Frank M. Pitre

Pitre’s two top current cases are headline-grabbers. One case contends the officers and directors of PG&E Co. committed wrongful acts and omissions that caused major catastrophic Northern California wildfires in 2017 and 2018 by breaching their fiduciary duties of care and loyalty to the company. An amended complaint filed in March 2021 blasted the utility’s risk management failures and safety violations. Pitre’s client is the victims’ trustee in PG&E’s bankruptcy case, a retired state appellate justice. John Trotter, Trustee of the PG&E Fire Victim Trust v. Chew et al., CGC-18-572326 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 24, 2018).

The other accuses Boeing Co. of causing the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash of a 737 Max 8. The disaster killed 149 passengers and eight crew members. Pitre is on the plaintiffs’ executive committee representing the decedents’ families. In re: Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 Crash, 1:19-cv-02170 (D. Ill., filed March 28, 2019).

Pitre said he was startled by what he termed “an outrageous development” in the case. The U.S. Department of Justice’s lead criminal prosecutor in the case settled with Boeing in a deferred prosecution agreement that did not charge any company executive with a crime and required no guilty plea.

Then the prosecutor, Erin Nealy Cox, left her post as U.S. Attorney in Texas’ Northern District to join Kirkland & Ellis LLP—Boeing’s corporate criminal defense firm. The move was disclosed July 20 in the publication Corporate Crime Reporter.

“I don’t have any evidence of a quid pro quo, but you can certainly sense an odor of impropriety,” Pitre said. He quoted Columbia University law professor John Coffee as having called the Boeing deal, filed in January 2021, “one of the worst deferred prosecution agreements I have seen.” It contained a finding that a compliance monitor was unnecessary because “the misconduct was neither pervasive across the organization, nor undertaken by a large number of employees, nor facilitated by senior management.” United States of America v. The Boeing Co., 4:21-cr-005 (N.D. Texas, filed Jan. 7, 2021).

Coffee told Corporate Crime Reporter that it appeared that Cox and Boeing “were both on the same wavelength about finding a quick and gentle resolution of the case that did not embarrass or injure Boeing.”

Pitre said he is investigating the Department of Justice deal even as he proceeds with depositions in his civil case. “This is a matter of grave concern to the victims’ families,” he said.

- John Roemer