The lawsuit follows the January 2024 mid-air cabin panel blowout on an Alaskan Airlines 737 MAX 9. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that shareholders who owned Boeing stock between January 7, 2021, and January 8, 2024, can collectively sue for damages.
The shareholders, led by Rhode Island’s state treasurer, had sought to include a period starting in 2019, but Brinkema limited the class period to begin after Boeing resolved a U.S. Department of Justice criminal case related to MAX safety.
The lawsuit alleges that Boeing’s misleading statements inflated its stock price following two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people.
Class actions like this can enable larger recoveries at lower costs compared to individual lawsuits.