SCOTUS passes on Boeing bid to block pilot union suit over 737 Max training
Source: Courthouse News Service
February 23, 2026
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case brought by Boeing, in which the aviation company requested the high court block a pilot association from suing over inadequate training for the 737 Max, the plane involved in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association initially brought the lawsuit in Texas soon after the new plane was ordered to a 20-month grounding in 2019, asserting the company interfered with its business relationship with Southwest and fraudulently induced the pilots to agree to fly the Max.
While Boeing successfully argued in state and federal lower courts in Texas that the association’s argument was preempted by the Railway Labor Act — a 1926 statute meant to avoid lengthy labor disputes and enforce collective bargaining agreements — the Supreme Court of Texas reversed.
The aviation company requested the Supreme Court intervene and reverse the Texas court’s decision, arguing the decision was contrary to the analysis by judges in the Northern District of Texas and Texas state court and ignored the statute’s text. “Forum shopping will be inevitable if courts in the same geographic area can interpret the same federal law differently,” Boeing argued in its petition. “The Texas Supreme Court’s interpretation of the RLA also cannot be reconciled with what the statute says. The RLA governs — and so preempts — all ‘disputes growing out of … the interpretation or application’ of a [collective bargaining agreement].”
Read more: https://courthousenews.com/scotus-passes-on-boeing-bid-to-block-pilot-union-suit-over-737-max-training/