Ralph Nader Statement on Boeing Verdict

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday, an Illinois jury in a civil suit rendered a verdict of $49.5 million to the family of Samya Rose Stumo, who was killed in Ethiopia in the March 2019 crash of Boeing's criminally defective 737 MAX. The verdict is less than half the sticker price of one Boeing 737 MAX. Boeing has sold thousands of 737 MAX planes to airlines around the world. The trial was conducted under strict evidentiary rules, with Boeing having admitted liability and with the trial largely confined to issues of compensatory damages. All testimony, arguments, and issues relating to the criminal behavior of Boeing were excluded from this trial under a previous ruling by the judge interpreting Illinois law.

The question for all concerned, including the media, is whether Boeing accepts the verdict and leaves the case behind them. The damages are covered by insurance, and probably part of it is deductible if not covered.

Boeing should be concentrating on the need for greater quality and safety control of its passenger aircraft, while respecting its technical experts' right to directly contact the company's top executives with their production or design concerns. Boeing's management and outside law firms should not inflict any further pain on the innocent family members killed in the crash by frivolously appealing the jury's verdict or any of the trial court's rulings.

Boeing would be well advised to get the company's public relations team involved in any decision relating to this trial. Continued challenges and delaying tactics now that the trial is over will spill out into the public, congressional, and other arenas, the grisly details of this long saga of how Boeing handled the deaths of 346 people in the Ethiopian crash outside Addis Ababa, and the crash a few months earlier off the Indonesian coast.

It is doubtful whether the Boeing shareholders, engineers, public relations, and human resources people at Boeing want to see the company's reputation further degraded.

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SOURCE Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate