Pain and terror felt by passengers before Boeing Max crashed can be considered, judge rules

Families of passengers who died in the crash of a Boeing 737 Max in Ethiopia can seek damages for the pain and terror suffered by victims in the minutes before the plane flew nose-down into the ground, a federal judge has ruled.

Families of passengers who died in the crash of a Boeing 737 Max in Ethiopia can seek damages for the pain and terror suffered by victims in the minutes before the plane flew nose-down into the ground, a federal judge has ruled.

The ruling means that lawyers for the families will be able to call experts to testify about the victims' pain and suffering before the 2019 crash, which killed everyone on board.

The ruling posted late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso in Chicago is a setback for Boeing, which had argued that evidence about the victims' suffering would be speculative.

The decision comes in a case over compensation for the relatives of people who died in the second of two deadly crashes involving Boeing's best-selling plane. A trial is scheduled to begin June 20.

Boeing has admitted responsibility for the deaths of the passengers and agreed not to blame the pilots or anyone else. In exchange, lawyers for the families agreed not to seek punitive damages against the company. The trial will determine compensation for things such as burial expenses, loss of income, and grief suffered by immediate family members.

At a hearing last week, Boeing lawyers sought to block testimony about pain and suffering by passengers in the minutes before the crash. They said the testimony would be inflammatory and have an unfair impact on jurors.

Boeing lawyers also said that Illinois law - in effect even though the case is being tried in federal court - bars compensatory damages for the passengers' pain and suffering because they died the instant the plane hit the ground.