Southwest Seeks New Trial on $5 Million Religious Bias Verdict

Southwest Airlines Co. should be given a second chance to defend itself against an anti-abortion Christian flight attendant’s claims based on her firing after she clashed with a union president over the union’s attendance at the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, the company told a federal appeals court.

The flight attendant failed to provide direct evidence that Southwest fired her because of her religious belief, and relied on legally insufficient indirect evidence to show that the company’s grounds for firing her were pretextual, Southwest said in its opening brief filed Thursday in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth ...