Boeing on Wednesday won dismissal of a shareholder suit filed by the Livonia (Mich.) Employees Retirement System that alleged the company and its executives made misleading statements about the flight readiness of the 787 passenger jet.
U.S. District Judge Suzanne Conlon in Chicago threw out the 2009 case Wednesday in a 12-page order, finding the $158 million pension plan hadn't presented enough evidence to go forward.
“City of Livonia must specify each statement alleged to have been misleading and the reasons why the statement is misleading,” Ms. Conlon wrote, concluding the complaint failed to clear that threshold.
Boeing's rollout of the new 787 passenger jet, also known as the Dreamliner, is more than two years behind schedule as the Chicago-based company has grappled with parts production problems and structural flaws revealed through testing.
The pension plan sued in November, saying statements by Boeing, CEO W. James McNerney Jr. and Scott Carson, who had been its commercial airplane division, misled investors about the progress of the plane's development.
Claims concerning the announced results of jet wing stress tests were “murky,” Ms. Conlon said of revised claims filed in February. She also rejected allegations the executives delayed the announcement of those tests until after a 2009 air show.
Boeing's head of finance communications, Chaz Bickers, said in a statement that the company is pleased with the court “recognizing the frivolousness of the lawsuit.”
Attorney Thomas Egler of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, the lead lawyer for the Livonia plan, declined to comment.
