Family of Two Children Killed in I-30 Truck Fire Settles With Werner for $150 Million
After trial: This was a pre-trial settlement, so there was no verdict to appeal. Werner's SEC filing states the $150 million was funded by the company and its insurance carriers, which is why collectability is marked paid rather than not-public. Werner maintained that investigating officers placed no fault on it or its driver, and one of the adults who had been in the vehicle was separately charged criminally in connection with the children's deaths; neither the family, the driver, nor that adult is named in the sources reviewed.
Won by Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P..
Before dawn on May 24, 2020, a Werner Enterprises tractor-trailer struck the rear of a passenger car stopped in a live lane of Interstate 30 near Sulphur Springs, Texas, with two children, ages 7 and 9, inside. The car caught fire and both children died. Their parents sued Werner and its driver, alleging negligent and grossly negligent operation of the tractor-trailer, negligent hiring, training, and supervision of the driver, and negligent entrustment of the truck. In July 2022, Werner announced it had agreed to pay $150 million to resolve the case without a trial, funded by the company and its insurance carriers. Goudarzi & Young, through founding partner Brent Goudarzi, represented the family.
What happened
At about 5 a.m. on May 24, 2020, a passenger car sat stopped in a travel lane of Interstate 30 near Sulphur Springs, Texas, with two children, ages 7 and 9, inside. Accounts of how it came to be there differ: the Longview News-Journal reported that the car had become disabled and that the children were trapped in it, while Werner said three adults had walked away from a vehicle parked in the lane of travel. A Werner Enterprises 18-wheeler, which the company says was traveling below the speed limit, struck the car from behind. The impact set the vehicle on fire, and both children were killed.
The children's parents sued Werner Enterprises and its driver, arguing the company bore responsibility for the driver behind the wheel that morning. The complaint alleged negligent and grossly negligent operation of the tractor-trailer, negligent hiring, training, and supervision of the driver, and negligent entrustment of the truck to a driver the company knew or should have known was unsafe. Brent Goudarzi of Goudarzi & Young, the family's lawyer, told the Longview News-Journal that Werner's drivers were 'overworked and allowed to drive despite the fact that they are clearly fatigued.'
Werner disputed the family's account of what caused the crash. The company pointed to the responding officers' report, which placed no fault on Werner or its driver, and said the wreck was set in motion by the decision to leave a vehicle stopped in a highway travel lane. One of the adults who had been in the car was separately charged criminally in connection with the children's deaths. Werner's chief legal officer, Nathan Meisgeier, said in a statement that corporate defendants are facing large, unpredictable jury verdicts in courtrooms nationwide, including in Texas, and that the company judged it prudent to resolve the case rather than take that risk to trial.
The case never reached a jury. In July 2022, Werner announced it had agreed to pay $150 million to settle the lawsuit, funded by the company and its insurance carriers, according to the filing Werner made with the Securities and Exchange Commission disclosing the deal. The Longview News-Journal reported the deal as the largest publicly reported settlement of an 18-wheeler crash case in United States history.
Werner declined to publicly identify the family, the driver, or the adult who was criminally charged, and none of the sources reviewed name them. The settlement closed the civil case; the officers' finding that Werner and its driver were not at fault, and the separate criminal charge against one of the vehicle's adult occupants, remain part of the public record of how the crash was investigated.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Longview News-Journal, 2022: names Goudarzi & Young and founding partner Brent Goudarzi as the family's counsel, states the $150 million figure, and quotes Goudarzi describing the negligent hiring, training, and entrustment allegations against Werner
- 2.WOWT (Omaha), 2022-07-28: reports the May 2020 crash on I-30 near Sulphur Springs, that two children died after being left in the car, that officers placed no fault on Werner, that one adult occupant was criminally charged, and quotes Werner's chief legal officer on the decision to settle
- 3.Werner Enterprises SEC filing (exhibit to Form 8-K), 2022-07-28: Werner's own disclosure that the $150 million settlement would be funded by the company and its insurance carriers
- 4.CDLLife, 2022: corroborates the crash facts, the police finding of no fault against Werner, and the $150 million settlement funded by Werner and its insurers
More proven verdicts from Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P.
All Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P. proven verdicts →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.
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.
A 39-year-old man was left quadriplegic in 2017 when an 18-wheeler struck his vehicle on Highway 259 near Ore City in Upshur County, Texas. The case went to trial, where evidence showed the truck's driver, Dijuana Smith, had been involved in multiple crashes before the wreck, and where attorneys said she had violated state and federal trucking regulations. Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P., of Gilmer, Texas, represented the injured man, and the parties reached a $140 million settlement in July 2019. The firm, and later a Lawdragon profile of managing partner Brent Goudarzi, both described it as the largest settlement for a single plaintiff in American legal history. The identities of the plaintiff and the trucking company were not publicly disclosed.
Barbara Dalby was in her car on State Highway 191 in Odessa, Texas, on a Friday night in November 2019 when a Ford F-150 owned by Hunt Oil Company crossed into her lane and hit her head on. Her lawyers said the driver, Hunt Oil employee Mikeal Crosson, had drugs and alcohol in his system, and court filings placed him at a bar a few blocks away shortly before the wreck. Dalby needed lumbar fusion surgery for a back injury her lawyers described as permanent, and she has not been able to return to work. She sued Hunt Oil and Crosson in Dallas County's 116th District Court, and an insurance company for Hunt Oil agreed to pay $30 million in late September 2024 with jury selection already underway.
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