American Airlines Avoids Military Pay Damages But Not Jury Trial

American Airlines Group Inc. scored a court order limiting potential damages in a lawsuit by pilots seeking paid military leave, but the airline’s bid to avoid a jury trial in the case fell flat.

The pilots can’t seek liquidated damages under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act because they didn’t show that American acted in willful violation of the statute, Judge Harvey Bartle III said in an opinion issued Thursday. They produced “nothing to support their assertion that defendants knew that they were violating USERRA or that they acted in reckless disregard of whether their position violated USERRA,” ...