In this episode of Cause for Action, Nathan Morris, senior vice president, legal reform advocacy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform, is joined by Lee Parsley, the general counsel of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, to discuss some of the issues the trucking industry faces and what legislators can do to make sure that excessive lawsuits don’t shut down this critical industry.

Lee and Nathan also discuss how the trucking industry faces more “nuclear verdicts,” which are massive jury verdicts worth $10 million or more, than most other industries.

A new report from the American Transportation Research Institute stated that while trucking industry court cases that result in verdicts of less than $1 million may not dominate headlines like those that end in multimillion-dollar judgments, the cumulative effect of these smaller verdicts can still inflict significant financial distress on the industry.

The study also found that trials that end in settlements, as well as those that involve injuries or fatalities, tend to result in larger monetary awards.

“While cases of this size are not individually as devastating to motor carriers and thus do not attract the attention of media outlets, in aggregate they have a significant negative impact on the trucking industry,” ATRI said in the study, titled, “The Impact of Small Verdicts and Settlements on the Trucking Industry.” Released Nov. 18, it aims to provide an overview of the smaller award litigation landscape and offer carriers and defense attorneys strategies to assist in preventing costly litigation outcomes, ATRI said.

“This analysis proves a theory that I have always had; there are two markets as to the value of cases – the settlement market and the trial market,” said Doug Marcello, an attorney with the Carlisle, Pa., transportation law firm Marcello & Kivisto LLC. “There should be one market, and that is what a case is objectively worth.” Marcello served as a subject matter expert for ATRI on the report.

In the study, ATRI found that cases that reach settlement result in damages that are approximately 37.7% larger than those decided by a jury. The report also found that in cases involving a severe injury, settlement is 217% more likely than a trial. Cases of this type are also 199% more likely to result in payment to the plaintiffs of more than $600,000. Cases that involved a fatality are 393% more likely to result in a settlement, and also were the strongest predictor of higher payments, the report found.

The report also details the average amounts of award payouts in settlements where an injury or death has occurred; cases involving a fatality had the highest average award at $607,532, while back injuries had the lowest average payout at $368,237. Cases that did not have a fatality had an average payment amount of approximately $428,000. “Crashes that resulted in one or more fatalities yielded an average payment that was 41.9% higher than crashes that did not result in a fatality,” the report noted. “Cases involving back and neck injuries resulted in the smallest average payment amounts.”

The new report follows ATRI’s 2020 study, “Understanding the Impact of Nuclear Verdicts on the Trucking Industry,” which studied so-called “nuclear” verdicts in excess of $10 million. The new report notes differences in how certain injuries are viewed by juries depending on severity.

“Spinal cord injuries command some of the highest average awards in nuclear verdict cases, but back and neck injuries in this report are not necessarily spinal injuries,” ATRI said. “Plaintiff attorneys may be incentivized to exaggerate back and neck injuries in a trial because they know spine injuries generate large awards in high profile cases.”

The report also reviewed payments to plaintiffs based on the type of traffic violation the truck driver may have been charged with, and how that factored into the payouts. “Some alleged infractions, such as driving over the posted speed limit, apply to drivers, while others, such as inadequate training practices, apply to motor carriers,” the report said.

The top five violations and their respective payouts are:

• Poor driving history, $680,333
• Telephone usage, $629,375
• Hours-of-service violations, $564,531
• Asleep at the wheel, $543,343
• Equipment failure, $503,641

“Carriers should make the elimination of these issues a top priority to lower litigation payments,” the report said.

The report also noted a significant difference in award sizes if cases are heard in state court versus federal court.

“According to subject matter experts, state courts are notorious for unpredictable outcomes in court trials,” the report said. “More diverse jury pools and the use of appointed rather than elected judges fuel the perception that federal court is more disinterested in truck crash cases. For this reason, defendants often find federal court a preferable venue.”

