Boeing is defending several class action lawsuits at once. The largest is a shareholder securities fraud case in Chicago tied to the two 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people, and a class has already been certified there. A second investor class action, in Virginia, arises from the January 2024 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout. A third, filed in early 2026, is a wage-and-hour class action by factory workers at Boeing’s Everett, Washington, plant. Separate but closely related proceedings — a Delaware derivative suit, an SEC-funded investor compensation pool, and a now-dismissed federal criminal case — round out the legal fallout.
The 737 MAX Investor Case in Chicago
The central case is In re The Boeing Company Aircraft Securities Litigation, No. 1:19-cv-02394, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Investors allege Boeing and then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg knowingly or recklessly made false statements about the safety of the 737 MAX after the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, inflating the stock price and causing losses when the truth came out.
After the Lion Air crash, Boeing publicly called the 737 MAX “as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies.” The SEC later found the company failed to disclose that an internal safety review had already flagged the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System as an ongoing safety issue and that a redesign was underway. After the Ethiopian Airlines crash, Muilenburg told analysts there was “no surprise or gap” in the certification process. The SEC found he was aware of contradicting information, including an internal chat in which a Boeing employee said he had “lied to the regulators (unknowingly).”
On October 18, 2019, The New York Times reported on internal messages from 737 chief technical pilot Mark Forkner raising safety concerns that had been withheld from regulators. Boeing’s stock dropped 6.8% that day, about $25 per share.
The Certified Class
On March 16, 2026, Judge Franklin U. Valderrama certified a class of investors who acquired Boeing stock, bought call options, or sold put options between November 7, 2018, and October 18, 2019. The court accepted the plaintiffs’ event study and out-of-pocket damages methodology as sufficient to measure stock-price inflation.
The judge shortened the class period from what the plaintiffs requested, which had extended into December 2019. Boeing and Muilenburg successfully argued that alleged misstatements would not have moved the stock after October 18, 2019, because the market had already absorbed the news that the 737 MAX would not return to service that year.
The lead plaintiff is the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann is lead counsel; Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check also represents investors. The court denied in substantial part the defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint on September 30, 2024.
Boeing’s Appeal at the Seventh Circuit
Boeing petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for interlocutory review after losing on class certification, and the petition was granted. Judges Michael B. Brennan, Michael Y. Scudder, and Joshua P. Kolar approved review of whether the class should have been certified. Plaintiffs claim damages exceeding $15 billion.
On April 6, 2026, the law firm Willkie filed an amicus brief on behalf of former SEC officials and law professors supporting Boeing. The brief argues the trial court failed to conduct the rigorous review of damages methodology required by Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. It contends the plaintiffs’ expert relied on a “back-casting” model that does not account for how evolving public information about Boeing during the class period, and the plaintiffs’ own theory that repeated misstatements changed in materiality over time, should have affected the damages calculation. The brief warns that the lower court’s approach carries “far-reaching consequences” because class certification can pressure companies into settlements to avoid the risk of a potentially company-ending judgment at trial.
The Alaska Airlines Door Plug Investor Case in Virginia
A second securities class action, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, arose from the January 5, 2024, Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 mid-air door plug blowout. It alleges Boeing misled investors about the safety of its jets.
The court appointed the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Rhode Island and Local #817 IBT Pension Fund as lead plaintiffs on April 22, 2024, with Labaton Keller Sucharow as co-lead counsel. On March 7, 2025, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema certified a class of all persons who acquired Boeing stock between January 7, 2021, and January 8, 2024. Boeing has opposed certification, arguing investors cannot “reverse-engineer sweeping securities fraud claims” from a single incident.
The Factory Workers’ Wage-and-Hour Class Action
A class action filed in February 2026 targets Boeing’s labor practices rather than its investor disclosures. Former in-tank mechanic Alexander Lara-Trespalacios sued on behalf of roughly 5,000 current and former hourly employees at Boeing’s Everett, Washington, plant.
