Jury Awards $49.5M to Family in 737 Max Crash

A federal jury in Chicago awarded $49.5 million on Wednesday to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old nonprofit worker killed in the March 10, 2019, crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max jet that went down minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The verdict, reached after a trial that began earlier this month, allocates $21 million for the pain and suffering Stumo endured aboard the aircraft, $16.5 million for the family's loss of her companionship and $12 million for their grief. Boeing accepted liability for the crash, so jurors focused solely on determining compensatory damages. Attorneys Shanin Specter and Elizabeth Crawford, representing Stumo's estate, said in a statement, "We are gratified for the opportunity to try the compensatory damages case." The lawyers plan to appeal a ruling dismissing punitive damage claims against Boeing executives and suppliers.

Stumo, a 2015 graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst from Sheffield, Massachusetts, had joined ThinkWell, a nonprofit aimed at improving health systems in developing countries. She was en route to her first major assignment in East Africa when the plane crashed, killing all...