Seven months after 28-year-old John Lacayanga was found pinned beneath a cargo pallet he had been towing on an SFO service road, his parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit naming the City and County of San Francisco, which owns the airport, alongside two ground-handling companies.

The suit turns a January workplace fatality into a test of who is accountable when a young ramp worker dies on the tarmac at a city-owned airport that runs on subcontracted labor. By naming San Francisco itself — the airport's owner — plus Ground Services International and dnata USA, the Lacayanga family is arguing, per NBC Bay Area, that his death stemmed from negligence and dangerous conditions rather than a freak accident. A CAL/OSHA investigation opened in January is the parallel thread that could determine whether that argument holds.

The San Mateo County Coroner's Office identified John Lacayanga, a 28-year-old San Francisco resident, on January 19, a day after the San Francisco Fire Department was dispatched to what was first logged as a solo vehicle accident. According to San Francisco News, first responders found Lacayanga around 7 p.m. on January 18 pinned beneath a pallet he had been towing on the service road between Terminal 3 and the International Terminal's Boarding Area G. How he ended up under the load has not been publicly explained.

Lacayanga worked as a ramp agent for dnata — the ground-handling arm of Dubai National Air Travel — doing the towing and cargo-handling that keeps flights turning. This week, NBC Bay Area reported that his parents filed a wrongful death suit against three defendants: the City and County of San Francisco, Ground Services International, and dnata USA. Their lawyers allege the companies and the city "committed multiple acts of negligence and created dangerous conditions," according to NBC Bay Area.

The choice of defendants is the heart of the story. SFO is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco, but the physical labor on its ramps is layered across private contractors — a structure that can blur which entity is responsible for training, equipment, and the safety of a service road shared by tugs, carts, and pallet loads. Naming all three forces a court to sort out exactly that chain.

dnata, in a statement to NBC Bay Area, said it "remain[s] deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague, who passed away while on duty" and that it could not address the allegations because "the case is now before the courts." The company added that it continues to "cooperate fully with the authorities" and that "safety is fundamental to our business." NBC Bay Area reported that San Francisco and the other companies named did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Running alongside the civil case is a state safety inquiry. In the days after the death, San Francisco News reported, CAL/OSHA began on-site interviews with employers over workplace safety concerns, while the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office turned the matter over to the coroner to determine a cause of death. CAL/OSHA investigations of workplace fatalities typically take months and can produce citations and penalties independent of any lawsuit; its findings could become central evidence in the family's negligence claims.

Lacayanga's death drew notice beyond the Bay Area in January — from ABC7 to People — as a young man killed doing routine ground work at one of the country's busiest airports. What his parents' lawsuit adds is a demand for an answer the initial coverage could not provide: not just how a pallet came to rest on top of him, but who was supposed to make sure it never could. The City has not said whether it will contest the claim.