I saw that on the news last night. I can only imagine how that fight must have looked.
Finally read the story. It was a 48 year old man who did it to a 48 year old woman, and then refused to obey the stewardess who told him to remove the device. The woman he was preventing from reclining threw a cup of water on him and his laptop.
That's some Montgomery Alabama Freedom Ride Precipitation level shyt, for a man to be obnoxious enough to not only do it to a woman but to disobey the stewardess. Probably the same type of asshat who can't take the five minutes to keep his cell phone off during take off and landing. Always obey the stewardess.
Woman probably threw the water because the stewardess couldn't get him to obey and was just going to let him get away with it for 'peace's sake'.
Instead of throwing the water, she probably should have asked the stewardess for the captain's assistance while making an in-flight phone call to United customer service.
Wonder what the races were? Wonder what company he works for? If the woman had been a vet, Facebook would have already been on it to root out his job and sent nastygrams to his boss to get him fired.
I don't believe in fukking with someones bread, but that man does need to be banned from all future United flights. If he's going to use illegal devices and disobey the stewardess... who's to say the next illegal device won't be of the shoelace bomb variety?

You're in a metal tube flying at insane speeds through the air, you need to obey the stewardess when she tells you to stop infringing on other paying customer's comfort.