Sales of Boeing Co.’s 737 MAX jetliners are soaring, with orders of the aircraft reaching record levels this year.
Boeing is also nearing a darker milestone. It’s resolved almost all litigation brought by families of the nearly 350 people killed in two overseas 737 MAX crashes, with a jury awarding the survivors of one of those who perished, Michael “Mick” Ryan, $29 million in August in Chicago’s federal courthouse.
Earlier in the year, a Chicago jury awarded the survivors of Samya Stumo nearly $50 million.
And last fall, a Chicago jury awarded about $28 million to the family of another crash victim, Shikha Garg.
Because Boeing was based in Chicago until its headquarters moved to Arlington, Virginia, in recent years, hundreds of lawsuits were centered at the Dirksen Federal Building in the South Loop.
While there were several high-profile verdicts within the last year, the vast majority of the cases were settled before they could go to trial and with confidentiality clauses.
Accordingly, plaintiff lawyers and Boeing officials won’t say how much has been paid out so far in total, though it’s likely in the billions of dollars.
And that doesn’t include costs and penalties associated with other legal problems that followed the 737 MAX crashes, including a now-concluded U.S. Justice Department investigation.
One 737 MAX crashed in 2018 shortly after taking off from an Indonesian airport, killing all 189 people aboard. In 2019, another 737 MAX went down in Ethiopia, killing all 157 on board.
Boeing initially tried blaming the pilots. But a flawed system that can affect flight controls — a system Boeing wasn’t truthful about with federal regulators, the airlines or the public — turned out to be a factor in both crashes.
The model was temporarily grounded while problems were fixed.
Boeing’s image has taken a beating ever since, and other problems have emerged, including in 2024 when a door plug on a 737 MAX blew out after departing Portland, Oregon.
Chicago’s Clifford Law Offices, led by attorney Bob Clifford, represented 72 of the families who lost loved ones in the Ethiopia crash and was appointed lead counsel for 163 lawsuits stemming from that disaster.
“Of those 163 lawsuits, only two remain pending,” a representative of the law firm said. “Clifford Law Offices does not represent the plaintiffs in either of those remaining cases. All others have resolved, either by settlement or verdict, or have been dismissed voluntarily.
“All settlement terms are confidential, per the releases signed by the clients.”
At least 89 other lawsuits were brought in Chicago by families of those killed in the Indonesia crash, and they also have been resolved, according to people familiar with those cases.
Miami-area attorney Steven C. Marks handled around 40 of those Indonesia suits, all of which he said ended in settlements. He's representing the plaintiff in one of the two pending cases.
He also represented Ryan’s widow, Naoise Connolly Ryan, in the recent verdict involving her late husband who was killed in the Ethiopia crash.
Michael Ryan was chief engineer for the United Nations World Food Programme, and the agency’s web site said the father of two, who was from Ireland, “worked in reconstruction and rehabilitation but also capacity building — showing communities how to help themselves.”
“During the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Mick built medical centres to treat those with the virus and prevent others from being infected. To achieve this, he had construction sites operating at all hours for six weeks.”
In Bangladesh, according to the UN, “Mick not only organized the building of shelters and infrastructure, he also supported the stabilization of the ground and planned evacuations, which saved tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from the threat of landslides and floods.”
Stumo, a 24-year-old nonprofit worker, and Garg, a 36-year-old UN consultant, also perished in the Ethiopia crash.
Boeing released a statement saying: “We are deeply sorry to all who lost loved ones on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. While we have resolved nearly all of these claims through settlements, families are entitled to pursue their claims through the court process, and we respect their right to do so.”
