Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 23, 1992 TAG: 9201230275
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PEOPLE
An Arizona man who says he was kicked off a jetliner because the crew thought he was too big for his seat is suing Southwest Airlines for $150,000.Crew members said Richard Kaufman's body was encroaching on the passenger next to him and ordered Kaufman off a plane from Phoenix to Las Vegas in January 1990, according to the lawsuit.
Patrick Edward, Southwest manager for customer relations in Dallas, said the airline has a policy requiring oversized customers to buy a second seat if they take up more than one.
Kaufman's attorney, Wallace Baker, refused to disclose his client's height and weight.
The suit contends Kaufman had flown numerous times on Southwest Airlines without being asked to leave, and that his size hadn't changed since these previous flights.
Mariah Carey's stepfather has sued the pop singer, saying he paid for her car, apartment and dental work but she backed out of a deal to repay him after she hit it big.
Joseph Vian of Lake Hiawatha, N.J., is seeking a unspecified share of the more than $1 million he claims Carey earned since the release of her successful 1990 debut album.
A Filipino survivor of the Bataan Death March received his U.S. citizenship more than a half-century after the government first promised it to him.
Benjamin Escano, 69, was among an estimated 30,000 eligible Filipino veterans to receive American citizenship for their wartime service.
"They forgot about us," said Escano, who has lived in Seattle since 1988 and was sworn in Tuesday.
The Philippines was a U.S. colony from 1898 until it gained its independence in 1946, a year after World War II ended.
On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered all Filipino units into the U.S. armed forces. Filipino troops were told that as members of the U.S. military, they would be eligible for citizenship.