A California man has filed a lawsuit, a federal judge announced Dozens of lawsuits against airlines are malicious litigants After one of his latest complaints accused Scandinavian Airlines of serving him a vegetarian meal instead of chicken and limiting him to one free drink.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said Sergei Firsov’s apparent “business model” was to seek waivers of court filing fees, pursue damages for emotional distress, and try to recover the cost of international airfare, adding that the serial litigator had “caused unnecessary expenses” for airlines and burdened the federal courts.
The matter stems from a lawsuit filed by Firsov against Scandinavian Airlines, in which he alleged that he was served a vegetarian meal instead of chicken during one flight and that a malfunctioning air conditioning system on another flight left the cabin so dry that he and his dogs were injured.
According to Firsov’s complaint, flight attendants advertised that passengers could choose between chicken and vegetarian pasta, but by the time meal service reached about the 40th row, they had run out of chicken.
Firsov claimed he and passengers sitting at the back were forced to take the vegetarian option after crew members said too few chicken meals were loaded.
Firsov claimed that he then walked into the back kitchen and saw the flight attendants eating chicken meals. When he asked for one, crew members allegedly refused, saying the meals were for “internal use.”
He also claimed that a flight attendant told him that the airline had mistakenly loaded too few chicken entrees, while he wondered why unused chicken entrees were left in the back of the plane.
Chen dismissed the case in January, finding that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over part of the dispute and that Firsov failed to allege bodily injury required under the Montreal Convention for his meal claim.
But the judge said the lawsuit — one of 27 Firsov has filed against airlines in the past two years — was just one example of a much broader pattern.
“There is no indication that Mr. Firsov makes decisions based on the details of any case, but rather takes a scorched-earth approach,” Chen wrote in a June 23 ruling declaring the Mountain View, California, resident a controversial litigator.
According to the order, Firsov filed 30 lawsuits in the Northern District of California between March 2025 and June of this year, all but three of which targeted at least one airline.
Most were dismissed for reasons including lack of jurisdiction, failure to file a claim, failure to provide adequate service to defendants, or failure to pay filing fees.
The court noted that Firsov had already been declared a litigant by the Santa Clara Superior Court in 2020.
Earlier in the Scandinavian Airlines case, Chen sanctioned Firsov in the amount of $722 after finding that he had filed a strike motion in bad faith. The airline later sought to hold him in civil contempt after the penalties remained unpaid.
The judge also highlighted what he described as frivolous positions taken by Firsov in other airline cases, including the allegation that Austrian Airlines acted inappropriately by preventing him from taking his dog to the plane’s restroom, demanding nearly $1,100 for emergency clothing after luggage was delayed, and alleging that he spent $10,000 on a private jet for a meeting after a delayed commercial flight.
In another case, Chen pointed out, Firsov said that an airline wronged him by offering him a vegetarian meal because he was “a man and needs to eat meat.”
“Mr. Firsov has caused undue costs to the airlines he sued and has imposed an unnecessary burden on the undersigned and other judges in this district,” the judge wrote.
The judge denied Scandinavian Airlines’ request for a blanket ban on filings, instead narrowly tailoring the order to fit future lawsuits against the airlines.
The Post requested comment from Firsov and Scandinavian Airlines.