Chicago jury to decide damages for Ethiopian Airlines crash victims

A federal civil trial over compensation for victims of the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crash began this week in Chicago, with jury selection starting Tuesday in two of the remaining wrongful death cases tied to the disaster that killed all 157 people on board. The proceedings will ask an eight-person jury to decide how much Boeing should pay relatives of two victims rather than whether the company was liable for the crash.

The cases before U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso were brought by families of Mercy Ndivo, a 28-year-old mother from Kenya, and Shikha Garg, a 36-year-old United Nations consultant from India. Ndivo and her husband were returning from her London graduation; they are survived by a daughter who was an infant at the time of the crash and is now nearly eight. Garg was en route to a U.N. environmental assembly in Nairobi. Families of more than 150 victims filed suits after the March 10, 2019 crash; many of those claims have been resolved through confidential settlements, and lawyers say roughly 14 suits remain unresolved.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have characterized this trial as a damages proceeding since Boeing has acknowledged responsibility for the...