Five cases are moving forward to trial on November 3 in the 2019 crash of a Boeing 737 MAX8 jet in Ethiopia. U.S. Judge Jorge Alonso will be hearing two cases at a time.
The five cases set for trial in a couple of weeks include a 28-year-old mother from Kenya who left behind a daughter, her parents, and four siblings, and the other lead case involves a 36-year-old woman from India, who left behind a husband and her parents. The next cases to be tried are a successful 38-year-old man from Yemen and Kenya who was the sole support of his wife and seven children, six who are minors; a 30-year-old successful businessman from the UK and Kenya, one of 10 children himself, who left behind a wife and four children, one of whom he never met because his wife was pregnant at the time of the crash; and a woman from Ireland who lost her husband.
Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices in Chicago and lead counsel in the litigation, will be the main lawyer trying the first case, in which mediation attempts have failed over the past several months. “We are fully prepared to begin selecting a jury on November 3 on behalf of the families from around the world,” Clifford said, who will be the lead counsel in the first case set for trial. Families from 35 countries lost loved ones in the March 2019 crash.
“Boeing accepted full responsibility for the senseless and preventable loss of these lives, yet they have not been mediating in good faith to come to a resolution for these devastated families,” Clifford said. “We are determined to achieve justice for every one of them.”
The crash of Flight ET-302 occurred in March 2019 shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, killing all 157 on board.
Four previous trials before Judge Alonso of federal district court in Chicago, former Boeing headquarters, settled shortly before trials were set to begin, the latest just hours before the final pretrial conference.
For further information, contact Clifford Law Offices Communications Partner Pamela Sakowicz Menaker at 847-721-0909 (cell) or pammenaker@cliffordlaw.com.