A U.S. District Court judge last week granted American Airlines’ motion to decertify several subclasses of pilots in a suit alleging the airline wrongly denied its pilots pay and profit-sharing credit for absences for short-term military leave because “[o]ne size does not fit all” when it came to the class claims. The decision is a dramatic pivot in the long-running Scanlan v. American Airlines case, which will now continue only on behalf of the two named plaintiffs rather than as a class action.

Judge Harvey Bartle III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decertified the classes, originally certified in 2021, after noting “[t]here are no common answers on comparability for all class members due to the disparate lengths of military leave,” and that “[f]requency, like duration and control, is an individual issue not susceptible to a common answer for all pilots.” 

Plaintiffs James P. Scanlan and Carla Riner—both pilots and military reservists—sued American Airlines and its parent company under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and for breach of contract, alleging that the airline failed to pay pilots during short term military leave and failed to credit imputed earnings during military leave toward profit-sharing plans. The plaintiffs claimed that pilots seeking military leave under USERRA were treated differently than pilots absent for jury duty or bereavement leave. In May 2024, the Third Circuit held that while American Airlines did not breach its profit-sharing agreement under the plan’s unambiguous terms, whether short-term military leave is comparable to jury duty or bereavement leave under USERRA involves factual disputes and must proceed to trial.   

In decertifying the class, the court drastically narrowed the case’s scope, as only the individual claims of the two named plaintiffs remain active. The proceedings will now focus on the evidence related solely to the named plaintiffs rather than a larger class of military pilots, while the broader question of whether employers must afford military reservists the same leave benefits as other employees remains unresolved.