Jury clears Boeing in 737 MAX fraud case brought by LOT Polish Airlines
A Seattle jury rejected LOT Polish Airlines’ fraud claim against Boeing, a narrow win that leaves the 737 MAX safety crisis far from resolved.
A federal jury in Seattle cleared Boeing of fraud on Friday in a closely watched case brought by LOT Polish Airlines, handing the plane maker a legal victory in a dispute tied to the 737 MAX’s troubled software history. The verdict ended a two-week trial in U.S. District Court before Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, with jurors deliberating for about three hours before rejecting LOT’s claim that Boeing hid a critical software change and defrauded the airline when the jet was sold years ago.
LOT had sought $153 million in damages for losses it said were caused by the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX. The airline filed the lawsuit in October 2021, making it the first carrier to take Boeing to a jury trial over financial harm from the MAX crisis. Boeing said it was gratified by the verdict, while LOT said the legal process may not yet be concluded, leaving open the possibility of further action.
The ruling is significant for Boeing, but it is not a full exoneration of the company’s handling of the MAX. The case turned on whether Boeing concealed safety-related information from LOT, not on the broader record that still shadows the aircraft maker. Jurors were asked to decide a narrow fraud claim, and their rejection of that claim means only that LOT did not persuade them Boeing crossed the legal line in this dispute.
That distinction matters because the 737 MAX remains one of the defining industrial and regulatory scandals of the past decade. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the aircraft on March 13, 2019, after two crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people in total. The jet stayed out of service for about 20 months before the FAA cleared it to fly again on November 18, 2020, following software and wiring changes and a detailed return-to-service review.
For Boeing, the verdict removes one source of legal uncertainty and may help limit customer claims tied to the grounding. But it does not resolve the larger question of whether the company has fully rebuilt trust with airlines, regulators and passengers after years of scrutiny over the MAX’s design, marketing and safety culture. The courtroom win closes one chapter, yet the reputational and operational consequences of the MAX crisis continue to shape Boeing’s standing across global aviation.
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