The report also pointed out that to pursue a case in federal court, specific prerequisites must be met, and these additional conditions may prevent defendants from pursuing a lawsuit in federal court and instead encourage out-of-court settlements.

A new record for nuclear verdicts against a trucking company may have been set with a $1 billion verdict handed down Tuesday by a Florida jury. But more than 90% of the verdict was against a trucking company that apparently no longer exists and had not participated in the proceedings for at least two years.

The $1 billion verdict came in a case involving a September 2017 crash that took the life of Connor Dzion, who had just begun classes as a freshman at the University of North Florida. The wreck occurred in Yulee, Florida, on Interstate 95. Yulee is in Nassau County, north of Jacksonville, and a Nassau County jury handed down the verdict.

The two companies involved in the latest case were Kahkashan Carriers, a Canadian company, and AJD Business Services, which records indicate was based in Staten Island, New York.

The billion-dollar verdict was split as a $100 million payment to Dzion’s parents, who brought the suit, and a $900 million punitive damages verdict against AJD. The split on the $100 million payment was 90% against Kahkashan and its driver and 10% against AJD and its driver, according to court documents.

What had generally been believed to be the biggest nuclear verdict previously was the $411 million awarded last fall against a one-truck company that offered essentially no defense at trial. And that appears to be what happened here.Documents in the case show that the firm of Cole, Scott & Kissane asked to withdraw as legal representation for AJD and its driver in the wreck, Russel Rogatenko, in July 2019.

AJD was absent from all recent proceedings. A court default was entered against it on June 28, saying that AJD had failed to participate in the proceedings of the case since July 2019. That default is what led to AJD shouldering the punitive damages.

FMCSA data shows AJD as having its insurance canceled in July 2019. At the time of the accident, it was covered by Falls Lake National Insurance Co. FMCSA documents also show the status of AJD as inactive.

Kahkashan was represented by Sean McDonough of the firm of Wilson Elser. A call to him from FreightWaves had not been returned by publication time.

Kahkashan Carrier is Quebec-based. Its DOT number, like AJD’s, is listed as inactive.

Even if no money is ever collected from AJD, that does not mean that case has no impact. By ratcheting up yet again what constitutes an acceptable verdict in a trucking case, it leaves attorneys representing trucking companies concerned.

“The $900 million punitive damage verdict is essentially only meaningful for the plaintiff and lawyer in the sense that they were told by the jury that this was egregious and we want to recognize that with this award,” Kristen Johnson, a partner with Florida-based Taylor & Associates, said. Her area of speciality is trucking and logistics.

The reality of trying to collect, she said, is that “there’s nothing there.”

Without knowing what happened with AJD’s insurer, Johnson said it is likely that the insurer paid off the maximum amount it covered soon after the accident, “and then they are out.”

But the public image of trucking takes another hit with the verdict, according to Johnson. “It continues to build the reputation that the plaintiff’s lawyers are trying to build about trucking, that it is a bunch of bad guys that have these distracted guys on the road,” she said.

It also allows the plaintiff’s attorney, Pajcic & Pajcic, to accurately claim that it was a law firm that obtained a $1 billion verdict for a client in a case against a trucking company.

In a prepared statement released after the verdict was handed down Tuesday, Pajcic & Pajcic gave its version of what happened on Labor Day weekend in 2017.

“The semi-driver, working for AJD Business Services Inc. was distracted by his cell phone, driving over the legal limit of hours and did not even have a commercial driver’s license when he caused a crash and flipped his truck, blocking the highway and causing a massive backup on the interstate,” the statement from the law firm said. “More than an hour later, another distracted trucker, working for Kahkashan Carrier, Inc. of Canada, was traveling on cruise control at 70 miles an hour when he slammed into the line of stopped traffic, killing Connor [Dzion]. That truck’s data recorder showed he did not even attempt to brake until one second before the fatal crash.”

