Video footage went viral on social media earlier this summer after an intoxicated woman was seen on a Southwest Airlines flight pulling another woman’s hair and shouting abusive things before being subdued and arrested. Now the woman who was attacked has filed a lawsuit against her attacker and named Southwest as a co-defendant, partially blaming the airline’s open seating policy for the confrontation.
Leanna Perry, identified as a 32-year-old illustrator from Brooklyn by the New York Post, was filmed attacking Kansas resident Livia Rombola during a perplexing outburst on a June flight from New York to Kansas City. Perry appears to slap Rombola and could be heard saying she didn’t want to sit next to a “fucking fat lady” and a “fat-ass bitch.” Perry grabs her hair and won’t let go, as other passengers try to intervene and de-escalate the situation.
As passengers tell Perry to let go of Rombola’s hair, she smiles and denies doing what she’s clearly doing in the video. As Perry is being restrained, she spat on Rombola multiple times. Someone wearing a Southwest Airlines shirt holds Perry’s head down across the back of a seat in an attempt to get her to stop spitting, but she just keeps saying “shut the fuck up” repeatedly.
The TikTok video of the incident that got the most attention has been deleted from the social platform. But copies still exist elsewhere on the internet, like the subreddit for Kansas City.
Another video that was originally posted to TikTok, but is now on Reddit, shows Perry being rolled out on a gurney off the plane while police and paramedics escort the woman.
The complaint, obtained by The Independent and available online, details how Rombola has sustained “serious, severe and painful personal injuries, some of which are permanent and lasting in their nature.” The lawsuit says that Perry was intoxicated and that she displayed an “early red flag” to staff of the airline by rejecting an open seat near a different person on the flight.
Southwest has always had an open seating arrangement, but the lawsuit contends the policy “was a clear departure from the industry standards of other airlines within the same industry.” Southwest announced in the summer of 2024 that passengers would get assigned seating in 2025, but the date of implementation is actually scheduled for January 2026.
The lawsuit claims that “lack of proactive seat assignment directly contributed to the confrontation” and “seating policy serves the company’s financial and logistical interests, while exposing passengers to the unnecessary issue of conflict arising from the act of self seat selection.”
The suit also explains that Rombola has suffered due to the amount of attention from the altercation online, including in online videos, headlines, and commentary following the assault. Rombola says she’s experienced “reputation harm, professional embarrassment, and social stigma” from the exposure.
The FAA has received over 1,000 reports of unruly passengers in the U.S. so far this year, according to the agency’s website. That may seem high, but it’s actually down considerably since 2021 during the worst of the covid-19 pandemic, when there were 5,973 reports of unruly passengers.
Reached for comment over email, a spokesperson for Southwest told Gizmodo they can’t comment on pending litigation. An email address associated with Perry and an attorney for Rombola didn’t immediately respond on Wednesday. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.
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