$15.57 Million Verdict Against Drunk Trucker and Freight Broker J.B. Hunt
Won by Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig.
A Philadelphia jury held J.B. Hunt Transport 40% liable for catastrophic injuries to a roadside pedestrian after finding the freight broker failed to screen its independent-contractor driver, who was operating with a blood alcohol level more than four times the commercial legal limit.
What happened
On the night of November 19, 2013, Isaac Espinoza pulled over on the shoulder of Interstate 81 in Gilford Township, near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to help a friend whose car had broken down. He was lawfully standing on the shoulder when a tractor-trailer driven by Ricky Hatfield veered out of the travel lanes and struck him and his friend.
Hatfield's blood alcohol content measured .171, more than four times the legal limit for commercial vehicle operators. He fled on foot before police arrived. When officers caught him, the tests revealed a driving history that should have ended his commercial career long before that night: a prior DUI while operating a tractor-trailer, a reckless driving conviction, and a prior termination from a trucking employer for failing a drug and alcohol screening, during which he reportedly attempted to bribe the test administrator.
Espinoza survived, but the collision left him with catastrophic, permanent injuries. His right arm was rendered completely non-functional. The left arm had only limited use. He suffered multiple pelvic fractures, a ruptured diaphragm, multiple cervical fractures requiring fusion surgery, and a traumatic brain injury. He requires around-the-clock attendant care, which his family provides at home.
Feldman Shepherd, led by Alan M. Feldman, argued at trial that J.B. Hunt, which had contracted with Hatfield as an independent contractor to haul the load, bore responsibility for what its own background check would have revealed. The firm presented evidence that a basic vetting inquiry into Hatfield's commercial driving record would have surfaced the prior DUI, the reckless driving charge, and the drug-test failure, any one of which should have disqualified him.
After a three-week trial, the jury agreed. It apportioned 60% of fault to Hatfield and 40% to J.B. Hunt Transport. The total verdict came to $15.57 million. No post-trial reduction has been publicly reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig
All Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig proven verdicts →A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
A Philadelphia jury found Pottstown Memorial Medical Center liable for a newborn's severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy after the hospital's outdated, unmaintained ultrasound equipment led a physician to incorrectly declare the baby dead, delaying an emergency cesarean section by 81 minutes.
Feldman Shepherd secured a combined $50 million settlement from IKEA on behalf of three families whose toddler sons were fatally crushed by MALM dressers, a result that preceded a nationwide recall of approximately 29 million chests and dressers.
Alan Feldman of Feldman Shepherd secured a $46 million settlement against IKEA on behalf of the family of a 2-year-old boy crushed by a MALM dresser in California, reported at the time as the largest child wrongful-death settlement in U.S. history.
Related truck accident verdicts
A Nassau County jury found two trucking companies responsible for the 2017 chain-reaction crash on I-95 near Yulee that killed 18-year-old Connor Dzion, returning a $1 billion verdict that Curry Pajcic won for the teen's parents.
A Titus County jury awarded $730 million to the family of Toni Combest, a 73-year-old great-grandmother killed when a Landstar Ranger truck hauling a 197,000-pound Navy submarine propeller struck her car on a narrow Highway 271 bridge, though the family's actual recovery came from pretrial settlements: $50 million from Landstar Ranger and $1 million from escort company S&M Pilot Service, with the verdict itself returned against the small front-escort company 2A Pilot Cars.
A Leon County jury awarded $411,726,608 to Duane Washington, a career Army sergeant left partially paralyzed in a 45-vehicle pileup on Interstate 10 near Tallahassee, in the Second Judicial Circuit's first virtual jury trial. Ben Crump tried the damages case with co-counsel Robert Cox. Liability was entered by default after defendant Top Auto Express stopped responding in the litigation, its lawyer withdrew months before trial, the one-truck Pembroke Pines carrier sat out the Zoom trial undefended, and industry observers called the record number essentially uncollectable beyond the roughly $1 million in insurance that was offered and rejected before trial.
On February 13, 2016, 21-year-old Riley McPherson was killed on U.S. 271 near Gilmer, Texas, when his van struck the side of a Jefferson Trucking flatbed tractor-trailer that was blocking all four lanes of the highway while its driver, on hour 17 of a run home from Ohio, tried to back it into a private driveway. McPherson's parents, Eddie McPherson and Karen Pearson, sued Jefferson Trucking, driver Eric Wayne Jefferson, and Timothy Wayne Jefferson in the 115th District Court of Upshur County. On November 8, 2018, a jury apportioned 65 percent fault to Eric Jefferson, 20 percent to Jefferson Trucking, 10 percent to Timothy Jefferson, and 5 percent to McPherson, and set damages at $260 million, which the comparative-fault finding reduced to $247 million. The defendants appealed, then voluntarily dismissed their own appeal, leaving the trial court judgment intact.