defended his determination that Petitt was bipolar. Altman pointed out that during her early career, Petitt was attending school, helping with her husband’s business, and caring for her three young children—a situation Dr. Altman found notably unusual. Notwithstanding contradictory diagnoses by two additional physicians, Petitt was grounded for nearly two-years—thereby prompting her whistleblower lawsuit against Delta.

Prior to Petitt’s ordeal, Delta pilot Michael Protack had filed a complaint against Dr. Altman with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Protack had been ordered by Delta to submit to an exam by Altman whom—after the Pavlovian fashion of psychoanalysts—suggested the airman return for further analysis. Protack balked at the notion, only to receive a threatening letter from Altman, who suggested the pilot’s lack of cooperation was apt to engender a diagnosis certain to put an end to Protack’s flying career.

Protack and Petitt’s joint allegations against Altman precipitated a settlement that saw the latter permanently surrendered his license to practice medicine in Illinois. Altman’s attorney, Scott Hammer, states it is unlikely his client will be able to practice medicine in any other U.S. state.

Addressing its settlement with Petitt, Delta stated: “… we made a business decision to settle the matter rather than appeal a decision that we disagreed with.”

FMI: www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OALJ/PUBLIC/ARB/DECISIONS/ARB_DECISIONS/AIR/21_014_AIRP.pdf