The complaint alleges workers were not paid for time spent donning safety gear, which it says took 10 to 20 minutes daily. It also alleges interrupted and shortened meal breaks, mandatory unpaid weekend training, a timekeeping rounding policy that shaved pay, and failure to include non-discretionary bonuses in overtime calculations. The case was filed in Snohomish County Superior Court; Boeing removed it to U.S. District Court in Seattle.
The Delaware Derivative Suit Over Board Oversight
Shareholders also sued Boeing’s board of directors in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, alleging directors breached their fiduciary duty by failing to oversee airplane safety. A derivative suit is technically brought on the company’s behalf against its directors, so it is not itself a class action, but it comes up in the same conversation.
The original case, In re The Boeing Company Derivative Litigation (C.A. No. 2019-0907-MTZ), alleged the board had no committee assigned to airplane safety, that the audit committee’s charter covered financial risks but not safety, and that the board had no mechanism to receive internal safety reports. On September 7, 2021, Vice Chancellor Morgan T. Zurn denied the board’s motion to dismiss the oversight claims. The case settled for approximately $225 million, paid by current and former directors’ insurance carriers. Boeing also agreed to hire an ombudsman and appoint a board member with aviation safety experience.
A newer derivative action, In re The Boeing Co. Deriv. Litig. (Consol. C.A. No. 2024-1210-MTZ), followed the January 2024 door plug blowout. On June 26, 2025, Vice Chancellor Zurn granted Boeing’s motion to stay all discovery while a motion to dismiss is pending and denied plaintiffs’ request to use discovery from the parallel Virginia securities case.
The SEC Boeing Fair Fund
Investors who lost money on Boeing stock may also be eligible for compensation from a separate SEC-administered pool. On September 22, 2022, the SEC issued cease-and-desist orders against Boeing and Muilenburg for making misleading public statements after the crashes. Boeing agreed to pay a $200 million civil penalty and Muilenburg $1 million, neither admitting wrongdoing.
The combined $201 million funded the Boeing Fair Fund under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, intended to compensate investors who purchased Boeing common stock between November 28, 2018, and October 17, 2019. The claims deadline was December 31, 2024. As of mid-2026, the fund’s status is listed as “Distribution Preparation,” meaning the penalties have been paid and the money is held in a Treasury Department account awaiting distribution.
The Criminal Case Against Boeing
The federal criminal case is not a class action, but victims’ families played a role parallel to class plaintiffs. In January 2021, the Department of Justice charged Boeing with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and filed a deferred prosecution agreement the same day. Under the DPA, Boeing agreed to pay over $2.5 billion, including a $243.6 million criminal fine, $1.77 billion in compensation to airline customers, and $500 million for a fund for the families of the 346 crash victims.
On May 14, 2024, the DOJ told the court Boeing had breached the DPA by failing to design and enforce an adequate compliance program. A proposed guilty plea was submitted in July 2024, but U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in the Northern District of Texas rejected it on December 5, 2024.
After the change in presidential administration, the DOJ reversed course. In May 2025, it dropped its demand for a guilty plea and reached a non-prosecution agreement. Boeing agreed to pay $444.5 million into a crash victims’ fund, a $243.6 million fine (with credit for the earlier DPA amount), and $455 million to strengthen compliance, safety, and quality programs. Boeing was allowed to select its own compliance consultant rather than submit to an independent monitor. The NPA runs for two years from the date the consultant is retained.
On November 6, 2025, Judge O’Connor granted the government’s motion to dismiss the criminal charge, though he stated the deal “fails to secure the necessary accountability.” Families of the crash victims filed mandamus petitions with the Fifth Circuit, arguing the DOJ had violated their rights under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. On March 31, 2026, a unanimous three-judge panel denied the petitions, finding the DOJ had met its obligation to confer with families and holding that the Crime Victims’ Rights Act does not give victims an unlimited right to appeal the dismissal of a criminal prosecution.