“Boeing’s Plea to Bar Pain and Suffering Damages for Immediate Crash Victims Dismissed by Baffled Judge”

In a stunning development, a federal judge has denied the arguments of Boeing’s attorneys that the company should not be held responsible for compensating the families of the 157 victims of the March 2019 crash of a Boeing 737 Max. The judge ruled that the pain and suffering of the victims is a valid claim for compensation, despite the fact that they all died on impact. Boeing’s attorneys had argued that evidence of pre-impact fright and terror is not relevant because the passengers had no time to experience conscious pain and suffering after impact.

However, Federal Judge Jorge Alonso did not buy this argument and paved the way for the pain and suffering of the victims to be considered as a factor when determining compensation for their family members. In his order, he wrote that a jury could infer that the passengers experienced horrific emotional distress and knew they were about to crash to their certain death.

The crash involved an Ethiopian Airlines plane that went down on March 10, 2019, the second such crash involving a 737 Max in less than six months. The grounding of the jet worldwide for 20 months revealed a design flaw by Boeing as the major cause of the crashes. One of the attorneys for the Ethiopian Airlines crash victims called the judge’s ruling a significant and strong win for the families.

Boeing declined to comment on the ruling and pointed to an earlier statement about the court cases it faces. The trial is set to commence on June 20.