Jannie Steck, a partner with the trucking-focused law firm of Scopelitis Garvin Light Hanson & Feary, said the likely inability of the plaintiffs to collect the damages shouldn’t lead people to diminish the importance of the new high score in the nuclear verdict arena.

“It tells us something, that’s what they’ll do if you have a bad accident,” she said. The case had many of the “really new factors that we commonly see in nuclear verdicts,” Steck said, including improper use of cell phones and a driver’s poor safety record, which was alleged particularly against the AJD driver.

Alix Miller, the president of the Florida Trucking Association, said she was not familiar with the case beyond what she had read in media reports. But she indicated that the environment for trucking companies involved in litigation in the Sunshine State is getting tougher.

“The legal climate in Florida has been getting increasingly worse, with settlements and verdicts not reflective of evidence or the case,” she said in a statement to FreightWaves. “It is becoming difficult for trucking companies to do business in Florida — major insurance companies are no longer writing policies in the state, and rates can be 3-4x more per truck than other states. Safe and responsible trucking companies are facing moving out of Florida or going out of business as a direct result of a broken judicial system.”

Nuclear verdicts have jumped over 300% in the past decade, according to an analysis in JD Supra, and the average verdict size for a lawsuit involving a truck collision has increased from $2.3 million to $22.3 million. Eric Zalud, co-chair of Benesch’s Transportation and Logistics Practice Group, argues that the drastic jump in the dollar amount of these suits has been propagated by a sophisticated yet primordial strategy known as the Reptile Theory.

State legislatures across the United States are taking notice of this issue, and its effects upon the transportation sector in particular, and are working towards legislative fixes. One of the first bills to address this problem directly, Texas House Bill 19, recently passed on a bipartisan basis and will take effect in September. The law aims to compartmentalize the trial process and create new procedural thresholds, with the goal of putting the brakes on the Reptile Theory.

After a nearly three-year delay, a Texas appellate court has voted for all of its nine justices to take over an appeal of an $89.7 million lower court jury verdict against Werner Enterprises in a 2014 fatal accident that the motor carrier has steadfastly maintained was not its driver’s fault.

An appeal of that lower court ruling has already been heard by a three-judge panel of the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston. However, resolution was stalled after a judge on the panel retired before a decision was issued.

“Upon its own motion, a majority of this court orders en banc consideration of this case,” said a July 27 filing made after the nine justices took a vote. En banc cases are those that will be heard and decided by all nine of the court’s justices.

It was in 2018 that a Houston jury returned the huge verdict — one of the highest ever against a motor carrier — in connection with the 2014 crash. In it, a pickup truck driven by a friend of the plaintiff lost control on a slick interstate, traveled across the highway median and collided with a Werner tractor traveling on the opposite stretch of road. A jury awarded the plaintiff the $89.7 million verdict, but Werner appealed that decision in October 2018.

As the parties in the case awaited a decision, the court’s clerk sent a letter in January 2021 to the parties saying that “one or more” of the justices who heard the arguments had retired from the court before a panel decision could be made.

Now the entire court will hear the case; however, a timeline has not been disclosed.

Werner’s attorneys wrote in a court pleading: “At the time of this accident, [driver] Shiraz Ali was proceeding in his lane, in control of a Werner tractor-trailer and well below the speed limit, when the [plaintiff’s] vehicle suddenly careened into his path, leaving him no time to avoid a collision.”

The plaintiff’s attorney in the case, Eric Penn, told the jury that the driver was inexperienced, driving too fast, and should not even have been driving during the icy conditions. He also charged that Werner was negligent for failing to adequately train and supervise the driver for operating in bad weather.

Werner has denied those allegations and is asking the appellate court to “reverse the trial court’s judgment and render judgment in their favor or, at a minimum, remand this matter for a new trial.”

It’s unclear why the three-judge panel did not act more swiftly to render a decision.

In a dissenting opinion on the vote to hear the case en banc, Chief Justice of the court Tracy Christopher questioned why the three-judge panel was not permitted to issue its decision, which was circulated among the justices in anticipation of a panel ruling.

