Trucking companies more often than not are on the losing end of a court battle, leading to exponential growth in courts awarding plaintiffs significant amounts of money following crashes involving commercial trucks.
According to a study from the American Transportation Research Institute, the average size of crash-related verdicts – also known as nuclear verdicts – has increased by nearly 1,000% since 2010, and the number of cases between 2012 and 2019 grew by 335% compared to the previous six years.
It's a trend that’s causing smaller fleets to shut down or at the very least leaving fleets underinsured as the rise in nuclear verdicts spur increases in insurance costs.
But the experts have some tips to help fleets combat nuclear verdicts, and they say it starts with data.
“What can we do to now start to fight back and start to be able to combat a lot of these rising costs and a lot of these rising claims? … I think that really first starts with an understanding of your own data because that's where the plaintiff's attorneys obviously start,” said Idelic Founder and Chief Innovation Officer Hayden Cardiff during the Truckload Carriers Association’s recent webinar Preventing Nuclear Verdicts: Going on Offense Against Your Liability.
He said while there are larger, systematic things that can be done like tort reform, the best way for fleets to fight nuclear verdicts is to understand what plaintiffs attorneys look for in any given case and to be proactive in safety and operations management to eliminate risk.
Brandon Guiliani, transportation practice leader and principal at Seubert & Associates Inc. said attorneys are looking beyond the facts of a crash to fleet practices to establish negligence.
