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Boeing Verdict Reversed: Why Judge Robart Was Reassigned After His Spouse’s Stock Purchases

The Ninth Circuit reinstated the path forward for Zunum Aero’s jury verdict against Boeing and ordered a different judge on remand after disclosure of the judge’s spouse’s Boeing stock purchases.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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The Ninth Circuit reversed the rulings that had wiped out Zunum Aero’s more-than-$92 million jury verdict against Boeing and ordered the case reassigned to a different judge. The reason for reassignment was the delayed disclosure that Judge James L. Robart’s spouse had acquired Boeing shares during the case—not a finding that Robart was actually biased or had engaged in insider trading.

What the Zunum Aero jury decided

Zunum Aero sued Boeing in Washington state court in 2020. The case involved trade-secret, contract and tortious-interference claims. After the case moved to federal court, Boeing also brought patent-inventorship counterclaims.

An eight-day jury trial took place in May 2024. The Ninth Circuit’s 2026 account says the jury found that Boeing misappropriated 11 of the 19 alleged trade secrets presented at trial, breached one contract and tortiously interfered with Zunum’s business expectancy with Safran S.A.

The damages described by the Ninth Circuit

Claim Award reported by the Ninth Circuit
Trade-secret misappropriation $67.08 million in actual damages and $14.15 million in unjust enrichment
Tortious interference $11.56 million

The court’s 2026 opinion describes the jury award in its opening summary as more than $92 million. These are the case-specific components reported by the court, not an independently audited damages calculation.

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Why the district court’s ruling did not stand

After trial, the district court granted Boeing judgment as a matter of law and conditionally granted a new trial, vacating the jury’s verdict. On August 14, 2025, the Ninth Circuit reversed those post-trial rulings. The result was that the jury’s verdict was no longer set aside by those district-court orders; it did not itself resolve every step of the case on remand.

What the appellate record says about the Boeing shares

The Ninth Circuit’s 2025 opinion says Robart’s spouse acquired Boeing shares twice through an IRA managed by a bank while the litigation was ongoing. Robart learned of the purchases from monthly account statements in May and June 2023. The parties were not told about the transactions until September 2024, more than a year later and one day before final judgment.

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That distinction matters: the appellate record describes purchases by the judge’s spouse through an IRA. A secondary report about an interview attributes to Robart the explanation that the transactions were inadvertent and that the account was bank-managed, without his involvement. That reported explanation is separate from the appellate court’s findings.

Why the Ninth Circuit ordered reassignment

The court considered the delayed disclosure together with the district court’s rulings in Boeing’s favor during and after trial. It wrote: “This delayed disclosure, taken together with the district court’s consistent rulings in Boeing’s favor during and after trial, could give an objective observer reason to question the district judge’s impartiality in further proceedings.”

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On that appearance-based concern, the Ninth Circuit directed that the case be assigned to a different district judge on remand. It did not find that Robart was actually biased, intentionally traded on case information or committed insider trading. Reassignment was a measure to address the appearance of impartiality in future proceedings, not a ruling that established misconduct.

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What happened after the 2025 appeal

On August 26, 2026, the Ninth Circuit denied Boeing’s petition for panel rehearing. In that order, it also rejected Boeing’s challenge to appellate jurisdiction, holding that Boeing’s patent counterclaims were permissive rather than compulsory and that the court therefore had jurisdiction.

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The appellate actions established here do not describe what subsequently happened in the district court after remand or the final resolution of Zunum’s claims. The latest action reported is the denial of rehearing.

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