“There is no other appeal pending before this court with similar issues, nor are there any identified conflicts in our precedents,” Christopher wrote. “Simply put, in the 11 years that I have been on this court, there have been no grants of en banc consideration in a situation such as this.” Christopher added, “The panel majority opinion has been silenced — not to see the light of day.”

“There is simply no reason for this court to send the parties directly to en banc, not pass go, and not collect $200,” wrote Justice Randy Wilson in a 32-page dissenting opinion on the vote. “Research indicates that in the history of Texas jurisprudence an intermediate court of appeals with more than three justices has ordered en banc consideration of a case in the first instance only about a dozen times. The en banc court should explain why it has taken this highly unusual action.”

Justice Meagan Hassan, who voted in favor for en banc consideration of the case, said that proposed opinion of the three-judge panel “attempted to overhaul this court’s well-established standard of review concerning directed verdicts.” She added, “A majority of this en banc court has voted to examine this appeal and has decided that no additional briefing is necessary to do so.”

“It sounds like the full appellate court is going to decide the current appeal, and we continue to wait for that ruling,” said a Werner spokesman.

Eric Miller | Senior Reporter, Transport Topics

The practice involves providing loans — predominantly to plaintiff attorneys — and, in some instances, directly paying doctors up front for treatment of individuals injured in accidents, according to insurance experts and defense attorneys who monitor litigation finance.

Most of the loans are provided by financial firms seeking profit, and are mostly made in secret. The greatest concern for opponents of such litigation financing is the reality that outside financial backers can effectively take control of a case, driving up jury verdicts and settlements in trucking accident litigation.

“Allowing investors to turn the civil justice system into a profit-centered commodities market is egregious,” the 1,000-member American Property Casualty Insurance Association said in a recent statement. “Third-party litigation financing is surging, with more than $13 billion of capital invested in the U.S. This should concern everyone, particularly where that financing occurs away from public view and oversight, designed with rate of return in mind rather than justice and fairness.”

Page Faulk, senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, said litigation funding has the potential to “turn the courthouse into a casino.”

Richard Pianka, deputy general counsel for American Trucking Associations, agrees.

“You show up. You have no personal stake in the case. It’s just you’re putting some money down on black and hoping the ball lands on black,” Pianka said, comparing the practice to a game of roulette.

“What we see increasingly is that plaintiffs are unwilling to take a reasonable settlement offer because the funding arrangement doesn’t allow them to meet their obligations to their financing company,” Pianka said. “We don’t think that personal injury trials ought to be profit-making vehicles. Now, suddenly a truck accident looks like a good investment opportunity. It’s a perversion of the justice system, plain and simple.”

“The only way to know whether a particular litigation funding arrangement is violating core legal and ethical precepts or impeding settlement is to make the practice more transparent,” Faulk told Transport Topics.

The Chamber Institute said loans typically come with sky-high interest rates and fees — as much as 200% — that can leave plaintiffs with little to no recovery while fueling questionable litigation driven by lenders looking to cash in.

Federal courts in some states already require that opposing parties in a lawsuit be informed of such outside funding agreements. Not only would that allow defense attorneys to know what they’re up against, it also could likely permit them to question the outside funders during the legal discovery process.

Despite efforts by third-party funders to keep their investments secret, in some states there have been disclosure requirements. In June, such a transparency requirement became policy for all federal district courts in New Jersey. The policy will require any litigation funder in a civil lawsuit to disclose their identity and give a brief description of their interest in the case.

An estimated 25 of 94 federal district courts in the U.S. require some sort of disclosure of the identity of litigation funders in a civil case, said Maya Steinitz, a law professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, in a recent law journal article. In the case of federal appellate courts, six U.S. circuit courts of appeal have local rules requiring expanded disclosure of litigation funders, according to Steinitz.

