Federal appeals judges reject lawsuit against Alaska Airlines by former state senator

Sen. Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River, speaks Tuesday, May 10, 2022, on the floor of the Alaska Senate at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau, Alaska. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by former Alaska state Sen. Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River, against Alaska Airlines.

Alaska Airlines banned Reinbold in 2021 for refusing to follow its masking policies during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. She sued the airline in 2023, after leaving office.

By email, Reinbold said she was dissatisfied with the court’s decision.

“Alaska Airlines is the sole carrier to Juneau, which puts it in a position to control access to government, courts, medical care, and family for every Alaskan — and the same dynamic plays out in Hawaii and other places where a single carrier holds the keys,” she wrote. “A monopoly carrier with that kind of power needs accountability — including to the federal disability law it tried to ignore. The Ninth Circuit did not appear to grasp how serious that question is. This case deserved a thorough review and an assessment of the broad future impacts.”

Reinbold delivered oral arguments in April, the panel issued its order May 20, and Reinbold on June 3 filed a motion on June 3 asking the full court to hear the case. That motion is pending.

Reinbold, who represented herself in the suit, noted that Alaska Airlines was the sole commercial air carrier between Anchorage and Juneau during the 2021 legislative session, and her ban effectively denied her the ability to travel to Anchorage by commercial air flight. 

She ultimately drove across Canada and took a state ferry to reach Juneau.

Alaska Airlines’ monopoly, combined with its implementation of federal rules, made it a state actor and thus subject to constitutional claims, Reinbold argued.

Furthermore, the airline gave her no opportunity to appeal the ban, she said.

An Alaska District Court judge dismissed the case in 2024, and the judge rejected Reinbold’s attempt to amend her complaint and keep the case a live issue. 

“When corporations enforce government policy, hand-in-hand with the state, constitutional protections such as fair notice and due process must still apply,” she said by email.

During court arguments, Alaska Airlines raised a variety of procedural issues with Reinbold’s complaint and argued that it was not a government agency and thus not liable for alleged violations of the U.S. Constitution.

“Plaintiff was entitled to her personal views about COVID-19,” the airline’s attorneys wrote in 2023. “She was not, however, empowered to invoke her personal notions to evade or disregard federally mandated requirements for air travel that applied to all other Alaska Airlines guests during a worldwide pandemic.”

The airline was represented in court by attorney Richard Grotch, who said Reinbold did have a doctor’s note indicating that she did not need to wear a mask, but she never indicated that during booking, as the airline required.

“There’s no constitutionally guaranteed right to fly. There’s certainly no constitutionally guaranteed right to fly Alaska,” he said. 

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.