An airline employee in New Mexico successfully completed her probation period, and her employer had a tradition of celebrating each such accomplishment with a practical joke. The worker's supervisor decided to get local police officers to pretend to arrest her while she worked at a busy ticket counter.

What happened. Marcie Fuerschbach joined Southwest Airlines as a customer service representative at Albuquerque's Sunport airport. As her probation ended, her supervisor phoned the city police department to set up the prank. The responding officers asked for and received reassurance that Fuerschbach "would be okay" with the joke. But she wasn't.

In front of a crowd of waiting customers, officers told her her background check had revealed an outstanding arrest warrant. Protesting that it must be a mistake, Fuerschbach burst into tears. She was handcuffed and led toward an elevator. Officers asked if there was anyone who could bail her out­and whether she might have unpaid parking tickets. She finally asked if the arrest was a joke­but they denied it. By the time a co-worker finally shouted out that it was a joke, in honor of the end of her probation, Fuerschbach was too upset to care. In fact, she cried for the rest of the day and a lot after that.

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, she sued everyone involved. For varying reasons, a judge in federal district court dismissed all her charges, and she appealed to the 10th Circuit, which covers Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.

What the court said. Appellate judges agreed with the lower court that Fuerschbach cannot sue the airline and its supervisors--­she is limited to workers' compensation claims against her employer. The police officers asserted qualified immunity as government employees performing their duties, but judges weren't sure they deserved it.

Would a reasonable person have felt that she was not truly being seized­that she could walk away from the encounter if she chose? Judges ruled a jury must decide that question and sent the case back to district court. Fuerschbach v. Southwest Airlines and City of Albuquerque, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, No. 04-2117 (2/28/06).

Point to remember: Southwest's reputation for loving fun notwithstanding, we hope the airline abandons these pranks. Other examples were forcing an employee to don a hula skirt and dance for customers or being escorted to a plane, locked in, and flown to Dallas. Not everyone's carefree and extroverted enough to find such stunts funny, or even tolerable.