Delta Air Lines and a second company should be dismissed as defendants in a lawsuit brought by relatives of a 78-year-old man who died in 2021 about six weeks after his scooter fell off a ramp while he was being put on a shuttle bus to the Tom Bradley Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport, the attorneys for the two firms state in new court papers.
Elva Lopez Navarro, widow of the late Ricardo Lopez Rangel, her son and two daughters brought the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit in April 2022, alleging premises liability and negligence.
ABM Aviation Inc., which facilitates passenger and such airline services as cabin cleaning, is a co-defendant along with Los Angeles World Airports and ERMC Aviation LLC.
In court papers filed Monday with Judge Steven A. Ellis in advance of an April 14 hearing, attorneys for Delta and ABM contend the companies should be removed as defendants because the plaintiffs are suing under state law that is overruled or “preempted” by federal law. The defense attorneys also maintain that neither Rangel nor his relatives asked for assistance.
“Since ABM and Delta did not breach any duty of care to plaintiffs’ (relative, their) negligence claims fail as a matter of law,” according to the Delta/ABM lawyers’ pleadings, which further states that the premises liability cause of action also is inaccurate because the shuttle bus was not part of the premises and was not owned by Delta.
The wheelchair ramp utilized that day had a long history of safe use by passengers on electric mobility scooters, the defense attorneys further contend in their pleadings.
“Lamentably, as decedent ascends the wheelchair ramp, his personal mobility scooter tips backwards, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head on the pavement” and die 44 days later, according to the defense attorneys’ court papers.
The plaintiffs contend the ramp was at an unreasonably high incline amounting to an “unsafe, dangerous, condition” and that the workers who assisted him were negligently hired, trained and supervised.
The plaintiffs have all suffered a loss of emotional and financial support due to Rangel’s death, according to the suit.