Jury Awards $28M to Family in Boeing 737 Max Crash

A federal jury in Chicago awarded more than $28 million on Wednesday to the family of a United Nations consultant killed in the 2019 crash of a Boeing 737 Max jetliner in Ethiopia, marking the first civil trial verdict stemming from the disaster that claimed 157 lives.

The award of $28.45 million to the relatives of Shikha Garg, a 32-year-old Indian environmental specialist, followed about two hours of deliberation in U.S. District Court. Garg died on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which plunged to the ground six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport on March 10, 2019, en route to Nairobi, Kenya. She was traveling to a United Nations Environment Assembly and was one of 22 U.N. staff members among the victims. Under a pretrial agreement reached that morning, Boeing will pay the full verdict amount plus 26 percent interest and an additional $3.4 million to Garg's husband, Soumya Bhattacharya, bringing the total compensation to $35.85 million. The company has agreed not to appeal.

The trial focused solely on damages, including compensation for grief, loss of income and Garg's pain and suffering, as Boeing had already accepted responsibility for the...