A Service Dog?

My friend, Arthur, and I were talking the other day. He told me that on a recent trip from Fort Lauderdale to JFK on JetBlue, the couple flew home to visit his wife’s doctor. (His wife is pregnant and due within weeks with the couple’s first baby.)

Apparently, the crew found a dog with the couple and made my friend and his wife buy a new dog carrier. In addition to that, they fined them for the dog.

Service dogs are allowed on the plane,” my friend said to me. “and the crew are not allowed to ask us what our disability is under the American with Disabilities Act.”

So what happened? Arthur received a letter from American Express. The airline claimed that the dog was in a large carrier “too big to fit under the seat.” They wrote that they had no idea that the dog was a service animal. “We told them that they needed documentation for the dog and they didn’t have anything!”

When the flight attendant pushed to see papers or documentation from his wife, he said, “don’t talk to her, she’s pregnant and a lawyer!”

“We had to sell them a carrier and charge pet fees in order to get this plane out,” the flight attendant continued to write in a dispute letter sent to American Express. “They kept saying the dog was a service animal but they had no documentation. So it went as a pet with fees.”

Now, Arthur is asking the airline for a refund of the pet fee and the pet carrier because he says the dog is a service animal and he doesn’t need documentation. He also felt he and his wife were mistreated by the crew. Do you think they have a case?

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