Three public pension funds in Ohio and Oklahoma — the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, Ohio State Teachers Retirement System and Oklahoma Firefighters Pension & Retirement System — will lead a class-action lawsuit against Boeing Co. over the faulty production of its 737 MAX and 787 jets.
The public pension funds were appointed “derivative plaintiffs” March 20 by the Delaware Chancery Court.
The 239-page lawsuit, originally filed Dec. 3, contends that Boeing, its board of directors and senior executives breached their fiduciary duty by putting profits and cost-cutting ahead of safety and choosing to cut corners in a rush to bring their jets to market.
The plaintiffs allege that the company’s safety and compliance failures culminated in a near-catastrophe involving a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft on Jan. 5, 2024. An Alaska Airlines flight carrying a total of 177 passengers and crew members was forced to make an emergency landing after a door panel of the aircraft blew off shortly after takeoff.
“While no one was seriously injured, the incident would have been fatal had it occurred minutes later when the plane had reached a higher altitude,” the plaintiffs charge in the lawsuit.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit was originally filed by Construction & General Building Laborers’ Local Union No. 79 General Fund, the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund and Walter E. Ryan Jr. Revocable Trust against Boeing, its board of directors and senior executives as a verified derivative complaint.
The “Jan. 5 blowout” incident followed deadly crashes in October 2018 and April 2019, when two of Boeing’s 737 MAX airplanes crashed, killing all 346 people aboard both planes.
The plaintiffs blasted the company for ignoring “glaring, fiery red flags” even after the deadly crashes, saying the company repeatedly pushed forward to maximize profits at all costs at the expense of the safety and quality control of its aircraft.
“The oversight failures of the board have cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as the unquantified reputational harm from the general flying public,” the plaintiffs allege in the complaint.
The two Ohio pension funds — the $123.3 billion Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and $98 billion Ohio State Teachers Retirement System, both based in Columbus — collectively own more than 800,000 Boeing shares worth roughly $139 million, according to a news release on the Ohio attorney general’s website. The amount of Boeing shares owned by the $3.9 billion Oklahoma Firefighters Pension & Retirement System, Oklahoma City, could not be immediately determined.
