Southwest Airlines Scolded By Judge In

A federal judge has scolded Southwest Airlines over its legal tactics in a class action lawsuit filed by flight attendants. The case, Refuerzo v. Southwest Airlines, centers on how the airline's attendance point system interacts with federally protected Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave.

According to Law360, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley confronted the airline's lawyers during a hearing. She told them, "You guys should not have done that," after Southwest used a permitted narrow filing to argue for dismissing the entire lawsuit. The judge called the broader argument "a bad argument" and refused to consider it because it was filed late and beyond the scope of her permission.

The Core Dispute Over Attendance Points

The lawsuit alleges Southwest's attendance policy unlawfully penalizes flight attendants who take intermittent FMLA leave. The airline does not assess points for the protected leave itself. However, taking such leave can disqualify an employee from earning reductions in existing attendance points.

Southwest contends these point reductions are conditional rewards for completing a full month or quarter with good attendance, not day-by-day accrued benefits. The airline argues federal rules allow employers to deny perfect attendance bonuses when an employee misses the target due to protected leave, provided comparable non-protected leave is treated the same.

Employees see it differently. They argue pre-existing points determine job security, and one protected absence can erase up to a quarter's progress toward point reduction. This could move a flight attendant closer to termination specifically because they took legally protected leave.

Case Status and Judge's Ruling

The lawsuit has been pending in federal court in California since 2022. Judge Corley certified a nationwide class in 2024. The group seeking policy changes includes more than 9,000 flight attendants. A much smaller group, those who were actually terminated, are involved in the damages claims.

In her written order, the judge denied Southwest's narrower request to remove 11 specific employees from the case. She found factual disputes over their individual attendance records.

Despite the rebuke, Judge Corley agreed with Southwest on a key procedural point. She ruled that determining if the policy caused each termination requires examining each flight attendant's unique attendance history. Consequently, she partially decertified the damages class.

This means a common trial will proceed on whether Southwest's policy violated federal law. However, questions of causation and damages for terminated employees will now require more individualized proceedings. The judge's order leaves the core legal challenge alive while narrowing the path for financial claims.