Since 2017, the Chamber Institute and the APCIA have been among a wide-ranging coalition pressuring the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to require disclosure of third-party litigation funding arrangements in any civil action filed in federal court.

In their most recent letter to the committee, in 2019, the coalition addressed what it called 10 unfounded assertions that the third-party litigation funding industry has offered in opposition to the group’s disclosure effort.

The alleged “unfounded assertions” ranged from notions that a disclosure requirement would unfairly single out litigation funders and “let others off the hook,” to suggestions that funders “do not control or influence the litigation matters they fund.”

In a 2018 study, the Congressional Research Service noted that opponents of litigation funding have said the money “undesirably increases the volume and length of litigation by incentivizing litigants to initiate and prolong lawsuits even where doing so would otherwise not be economically rational.”

The report added that, according to critics, the prolonged litigation engendered by litigation funding hurts defendants, who are forced to divert additional time and money from productive activity to defending litigation.

Critics of litigation funding also argue that, because the third-party funder holds the purse strings to the litigation, the funder may exert control over a party’s litigation strategy in ways that are not in a plaintiff’s best interests.

“Critics similarly assert that when funders are fronting the fees for the claimants’ lawyers, those lawyers will be motivated to place the funder’s interests ahead of those of their clients,” the CRS report said. “Proponents of litigation funding, by contrast, maintain that litigation funding arrangements do not pose any greater risk of ethical conflicts than other capital arrangements that critics of litigation funding find unobjectionable, such as when banks hold security interests in law firms’ fee receivables.”

“There are some very prominent examples of incredible interest rates on loans,” said James Whittle, APCIA vice president and counsel. “There’s a variety of regulatory and disclosure obligations that we think are perfectly reasonable and that legitimate financiers shouldn’t want to object to,” he said. Whittle added that his group considers the trucking industry one of its allies.

An August 2020 report by the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates titled “Best Practices for Third-Party Litigation Funding” noted that the financing practices are largely unregulated by statute in most states.

“Accordingly, litigation funding companies with a national presence must navigate a shifting mosaic of common law, regulator guidance and bar association opinions in order to operate,” the report said. “Amidst this legal uncertainty, self-policing is necessary to avoid regulatory scrutiny and to dissuade legislators from enacting overly onerous statutory limitations.”

So far, bills introduced in Congress to require transparency by the litigation funders have not been passed.

“We definitely have lobbying reporting rules for engagement with other branches of government. The same rules ought to apply to the judicial system,” said Stef Zielezienski, executive vice president and chief legal counsel of the APCIA.

“The judicial system is designed for licensed professionals — lawyers — to engage in it,” Zielezienski added. “So if you have an overarching financial interest or stake in the outcome of litigation by non-lawyers, that is a little troubling.”

Zach Matthews, a partner with the law firm of McMickle, Kurey & Branch LLP, of Marietta, Ga., has for years investigated medical funding schemes to pay doctors for medical treatments resulting from vehicle accidents, and which typically result in litigation.

Matthews said the scheme is “much more nefarious and much more sophisticated” than the standard loan to a plaintiff attorney. Here’s how he said it often works: A doctor treats a plaintiff injured in an accident — perhaps involving a truck. Instead of the doctor sending a bill to the attorney to get paid when the lawsuit is concluded, the doctor is paid up front by a financial firm specializing in medical lending. However, the doctor is paid only a percentage of what his total bill would normally be. The likely inflated total bill, which Matthews calls “a standard litany of questionable medicine,” is then introduced into the lawsuit.

Rob Moseley, a trucking attorney with Greenville, S.C., Moseley Marcinak Law Group LLP, said he recently was involved in a lawsuit in which a funding firm was required to disclose it was paying a doctor. Moseley said he then sent a deposition request for the litigation funder to produce its records.

“Of course, the case settled right after that,” Moseley said. “That’s the way to go at it, to make them disclose all their relationships to the doctors. It puts pressure on the plaintiffs to try to get the case resolved.”

