A recently filed lawsuit may have airline passengers in Maryland and Washington, D.C., wondering if they are owed money by one of the country's largest airline companies. According to the business litigation brought against Delta Airlines, the company has been setting its own limitations on how much its customers can collect on mishandled baggage claims.

Federal regulations allow airline customers to receive up to $3,300 for missing belongings. This means that if an airline loses someone's bag or causes it to be delayed, that person can be reimbursed by the airline up to this amount. But Delta Airlines and several other airlines have been caught suggesting that the limits are much smaller than the federally mandated limit.

In 2010, Delta was fined $100,000 for creating pamphlets it gave to its customers suggesting that the limit for baggage delay was $25 per day with a maximum reimbursement of $125. Many people carry more than this in their bags, some having belongings that they need each day such as medication. The lawsuit cites the case of a woman who spent hundreds of dollars on medication, toiletries and other items she found necessary the day she arrived without a bag. Delta denied her reimbursement claim.

After being fined, the pamphlet and alleged limit caps were eliminated by Delta, but the airline began suggesting its own reimbursement rates of $50 for the first day and $25 for each of the four days after that. A disclaimer says that this is not a limit but a suggestion for its customers. The airline failed to address the $3,300 limit in its disclaimer.

According to the lawsuit -- which may receive class action status -- the company has been allowed to minimize mishandled baggage claim costs because of its practices. With approximately 130,000 bags mishandled by airlines in the month of October alone, according to the Department of Transportation, the amount of money that Delta may have avoided paying could be well into the millions.

Source: Reuters, "Delta facing U.S. class action lawsuit over baggage policy," Mitch Lipka, Dec. 23, 2011