Alan Scher Zagier//September 25, 2024//
A city of St. Louis jury has deemed a national trailer manufacturer responsible for $462 million in damages in the May 2019 deaths of two young fathers killed when their car went underneath the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed for traffic along an Interstate 55 exit ramp near downtown.
The jury assessed $12 million in compensatory damages and $450 million in punitive damages against defendant Wabash National Corp. in its Sept. 5 ruling, deliberating for about three hours at the conclusion of a two-week trial.
Jurors found the defendant 65 percent responsible, with the plaintiff’s estate/deceased driver bearing 35 percent responsibility.
The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by the families of driver Taron Tailor and his passenger, Nicholas Perkins. Both died instantly when their Volkswagen CC rear-ended a trailer that had stopped for traffic near the interstate’s 7th Street exit.
Upon impact, the trailer’s rear impact guard, or RIG, ripped off, causing the smaller vehicle to go underneath the commercial truck in an accident known as an underride crash.
The collision happened on Sunday, May 19, 2019, about 2:30 p.m. Tailor was 30, and Perkins, 23. Perkins left behind a 2-year-old daughter, while Tailor’s wife was pregnant at the time of his death.
At trial, the team of plaintiff lawyers argued that Wabash National ignored decades of research and warnings about the failures of its rear impact guards as an effective safety device to prevent underride crashes.
“We commend the courage of the families who brought this lawsuit to hold this company accountable for decades of failures to keep the public safe from preventable underride crashes,” said lead plaintiff’s attorney John G. Simon.
The punitive damages award represents the amount Simon told the jury it would have cost the trailer manufacturer to build safer RIGS — $15 million annually — multiplied by what the attorney said was 30 years of inaction on the company’s part. Compensatory damages consist of $6 million to each of the two families.
Attorneys who represented Wabash, a publicly traded company listed as WNC on the New York Stock Exchange, at trial did not respond to requests for comment.
In a written statement, the company said it is “evaluating all available legal options in response to the verdict by a St. Louis jury in Williams et al. v. Wabash.”
“While this was a tragic accident, we respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict and firmly believe it is not supported by the facts or the law,” said Kristin Glazner, general counsel and chief administrative officer. “No rear impact guard or trailer safety technology has ever existed that would have made a difference here.”
The accident occurred “nearly two decades after the trailer involved was manufactured by Wabash in compliance with all existing regulatory standards,” the company stated.
“Additionally, despite precedent to the contrary, the jury was prevented from hearing critical evidence in the case, including that the driver’s blood alcohol level was over the legal limit at the time of the accident. The fact that neither the driver nor his passenger was wearing a seatbelt was also kept from the jury, even though plaintiffs argued both would have survived a 55-mile-per-hour collision had the vehicle not broken through the trailer’s rear impact guard.”
The frequency of underride crashes — and regulatory inaction — were the subject of a 2023 investigation by ProPublica and PBS’ Frontline, which found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “the country’s primary roadway safety agency, ignored credible scientific research and failed to take simple steps to limit the hazards of underride crashes.”
The report called that response a “case study of government inaction in the face of an obvious threat to public wellbeing.”
It is estimated that between 15 to 20 percent of fatal accidents involving trucks are underride crashes, which often kill drivers and passengers through decapitation. Both Tailor and Perkins were decapitated in the 2019 crash.
Based on 2024 data, the plaintiffs’ legal team estimated at least 14,350 known fatalities involving rear underride crashes — a number that excludes deaths caused by side underride and which experts say is likely much higher.
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- $462 million jury verdict
- Motor vehicle collision
- Breakdown and distribution of total value: $450 million in punitive damages; $12 million in compensatory damages, to be split equally between families of two decedents
- Allocation of fault: 35 percent to plaintiff (driver), 65 percent on defendant
- Venue: City of St. Louis Circuit Court
- Case Number/Date: 2022-CC00495/Sept. 5, 2024
- Judge: Circuit Judge Christopher McGraugh
- Caption: L.P., a minor, by and through her natural mother and next friend, Eileen Williams; Elizabeth Perkins, individually and as the natural mother of Nicholas Perkins; Summer Tailor, individually and as next friend of her natural son, D.T., a minor v. Wabash National Corp
- Plaintiff’s Attorneys: John M. Simon (lead) and Johnny G. Simon, Simon Law Firm, St. Louis; Brian Winebright, Cantor Injury Law, St. Louis; Lisa Tsacoumangos, Brown & Crouppen, St. Louis
- Defendant’s Attorneys: Brian Johnson (lead), Dickinson Wright, Lexington, Kentucky; Christopher Baucom, Armstrong Teasdale, St. Louis
This article credit to MOLawyersMedia