The Texas Senate has unanimously approved a House bill that would help curb the growing trend of lawsuit abuse targeting commercial vehicles in Texas.

Texas HB 19 was passed by the Senate on May 19 in a 31-0 vote. The bill now will be sent back to the Texas House to approve an amendment agreed upon by the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the bill’s supporters, including trucking companies and small businesses throughout Texas.

Once the House formally approves the amendment, fashioned in the Senate, the bill will be sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign the bill into law.

“Despite the plaintiff bar’s best efforts to lie about and distort the contents of this bill, the Texas Senate took a resoundingly bipartisan vote today to curb lawsuit abuse and restore balance and fairness to the civil justice system,” said American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear. “Texas has joined the growing ranks of states across the country pursuing common-sense measures to ensure the plaintiffs’ bar can’t keep perverting civil justice into a profit center to line their own pockets.”

“Today, the Texas Senate was heard loud and clear —Texas businesses matter,” John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association, said in a statement. “With the unanimous passage of House Bill 19, the trial process will continue to ensure accident victims are compensated when wrongfully injured, while also protecting businesses across the state from biased and unfair courtroom tactics.”

The bill includes a provision that would allow properly authenticated photographs or videos of a vehicle or object involved in a collision to be admitted into evidence. Presently, judges in Texas have discretion on whether to allow photo or video evidence, and in some cases are known to leave out photo evidence because it may be too gruesome or deemed not relevant.

Another provision in HB 19 would “bifurcate” a trial, limiting allegations of unsafe motor carrier safety practices to the second phase. The first phase of a trial would focus on assessing fault in a crash.

It also ensures juries are presented with evidence that is directly relevant to causation and injuries in a highway accident and ensures the case is focused on the events at issue — not on extraneous allegations outside the scope of the underlying accident.

The amendment extended the time that motor carriers must keep records of driver employment, drug and alcohol testing, and the employer’s duty to investigate a driver’s employment application.

“HB 19 proves that Texas can protect the rights of victims who are injured by the negligence of others on our roadways without letting abusive lawsuits decimate small businesses and the commercial vehicle network we rely on every day,” said a statement by the Keep Texas Trucking Coalition. “Lawsuit abuse is not a partisan issue, and throughout the legislative process, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have come together to provide feedback and support this common-sense fix to a serious problem that affects every sector of Texas’ economy.”

By Luis Montoya

WESLACO, Texas – Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse leaders are applauding legislation aimed at reining in lawsuits against commercial vehicle owners and operators.

The legislation CALA supports is House Bill 19, authored state Rep. Jeff Leach, chairman of the Texas House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee.

Its Senate sponsor is state Sen. Larry Taylor of Pearland. The legislation just passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 31-0. However, because an amendment was added it must now go back to the House for approval.

Sergio Contreras, president and CEO of Weslaco-based Rio Grande Valley CALA, said that while other types of personal injury lawsuits are decreasing in Texas, motor vehicle litigation is increasing in the state.

Contreras pointed to data from the Texas Office of Court Administration which showed the number of motor vehicle lawsuits jumping 118 percent between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2019. In contrast, Contreras said, other types of injury and damage cases decreased seven percent during the same period.

Contreras said if not reined in, lawsuit abuse against owners and operators of commercial vehicles could land Texas back on the ‘Judicial Hellholes’ list. The annual list from the American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) flags areas of the country where lawsuit abuse is rampant, and justice is not evenly applied. Texas has escaped the list in recent years.

“It would be easy to chalk up our past reforms and call it game over on lawsuit abuse in our state, but that’s simply not the case,” Contreras said. “We hope the Legislature takes up these reforms to rein in trucking lawsuit abuse as quickly as possible.”

Contreras pointed out that nearly 88 percent of commercial carriers in Texas operate 10 or fewer vehicles.

