$17 Million Verdict Against XPO Logistics After 18-Wheeler Killed Canadian Family on I-95
Won by Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers.
A federal jury awarded $17 million to the surviving relatives of a Canadian Army private, his wife, and their infant son killed when an XPO Express 18-wheeler plowed into slowed construction-zone traffic on Interstate 95 near Florence, South Carolina.
What happened
On the evening of March 21, 2015, Jeremiah Cross, a 34-year-old private in the Canadian Army, was driving north on Interstate 95 in Florence County, South Carolina, with his wife Crystal, 32, and their infant son. Traffic had slowed ahead for an active construction zone. Multiple posted signs warned drivers approaching from the south to reduce speed.
Timothy Groshans, driving an 18-wheeler for XPO Express, Inc. and XPO Logistics, Inc., was behind the Cross family vehicle, maintaining 70 miles per hour on cruise control. He passed every warning sign without lifting off the throttle. His truck struck the Cross family's 2008 Honda CR-V and several other vehicles. The collision and the fire that followed killed all three members of the family.
Valerie Steele, Jeremiah's mother, filed suit as personal representative of the estates. The case was assigned docket number 2:15-cv-02480 in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, before Judge Bruce Bowe Hendricks.
Joye Law Firm trial counsel Mark C. Joye and Mark Bringardner, with managing partner Ken Harrell, built their case on three pillars. The truck left no skid marks before the point of impact, showing Groshans never attempted to brake. He had ignored at least two posted warnings about the construction zone and the reduced speed limit. And he refused post-crash alcohol testing, which plaintiffs presented to the jury as evidence supporting their impairment theory. XPO, ranked among the ten largest trucking and logistics companies in the world, had offered $13 million to settle before trial. The plaintiffs declined.
The jury deliberated for two days after eight days of testimony and returned a $17 million verdict on May 3, 2018. Jurors placed 70 percent of fault on Groshans and divided the remaining 30 percent equally between XPO Express and XPO Logistics. The award broke down as $12 million to the estates of Jeremiah and his infant son and $5 million to Crystal's estate. South Carolina Lawyers Weekly ranked it the top verdict in the state for 2018. No post-judgment reduction or remittitur has been reported in available public records.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers
All Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers proven verdicts →A federal jury awarded $262.5 million after finding that a defective rear liftgate latch on a 1985 Dodge Caravan caused a six-year-old boy to be ejected and killed in a 1994 crash; the punitive damages were later reversed on appeal and the case settled confidentially in 2001.
A Berkeley County apartment complex that failed to equip its pool gates with code-required latching hardware settled the wrongful death claim of a three-year-old boy's family for six million dollars.
Joye Law Firm recovered $5 million for the estate of a Goodwill custodian killed when a terminal tractor with broken headlights made an illegal U-turn and struck her in a Joint Base Charleston parking lot.
A South Carolina man rear-ended by a drunk driver who fled the scene recovered $3.6 million after the driver's employer disputed vehicle ownership and scope of employment, with cervical fusion and knee surgery documented.
Related wrongful death verdicts
In December 2011, a Fayette County, Texas jury awarded the family of an 8-year-old Splendora boy $150.37 billion after he was doused with gasoline and set on fire by a 13-year-old neighbor in 1998, two weeks after the same neighbor sexually assaulted him. The boy survived third-degree burns over 99 percent of his body for nearly 13 years before dying in April 2011 of a skin cancer linked to his injuries. The defendant, Don Wilburn Collins, never appeared to answer the civil suit, and the jury awarded $370 million in actual damages plus roughly $150 billion in punitive damages, the largest civil verdict in U.S. history. Attorney Craig Sico, who represented the family, said from the outset that the judgment was not collectible and was intended to pressure prosecutors into reopening the long-dormant criminal case. Prosecutors did reopen the case, and Collins was later convicted of capital murder in a separate criminal proceeding.
A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.
Frantz Law Group, representing roughly 5,000 victims, helped negotiate a $13.5 billion PG&E bankruptcy settlement covering tens of thousands of survivors and families from the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay, and 2018 Camp wildfires.