Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

A $13,000,000.00 lawsuit has been filed against Jetblue Airways by a Jetblue flight attendant and former Orange County, Florida firefighter/paramedic for economic and emotional injuries plus attorneys’ fees, costs and disbursements.

The complaint also asks the court to declare that Jetblue violated state and anti-discrimination laws.

The plaintiff, Clay Kallman, 62, a nine-year flight attendant with Jetblue Airways contends that he was discriminated against on the basis of his type-2 diabetes, religion/ethnicity, heterosexual orientation and age.

Kallman is represented by the prestigious White Plains, New York law firm of Seham, Seham, Meltz and Petersen. Lee Seham, the lead on this groundbreaking lawsuit, is a fervent anti-discrimination attorney that holds unscrupulous airlines accountable for unethical terminations and reprimands.  

While Kallman was on a layover at the Buffalo, New York hotel, Hyatt Regency, on Jan. 4, 2020, the type-two diabetic was mistakenly accused of being inebriated by hotel management. Instead of calling for emergency medical services for an evaluation of Kallman, the hotel management called Buffalo Police, had him removed from the hotel for trespassing, then Buffalo Police arrested him for moving too slowly.

Kallman was in a life threatening, type-2 diabetic, high blood sugar emergency. Neither the Buffalo Hyatt Regency, Buffalo police nor the Buffalo Department of Corrections evaluated Kallman for blood sugar or blood alcohol.  

Kallman was returned to full flying status for two and a half months without incident. Then on March 15, 2021, Kallman was suspended pending a “full and fair” investigation, however, he was terminated by letter the next day, March 16, 2021. The letter provided no basis for Kallman’s termination other than a non-specific reference to a “violation of company policy.”

Kallman suspects that part of the reason he was fired was because he took a stand against anti-Semitism on JetBlue flights. In 2018, Kallman blew the whistle on other flight attendants and pilots who had been making anti-Semitic comments about Jewish passengers. On flights with mostly Jewish passengers, his co-workers would frequently remark how “smelly, loud, rude and cheap Jews are,” and how Jewish passengers’ children were “uncontrolled animals.” They complained about how often the Jews prayed and that they would only eat kosher food. For Kallman, this created a hostile work environment. He thought that by telling the JetBlue People Department and the Crew Relations field generalist this matter would be addressed. He was assured that his allegations would be investigated and that a letter would be sent out to the flight attendants and pilots indicating that management was aware of the situation and that such behavior was not acceptable. The letter was never sent and the anti-Semitic conduct about which Kallman complained continued unabated.

The $13,000,000.00 lawsuit contends that Kallman was wrongfully terminated because of his type-2 diabetes, a pervasive anti-Semitic culture, age and heterosexual orientation.