Southwest Flight Attendant Awarded $1 Million After 9-Year Lawsuit Over Religious Beliefs

A nine-year legal battle between a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, her airline, and her own union has reached its financial conclusion. On April 28, 2026, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation confirmed that Charlene Carter has received a Satisfaction of Judgment totalling $946,102.87, following a landmark ruling that found both Southwest Airlines and the Transport Workers Union Local 556 violated her federal rights by terminating her employment in retaliation for expressing religious and personal beliefs that conflicted with the union's political activities.

Who Charlene Carter Is and How It Started

Charlene Carter worked as a Southwest Airlines flight attendant for more than 20 years, from 1996 until 2017. A pro-life Christian, she resigned her union membership in September 2013 after learning that her union dues were being used to promote causes that violated her conscience, such as abortion. Despite resigning her membership, Carter was still forced to pay fees to TWU Local 556 as a condition of her employment. 

The trigger for the chain of events that ultimately led to her termination came in January 2017. Carter learned that Audrey Stone, the union president, and other TWU Local 556 officials had used union dues to attend the "Women's March on Washington D.C.," which was sponsored by political groups she opposed, including Planned Parenthood. Carter responded by criticising Stone's leadership through private Facebook messages and social media posts, expressing opposition to the union's spending of member fees on causes she considered contrary to her Christian beliefs and advocating for a recall effort against union leadership.

Southwest found that Carter had violated the company's social media policy and that her messages constituted bullying and harassment. In March 2017, Southwest fired Carter. 

The Lawsuit and the Jury's Verdict

Carter's case began in 2017 when she sued both the union and airline in the Northern District Court of Texas for firing her in violation of both the federal Railway Labor Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Through private communications, Carter had criticized the TWU Local 556 president for using union dues to send flight attendants to the 2017 Women's March and also panned the union's support for a host of divisive political positions.

After a six-day July 2022 trial, a jury in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed with Carter and her Foundation staff attorneys. During the trial, Foundation attorneys unearthed and introduced email communications showing TWU union militants advocated for "targeted assassinations" of union dissidents.

In its verdict, the jury found in favour of Carter on all counts of the lawsuit, awarding Carter $950,000 in damages against the TWU union local and more than $4 million in damages against Southwest. The District Court subsequently ordered Southwest and the union to pay Carter the maximum amount of compensatory and punitive damages permitted under federal law, together with back pay and other forms of relief. It also ordered that Carter be reinstated as a flight attendant at Southwest.

The Appeals Process and the Fifth Circuit

Neither Southwest nor the TWU accepted the outcome without a fight. Both parties appealed, and the case was heard at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. A Fifth Circuit panel partially overturned the jury's ruling, finding that Carter had not presented evidence to support her Title VII claim for discrimination based on religious beliefs, as she was fired for her conduct rather than solely for her beliefs. However, the panel also upheld the jury's ruling that Southwest unlawfully refused to accommodate Carter's religious practices. The panel also upheld the jury's verdict in Carter's favour on her Title VII religious discrimination and Railway Labor Act breach-of-duty-of-fair-representation claims against TWU Local 556, arising from the union's president, Audrey Stone, reporting Carter to Southwest Airlines for her Facebook messages.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court's finding that both Southwest and the union had discriminated against Carter based on her religious practice. 

The Final Payment and Carter's Words

A Satisfaction of Judgment filed with the District Court indicates that Carter was paid damages totalling $946,102.87 as her nine-year litigation comes to a close. 

Carter responded to the conclusion of the financial settlement with a statement that captured nearly a decade of personal and professional cost: 

“Being a flight attendant is my livelihood and my passion, and union officials tried to manipulate company policy to upend my career simply because I spoke out about my most sincerely held beliefs. This case has been a long, hard fight, but I'll never stop sticking up for what I know is right, and I hope that both my employer and TWU union bosses have learned that it doesn't pay to stifle flight attendants' freedom of religion and speech.”

The Contempt Question That Remains Open

The payment of damages does not mean the case is entirely closed. The case continues at the District Court, with the court asking for briefs on whether a contempt order against Southwest is necessary and, if so, what form a contempt order should take. Contempt arose as an issue in Carter's case after Southwest attorneys issued notices to flight attendants incorrectly informing them of the District Court's holding that the company had discriminated against Carter based on religion.

The contempt issue is significant: the allegation is not merely that Southwest failed to comply with the notice order, but that its attorneys actively mischaracterised the nature of the District Court's finding to the very flight attendants whose rights were affirmed by that ruling. If the court ultimately issues a contempt order, it could impose further legal costs and reputational consequences on Southwest beyond the nearly $1 million already paid.

The Foundation's Broader Argument

Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation, whose staff attorneys represented Carter free of charge throughout the nine-year litigation, framed the outcome in terms that go well beyond one individual case: 

"Ms. Carter was courageous in standing up to protect her religious and personal beliefs from the schemes of radical union officials and a compliant employer. While she is finally receiving compensation for her struggle, no one should forget that federal law still forces workers to accept union 'representation' they oppose and, adding insult to injury, forces workers to pay unwanted unions. It is outrageous that, even though the court confirmed that the TWU union and Southwest violated Carter's legal rights, Carter, to this day, is still forced to subsidize TWU union bosses or else be fired by Southwest. We hope Carter's case will prompt a long-overdue conversation about how coercive union boss power infringes on the rights of millions of hardworking Americans." 

What the Case Means for Aviation Labour Law

The Carter case has generated significant attention well beyond the labour law community, precisely because it sits at the intersection of three highly charged areas of public debate: religious liberty, union power, and the limits of employer authority over employees' private communications. The Railway Labor Act's provisions, which govern labour relations across the airline and railroad industries, create a framework in which unions can require financial contributions from workers who are not members and do not support the union's activities. Carter's case tested what protections a worker retains within that framework and, after nine years of litigation, concluded that the framework's protections for free speech and religious exercise are enforceable and that both airlines and unions face legal consequences when they ignore them.

For Southwest Airlines, the case closes with a payment of nearly a million dollars, a reinstatement order, an outstanding contempt exposure, and the reputational weight of having been found by a federal jury and a federal appeals court to have discriminated against one of its own employees based on religion.