Industry Trucking Article Provides Defense Perspective on “Nuclear Verdicts”

On May 26, 2020, FleetOwner, an online trucking industry magazine, published an interesting article called “Protecting Fleets from Nuclear Verdict: The Defense Side.” You can read the article here. FleetOwner has teased that it will discuss nuclear verdicts from a plaintiff’s perspective later.

What is a “nuclear verdict?”

A nuclear verdict is a trucking insurance industry phrase referring to large personal injury or wrongful death verdicts against trucking companies and their insurance companies. Many trucking associations and insurance companies believe that these “nuclear verdicts” are threatening the trucking industry.

One of the mantras of these associations is that one momentary lapse in judgment by a truck driver shouldn’t result in a trucking company having to file for bankruptcy or shut its doors.

These verdicts hold trucking companies responsible

For starters, most of the large trucking companies carry a tremendous amount of insurance. Others have enough assets that they are known as “self-insured” – meaning that they pay judgments or settlements with the case they retain on hand.

Second, the idea that large verdicts are the result of a momentary lapse in judgment is deceiving. In most large trucking verdict cases, two things are present: catastrophic injury or death and misconduct from the motor carrier itself.

Oftentimes, the “momentary lapse in judgment” is the result of having an unqualified or unsafe driver behind the wheel. Other times, the driver may have not been sufficiently trained for driving the type of vehicle they are driving or in the types of conditions in which they are expected to drive.

A common thread through many so-called nuclear verdict cases is putting profits ahead of safety. As jurors across the country have communicated with their verdicts, that is not acceptable behavior.

A defense lawyer’s perspective

Another interesting point in the FleetOwner article came from a defense attorney who has defended trucking cases nationwide. He cites the evolution of plaintiff’s attorneys and certain attorneys’ willingness to both deeply understand the trucking industry and try their clients’ cases before juries.

According to that defense lawyer, the best-case scenario for a trucking company after a serious car crash is that the victim or their family hires a high-volume “billboard lawyer” that isn’t willing to put the work in to maximize the recovery for the injured victim.

The article also cautions trucking companies that they need to maintain sufficient insurance coverage to protect themselves from these large potential verdicts. Under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, most trucking companies only require a minimum of $750,000 of insurance coverage – a figure that has remained unchanged for decades.

With the sheer size of trucks and the immense force, they can deliver in a crash, the risk of catastrophic injury or death in a crash is much higher than in your average passenger car crash.

At our firm, we take a great amount of pride in putting in the work necessary to achieve a full recovery to our clients injured by the negligence of recklessness of trucking companies.

Over the years, we have had a number of seven and eight-figure verdicts and settlements. In each one, the verdict or settlement was direct of years of hard work and willingness to overturn every leaf in our attempt to find out why the crash occurred.