Pilot Sues Virgin Australia For Not Using Then-Nonexistent iPad

An Australian pilot is suing Virgin Australia for what he alleges as damage to his back caused by the airline making its pilots lug around heavy manuals instead of utilizing an iPad to carry digital copies of these books. However, the man’s lawsuit has one big glaring flaw: the iPad was still nonexistent when the injury supposedly occurred.

According to reports, David Linton Kloster, 57, is suing Virgin Australia for over $1 million in damages. Based on the lawsuit filed at the Brisbane Supreme Court, Kloster is arguing that Virgin Australia could have given its pilots iPads rather than make them carry an 18kg bag to their planes.

Kloster is reportedly suing for $65,000 in personal damages, $76,080 in special damages (for cost of lawn mowing, car washing, housekeeping and the like), $112,182 for medical expenses and $817,546 in future economic loss because of the injury.

The pilot said in his lawsuit that the injury happened on December 29, 2009. However, Mr. Kloster and his lawyers – who I’m assuming should have known better and should have researched before lodging a lawsuit with such an argument – apparently are oblivious to the fact that the iPad first saw the insides of a retail store three months after the incident. The iPad went on sale in the U.S. no less in April 2010.

I understand, however, the pull the iPad has in the wordings of this particular lawsuit. I mean, the iPad basically boosted the previously virtually nonexistent tablet market to become a household name when it was released in 2010. And by design, the iPad also became one of the most popular electronic readers.

Nonetheless, this is a lawsuit – you know, those things people sometimes file in courts – and you’d think that it would have been more carefully worded. I would have understood if the lawyers of the pilot argued that the Airline could have made use of e-readers which were then already in the market when the injury occurred.

They could have said that Virgin Australia could have made use of Amazon Kindles, for example. But no, it must be the iPad cited, even though the immensely-popular device was still unknown to the world then and was only still inside Apple’s labs at its Cupertino, California campus.

Perhaps Virgin could have dogged Apple for advance pre-production units of the iPad so that its pilots could have used them? Is this what the lawsuit means?

This is not to make light the injury the pilot has. It’s said in the lawsuit that he’s even had surgery to correct the lower back injury. He’s even had “major depressive disorder” and became an insomniac because of the injury caused by the 18kg-bag, the lawsuit reveals. That 18kg-bag really did some damage then, if you believe what the pilot is arguing.

In fairness, the lawsuit did state that “(Virgin Australia) failed to have in place a system of work whereby charts and rules could have been left on board its aircraft or kept electronically on an iPad.” It mentions the manuals could have been left in the aircraft. There just had to be that additional phrase there saying “kept electronically on an iPad.”

Tell us what you think about this lawsuit in the comments down below.

Images 1 & 2 from leondel & eGuide Travel on Flickr

Source