“HB 19 supports commercial vehicle operators in Texas; they are small businesses that simply cannot afford the risk of an abusive lawsuit or the increased cost of insurance,”Contreras said.

“Abusive lawsuits kill Texas jobs. As we work to recover from the pandemic, we should be doing everything we can to create jobs and strengthen our economy – and to help stop lawsuit abuse. That’s why we support House Bill 19.”

Bobby Jenkins, a board member of CALA of Central Texas in Austin said that as a result of the higher number of lawsuits against commercial vehicle owners and operators, insurance rates are skyrocketing, whether or not a company has even had an accident. Jenkins said this has already driven some trucking companies out of business and could mean higher costs for goods and services for consumers.

“Any truck or car with a company logo on it is a target for abusive lawsuits,” Jenkins said. “No matter the size of the vehicle or industry, and no matter how minor the accident or who was at fault, commercial delivery and service vehicles are susceptible to these questionable lawsuits. If your neighborhood pharmacy makes deliveries in a car with a logo on its door, that business is a potential target of an abusive lawsuit. So is everyone from ride-share services to restaurant delivery vehicles to plumbers.”

D’Anne Buquet, executive director of Bay Area CALA in Corpus Christi, said without immediate reform, many small businesses will continue to be saddled with increased costs of doing business. At the same time, Buquet said, the state could see more trucking businesses shutter their operations in Texas.

“We all could see higher costs for the goods and services we need and depend on, especially right now during the pandemic,” Buquet said.

Asked about HB 19, Buquet said: “This legislation is vital if we hope to curtail the questionable lawsuits impacting the owners and operators of commercial or company vehicles – the vast majority of which are small businesses. This bill includes needed reforms to clarify the rules for how these lawsuits are handled and to ensure that juries have the facts they need to reach fair verdicts.”

Amber Pearce, chair of CALA of Central Texas, agreed.

“By targeting abusive and frivolous lawsuits that plagued our civil justice system for decades, Texas lawmakers have helped ensure our courts are a place for justice, not greed,” Pearce said. “It’s time to turn our attention to reforming the persistent attack on commercial vehicle operators and owners.”

Contreras said more information about the ATRF 2020-2021 Judicial Hellholes report can be found here. He said Texans could learn more about the history of lawsuit reform in Texas here. For more information about CALA, Contreras said, visit www.tala.com.

Keep Texas Trucking Coalition

The Keep Texas Trucking Coalition released the following statement regarding the passage of House Bill 19 by the Texas Senate:

“The Texas Senate has taken decisive action today to stand with Texas small businesses against abusive, job killing lawsuits by unanimously passing HB 19. Lawsuit abuse is not a partisan issue, and throughout the legislative process, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have come together to provide feedback and support this common-sense fix to a serious problem that affects every sector of Texas’ economy.

“We are grateful for the leadership of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who named abusive commercial vehicle litigation as a priority item this session, as well as Sen. Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood) for helping build broad support for this legislation in the Senate, including cosponsors Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. (D-Brownsville) and Sen. Chuy Hinojosa (D-McAllen).

“HB 19 proves that Texas can protect the rights of victims who are injured by the negligence of others on our roadways without letting abusive lawsuits decimate small businesses and the commercial vehicle network we rely on every day. We hope the Texas House will quickly concur with the bill that was passed by the Senate, and send this critical legislation to the governor’s desk.

“With more than 600 members spanning businesses and associations of all sizes across nearly every sector of the Texas economy, the Keep Texas Trucking Coalition is working to ensure the Texas economy, small businesses and employers are not harmed by abusive commercial vehicle litigation. For more information, please visit www.keeptexastrucking.com.”

Another view

Bay Scoggin, director of the consumer advocacy organization TexPIRG, had a different take on HB 19 than CALA and Keep Texas Trucking. Scoggin said the bill would pervert the incentives designed to keep companies accountable.

