The rule of law apparently doesn’t matter to the Allegheny County Airport Authority.
At least that’s the conclusion reasonable people could draw from the authority’s latest court filing in its protracted dispute with the long-running, but now sidelined, manager of the “airmall” at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).
As the Post-Gazette reports it, the Airport Authority is urging the state Supreme Court to bar the return of the airmall operator it evicted last year, asserting that doing otherwise could pose threats to security and public safety.
Long story short, the authority used county police to evict Fraport Pittsburgh from PIT in June 2022. The authority accused Fraport of violating myriad security measures that endangered public safety.
“Among its charges, the authority contended that a closed restaurant and bar was left unsecured, with alcohol, metal knives and ‘caustic chemicals’ accessible beyond the security checkpoint,” the P-G reports.
“It also alleged that it found an unoccupied retailer kiosk with wall displays that contained ‘rows of removable solid metal rods and hooks for product display.’”
Fraport denies the claims.
Fraport sued the authority in Common Pleas Court, seeking an injunction that would allow it to stay on the job pending a resolution to its litigation.
The hearing judge sided with the Airport Authority. Fraport appealed to state Superior Court, which cited myriad, major legal errors in the judge’s ruling and was derisive of the authority’s behavior. Superior Court remanded the case to Common Pleas Court to issue the injunction. The authority’s appeal of that decision was denied.
Now comes the Airport Authority, which has been running the airmall since Fraport’s eviction, with an appeal to the state Supreme Court.
And yet again, its attorneys are arguing an inventive claim – that the appeals court had no right to substitute its judgment for that of the lower court.
That’s daft. That’s the job of the appellate court, especially when the extra-legal rulings of the judge raise critical questions. Among them, claiming that a lease that’s clearly a lease is not a lease, ignoring state laws governing tenancy disputes and improperly siccing county police on Fraport employees.
Argues the Airport Authority in its state Supreme Court filing:
“If left to stand, the Superior Court’s order would render meaningless federal security regulations that govern airports across the nation and that are designed to ensure the safety of the airport and the traveling public.”
While rendering meaningless long-standing applicable state law.
As the P-G further notes, the Airport Authority also claims that allowing the Superior Court ruling to stand would override a federally approved airport security plan.
“Allowing a state court to substitute its own judgment on airport security for that of the airport operator would present a tremendous threat to not only the superseding federal authority of the TSA and other federal agencies but also to the safety of the public,” it argues in its appeal petition.
But not an instance in which scissors were found in an unsecured maintenance closet controlled by the Airport Authority, as Fraport claims?
Who knows what will happen next. The state Supreme Court could deny the Airport Authority’s petition. Or it could take it up. And, given the federal claims the authority now is making, the case could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
But, thus far, the court record is clear: The Airport Authority ran roughshod over Fraport. And if the ruling stands, Fraport could be due millions of dollars in damages.
And it will be the latest unbecoming incident for a perennially posturing public agency long in dire need of serious reining-in.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
