Paraplegic passenger sues Tiger Airways over suitcase hell

A paraplegic woman says she can no longer work or play sport after a suitcase fell out of an overhead locker and landed on her during a Tiger Airways flight.

Exclusive: A paraplegic says she can no longer work or play sport after a suitcase landed on her during a Tiger Airways flight.

However the budget airline not only denies she was hurt — it says she wasn’t even hit.

Rebecca Meyers was paralysed nearly 10 years ago in a car crash. She was asleep in the passenger seat but not wearing a belt. She was thrown through a window, breaking her neck, all ribs and splitting her liver. Her lungs collapsed and she injured five vertebrae.

Rebecca Meyers at home with her dog Maze. Rebecca is suing Tiger Airways after a suitcase fell from an overhead locker onto her shoulder. Picture: Brad Newman

But she said she learnt to live a full life including work, cycling and snow skiing.

“I am a very active person — at least, I was before this suitcase thing,” the 27-year-old, from Culcairn in southern NSW, said.

In January 2017 she flew from Melbourne to Perth to visit her best friend.

According to documents now before the Federal Court, at the end of the flight a passenger opened an overhead locker and a heavy black suitcase fell out and struck Ms Meyer’s right shoulder.

“I needed to sit there for a good half-hour,” she recalled. “I couldn’t even move.”

She said the pain didn’t go away and eventually she lost her job at a meat processing plant. She also had to give up playing golf and gardening, along with her other pursuits.

Rebecca Meyers was an active sportswoman before the suitcase incident.

But Tiger refutes Ms Meyer’s version of events.

The defence it has filed with the court specifically says it denies her claim about the bag landing on her.

The airline then adds that it “denies that the applicant suffered injury, as pleaded or at all, as a result of an ‘accident’.”

The damages case highlights little-known differences in how the law treats injuries involving planes compared to cars.

If a person injured in a car accident is to successfully sue the vehicle manufacturer or tyre maker, they must show causation and a duty of care.

The incident took place on a flight from Melbourne to Perth.

Those tests aren’t applied to injuries on a plane, Ms Meyer’s lawyer Sara Kaurin said.

“All a passenger has to establish is that an accident happened during a flight, or while embarking or disembarking,” Ms Kaurin, of Shine, said.

In this context an accident is defined as an unexpected or sudden event.

The law is simpler for flight injuries because aviation is an international business that needs “harmonised” rules, Ms Kaurin said.

Asked how much was being sought in damages, Ms Kaurin said: “We are still investigating the quantum of her claim.”

She wouldn’t comment further. Neither Ms Meyers nor Shine sought media attention for the case.

A directions hearing has been set for August 2 in Melbourne.

Originally published as Paraplegic passenger sues Tiger Airways over suitcase hell