Boeing Faces Revived Hearing Loss Claims From Flight Attendants

The Texas Supreme Court revived a federal case from two flights attendants who suffered hearing damage from a malfunctioning smoke detector on a Boeing aircraft flight.

Answering yes to two questions certified by the US Fifth Circuit, the court reasoned that a federal district court erred in dismissing the case based on the lapsing of a two-year statute of limitations. The Supreme Court agreed with the flight attendants that the clock should have tolled as the attendants refined their case to resolve a jurisdictional question.

Friday’s ruling comes three months after the Supreme Court held oral arguments in September. The opinion from Justice Jeff Boyd returns the case to a federal district court in Houston, which dismissed it in 2021 on the grounds that the suspension of time didn’t apply because a separate federal court in Dallas had previously ruled the attendants didn’t have jurisdiction and, separately, that they failed to comply with a court order to address deficiencies on a matter of jurisdiction.

Unsure of what to do, the Fifth Circuit tapped the state Supreme Court to answer two questions. The first was whether the suspension of time applied here even though the Dallas court would have had jurisdiction if the attendants had properly pleaded the jurisdictional facts. The second question is whether the attendants filed a subsequent action within 60 days of the dismissal.

“We answer Yes to both questions,” the justices said.

Notably, the opinion points out that the Fifth Circuit didn’t reach the question of whether the district court erred by dismissing the case for failing to comply with the court order.

The defendants in the case are Boeing, Kidde Technologies, and Jamco America. The flight attendants are Lee Marvin Sanders and Matthew Sodrok, who are represented by Joshua P. Davis of the Davis Law Firm.

The case is Sanders v. The Boeing Company, Tex., No. 23-0388, 12/1/23.