Man Kicked Off Delta Flight For Bathroom Break Sues Airline

MILWAUKEE, WI — A Milwaukee man who was kicked off a plane flight for using the bathroom while the plane was delayed for takeoff is now suing the airline.

According to court documents filed in Wisconsin's Eastern District U.S. Court, Kima Hamilton, 40, filed a lawsuit claiming that Delta Airlines kicked him off the flight because he was black.

According to the lawsuit, Hamilton was heading back home to Milwaukee via a Delta Airlines flight out of Atlanta when it became delayed at takeoff. Hamilton asked to use the bathroom while the plane was delayed, but was told by a flight attendant that the plane would "lose its place in line" if he got up to use the bathroom.

Documents state that Hamilton went back to his seat. After 10 minutes he told the flight attendant "it was an emergency," and had to make a choice between relieving himself in the lavatory or in his clothing.

The flight attendant appeared to gesture toward Hamilton in seeming resignation, a gesture he interpreted to mean that, "while she wasn’t endorsing his use of the lavatory, he could do so if he felt he had no choice," according to court documents. Hamilton was in the lavatory for a little more than thirty seconds, but when he emerged, the same flight attendant he had previously encountered told him that the flight had lost its place in line.

Court documents state that the Delta Airlines flight turned around, and went back to the gate. Hamilton was then escorted off the plane by Delta Airlines officials, and he was later questioned by the FBI.

An FBI agent who questioned Hamilton later told him that he would not be placed under arrest for interfering with a flight. Delta Airlines later told Hamilton that they would be refusing him service and gave him a partial refund for his trip back to Milwaukee.

In his lawsuit, Hamilton claims that Delta Airlines would not have returned its plane to the gate, nor summoned law enforcement, nor required him, Hamilton, to deplane, nor refused him passage to Milwaukee had everything else been the same but he had been white.

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