1. Facts
1.1. Parties
1.1.1. Joan Concovich (Plaintiff) v. Air Evac EMS (Defendant)
1.2. What Happened?
1.3. Concovich filed a class action complaint against Air Evac EMS, alleging that Air Evac violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Trade Practices Act by offering Concovich and others enrollment in an empty membership plan.
1.3.1. Air Evac as its name suggests is in the business of ferrying patients between area hospitals via helicopter, and as a part of that business it provides potential users access to its AirMedCare Network membership plan, whereby Air Evac promises not to collect fares charged for future transports from the actual plan member.
1.3.1.1. Concovich signed up for Air Evac's membership plan and then needed helicopter transport from an Illinois hospital to a Missouri hospital in 2014; the bill for the transport was $37,711 with all of $150 paid by Concovich's insurance.
1.3.1.1.1. Concovich's suit deals with the remainder of her bill. She alleges that Air Evac refused to delete the rest of her bill despite her membership in the AirMedCare plan, that the plan and its promise to not collect certain costs was illusory under Illinois law, and that given the consumer protection defects in the plan and her membership in it, her outstanding bill should be completely extinguished.
2. Issue
2.1. Did Air Evac EMS commit fraud with regards to its membership program for air ambulance and helicopter services?
3. Rule of Law
3.1. ADA preemption provision is broad, applying to enactment or enforcement efforts aimed directly at price, routes, or services, as well as efforts that have a "reference to" those items or that would have a significant impact upon them.
3.2. Breach of contract but consumer protection law, counts as enforcement of law under the Act, so the question is whether the claim at issue in the case either expressly refers to an airline's prices, routes, or services or would have a significant economic effect on them and even if it does whether the claim is so tenuously linked to prices, routes, or services that it falls on the non-preemption side of the line.
3.2.1. In the case American Airlines v. Wolens, the Supreme Court ruled that membership related claims brought under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act were preempted as the frequent flyer program issue provided mileage credits and perks that could be used to waive ticket fares and access certain flights and upgrades, and thus the claims were linked to airline prices or services.
4. Analysis
4.1. Concovich claimed breach of contract and fraud.
4.2. Air Evac insist that Concovich's claim relates to its prices and services.
4.2.1. Air Evac's position is that this is an attempt to preempt ADA.
5. Conclusion
5.1. The courts ruled in favor of Air Evac.
6. Impact
6.1. Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport Ass'n.
6.1.1. The provision doesn't preempt every lawsuit against an airline.
6.1.1.1. It doesn't reach most breach of contract actions, for those aren't really enforcement actions but are merely attempts to hold parties to a private agreement, nor does it extend to state actions that affect airline prices and services in a peripheral or tenuous manner.
6.2. American Airlines v. Wolens
6.2.1. The Supreme court ruled that membership related claims brought under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act were preempted, as the frequent flyer program at issue provided mileage credits and perks that could be used to waive ticket fares and access certain flights and upgrades, and thus the claims were linked to airline prices or services.