Does that guy who got dragged off the plane even though he had a ticket have a legitimate lawsuit.?

YES. I saw this on the news and we were discussing it in my law office. Plus I discussed it with my dad, who's a retired airline executive. The airline was 100% in the wrong. It did not have to physically and forcibly remove anybody from the flight. It had much simpler, ultimately less costly options and failed to use them. The passenger is not only entitled to a refund of his airfare plus the $800 offered for volunteer bumpees, he's entitled to reimbursement for all his medical bills resulting from the unlawful and excessive force and beating, a substantial amount for physical pain and suffering that also resulted, and a substantial amount for being publicly humiliated and subjected to public ridicule, not to mention the mental suffering that will follow having this incident exposed all over the internet. United Airlines will be paying out a six-figure settlement or a seven-figure jury award. All it had to do was offer somebody $1000 or $1200 or more to give up their seat. Someone would have taken it. Instead, the company is now reaping the worst possible publicity, facing a huge lawsuit it can't win, and the flight ended up being delayed so long, that the people who gave up their seats and took a later flight arrived before the original flight took off.

People get bumped off of flights every day and the law specifically allows it so no, he will not be able to sue. As long as airlines are legally allowed bump people off flights then nobody can sue them for doing it.

It's an interesting law school question:

1) the ticket likely had under terms and conditions, terms allowing the airline to bump a valid ticket holder, as long as compensated and place on another flight

2) The police boarded the plane and gave a lawful order for the man to leave the plane

3) were the actions by the officers lawful once the person refused their order to leave?

But no matter how you slice the pie the optics are horrible for not only United but the police officer as well, I could see some settlement with United

I would say he does, but you have to know what he did while he was on the plane and the airport.

Yes. They should have simply told him...either he gets off the plane...or the entire plane load of people WILL GET OFF and they will restart the loading procedure. They should have stated that the AIRCRAFT is NOT GOING ANYWHERE and leave it at that if he refused to cooperate. Dragging a person off is STUPID....I would SUE their ASSES OFF.

without bothering to look at the details, possibly.