“Litigation is consumers’ last resort, but it’s currently our most important deterrent to deadly negligence and wrongdoing by commercial vehicle companies,” Scoggin said.

Adrian Shelley, director of Public Citizen Texas, said Texas owns the dubious distinction of having more large truck crashes than any other state in the nation in each of the last four years. In 2019, Shelley said, Texas had more large truck crashes than the neighboring states of Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona, Mississippi, Nebraska, Kansas, and New Mexico combined.

Shelley said: “This bill (HB 19) turns its back on the hundreds of Texas families who experience tragedy in commercial truck accidents each year. It limits corporate liability and throws roadblocks into the recovery process for grieving families. Texas has a series truck crash problem, but HB 19 is far from a solution.”

Ware Wendell, executive director of Texas Watch, said: “Texas already has the most dangerous roads in the nation. This legislation will only put all of us at greater threat. We need to improve safety, not give careless corporations less incentive to follow the rules of the road.”

By D’Anne Buquet

This opinion reflects the recent trend in aggressive and excessive tactics used to take advantage of Corpus Christi employers. I write on behalf of several small businesses who declined to go public on the issue, knowing that some personal injury lawyers will retaliate against anyone who questions their abuse of the justice system.

Living through a pandemic has made us keenly aware of how important delivery and service vehicles are to our daily lives. From groceries to vaccinations, commercial vehicles have been the integral piece to getting us what we need when we need it most.

Unfortunately, some personal injury lawyers have set their sights on the very businesses that are getting us through this challenging time. And it is not only big 18-wheelers at risk, but also any car or truck with a logo on its door. These local small businesses providing essential services, such as plumbers, electricians, food delivery, waste pick-up, parcel delivery, and A/C repair operators are targets for lawyers searching for another big payoff. Even after our community experienced a historic freeze, leaving many grappling with extensive home repairs, owners and operators of commercial vehicles are dodging frivolous lawsuits as they work tirelessly to serve our neighbors. No matter how minor the accident or who was at fault, these employers are being attacked.

If you wonder why, consider this: Commercial vehicles operating in Texas must carry considerable liability insurance, ranging from $300,000 to $5 million. That means these businesses that employ your family and neighbors are irresistible targets to opportunistic personal injury lawyers. And we’re talking small businesses. Nearly 88 percent of commercial carriers operate 10 or fewer vehicles in Texas today.

A fleet operator in South Texas shared with me how their business has seen aggressive tactics by some personal injury lawyers such as immediately filing for the amount of our insurance or insinuating severe bodily injury occurred even though the damage to the vehicle was minimal and all plaintiffs were fine at the scene of the accident. Providing safe operations, safe drivers, and safe equipment is a priority to this business. If an accident is our fault, they want to pay the appropriate amount to make it right. The problem comes when the payout is above and beyond what is reasonable or supported by the facts of the accident, leading to more and more small businesses unable to obtain the insurance required to operate commercial vehicles.

This is a rapidly growing problem across the state. The number of motor vehicle lawsuits across Texas is increasing, while other types of personal injury lawsuits are declining. From fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2019, the number of motor vehicle lawsuits soared 118 percent, according to the Texas Office of Court Administration. Other types of injury and damage cases dropped seven percent during the same time.

In 2008 in Texas, a lawsuit was filed after one out of 17 vehicle accidents. In 2019, it was about one out of 10 accidents, which is an eye-popping 71 percent increase. The result has been a dramatic increase in insurance rates, and that has already put some commercial vehicle operators out of business.

There’s no question that there may be legitimate insurance claims to be made when accidents occur. But the increasing number of these lawsuits, and the questionable and abusive nature of many, stands to hurt everyone, from the consumer to the business owner.

Between small businesses laden with increased costs of doing business and an increase in consumers’ costs, we are all paying for the problem. It’s time to put a stop to these abusive lawsuits. It’s time for Texas lawmakers to pass House Bill 19 by state Rep. Jeff Leach.