Dive Brief:
- A “friend of the court” legal brief was filed last month by the Texas Trucking Association and Trucking Industry Defense Association to support Werner Enterprises in its appeal of a nuclear verdict. The term refers to judgments equaling or exceeding $10 million.
- The carrier sought to bring the case to the state’s Supreme Court last August, saying lower courts erred in a case involving a tragic crash during a winter storm on Dec. 30, 2014, on Interstate 20 near Odessa. A family driving a pickup truck crossed crossed a grassy median into oncoming traffic, hitting the Werner 18-wheeler.
- Trucking companies frequently face “unmeritorious claims, settlements, and awards,” attorneys wrote in the filing. They said that carriers shouldn’t face disproportionate liability in cases like this one — where the “truck driver stayed in his lane, was driving below the speed limit, and never lost control.”
Dive Insight:
Werner’s insurance is paying the bulk of the roughly $100 million jury award, but trucking groups are pushing for the state’s highest court to overturn the verdict.
In its decision, the appeals court found reason to believe the driver lacked training for icy conditions and said the company’s “negligent training and supervision proximately caused the collision.”
The Werner driver was traveling at 50 mph during a winter storm warning, as opposed to slowing to a 15 mph or less crawl, per a Texas CDL manual, the court wrote. Additionally, the driver testified “that if the roads were icy, he should have slowed to ‘a crawl.’”
But given the sudden emergency, the driver did not fail to act responsibly, TXTA and TIDA lawyers wrote. “This verdict defies common sense,” the lawyers wrote.
The American Trucking Associations also filed an amicus curaie brief last December to support Werner, saying in part, “The court of appeals’ opinion forces Texas law on the wrong track and without correction will lead to an uncontrolled explosion of tort duties.”
