In its opinion in favor of a regional air carrier yesterday, the Court made two things clear. First, airlines cannot be stripped of statutory immunity for safety reports made to the Transportation Safety Administration unless those reports are found to be materially false, and second, once the Court gets its hands on defamation cases, it does not like to let them go.
The Court granted certiorari in Air Wisconsin v. Hoeper to decide whether airlines can be stripped of their statutory immunity from civil suits for reporting safety threats to the Transportation Security Administration if there is no finding that the report was materially false.
As the fiftieth anniversary of New York Times v. Sullivan approaches, the Court is poised to revisit the balance between speech and reputation in a case that pits a humiliated pilot against the regional airline which alerted TSA that he might pose a safety threat.