Sleep-Deprived Truck Driver's Highway Swerve Leads to $47 Million Wrongful Death Verdict
After trial: Schneider National Carriers appealed the verdict. The Georgia Court of Appeals heard oral argument the week of June 5, 2026, on whether the trial court wrongly excluded cross-examination of Phillip Taylor, the pickup driver and a former co-defendant who was dismissed before trial, about that prior status; whether the jury instructions on the sudden emergency doctrine and wrongful death damages were proper; and whether plaintiff's counsel's closing argument used improper anchoring. No ruling had issued as of September 2026, so the $47 million verdict stands unreduced but is not yet final, and it is not publicly confirmed whether Schneider has paid any portion of it while the appeal is pending.
Won by Law & Moran, Attorneys at Law.
A Schneider National Carriers truck driver who had gone roughly 22 hours without consistent sleep swerved across multiple lanes of Interstate 285 in Atlanta before dawn on August 17, 2017, forcing a pickup into the left lane and onto the emergency lane, where it struck and killed Jarvis Nance Sr., a 35-year-old owner-operator standing beside his own disabled tractor. Nance's widow sued Schneider and the driver in Cherokee County State Court, and on June 7, 2024, after a five-day trial, the jury awarded $47 million in compensatory damages and assigned 100 percent of the fault to the defendants. Schneider has appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument in June 2026 on a cross-examination ruling, the jury instructions, and closing argument conduct. No decision has issued.
What happened
Before dawn on August 17, 2017, Darryl Joachim was driving a Schneider National Carriers tractor-trailer south on Interstate 285 near Camp Creek Parkway in Atlanta. Court records described at trial put him at roughly 22 hours without any period of consistent sleep or rest, drawn from phone records showing he made or took 27 calls the day before. Around 5:40 a.m. he swerved the rig across multiple lanes and into the path of a 2009 GMC Sierra pickup driven by Phillip Taylor. Taylor was forced into the left lane and onto the emergency lane beside the median barrier. There the pickup struck Jarvis Nance Sr., a 35-year-old owner-operator who had stepped out of his own disabled 2007 International tractor. The impact knocked Nance over the median barrier into the northbound lanes. He was killed. He was a father of three and ran Nance Truckin LLC out of Powder Springs, Georgia.
Nance's widow, Mistie Nance, sued as administrator of her husband's estate in Cherokee County State Court in Canton, Georgia. Taylor and Highridge Partners of Canton, the company that owned the pickup he was driving, were named as defendants early in the case and were dismissed before trial after Highridge's truck insurer settled with Nance. That left Schneider and Joachim to try the case before Chief Judge W. Alan Jordan. Nance was represented by Peter Law Sr., Michael Moran and Brian Kaplan of Law & Moran. Schneider was defended at trial by John Dixon of Dennis Corry Smith & Dixon.
The five-day trial turned on whether Joachim should have been behind the wheel at all and on how his trailer came across the southbound lanes. Jurors heard that his Qualcomm records showed repeated critical driving events for hard braking and stability control, and that his motor vehicle record listed multiple crashes during his short tenure at Schneider. On June 7, 2024, the jury returned a verdict of $47 million in compensatory damages and apportioned 100 percent of the fault to Schneider and Joachim. The Daily Report covered the result as a sign of changing times in a fast-growing metro Atlanta county. Moran told the paper that jurors in places like Cherokee County 'don't have a problem rendering a fair verdict if that means it's going to be a big number for nice, deserving plaintiffs.'
Schneider appealed the verdict to the Georgia Court of Appeals. The court heard oral argument the week of June 5, 2026, with Michael Eber and Michael Caplan of Caplan Cobb representing Schneider. The company argues that the trial court wrongly barred cross-examination of Taylor about his own earlier status as a named defendant, which it says gave him a reason to point at Schneider; that the jury received flawed instructions on the sudden emergency doctrine and on wrongful death damages; and that Nance's attorneys used improper anchoring during closing argument. As of this writing, the Court of Appeals had not ruled.
The $47 million verdict stands unreduced while the appeal remains pending. Georgia does not cap compensatory damages in a wrongful death claim of this kind, so an affirmance would leave the number intact. Schneider National Carriers is a unit of publicly traded Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE: SNDR).
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.FreightWaves, June 2024: case name (Nance v. Schneider National Carriers, Inc. and Darryl Joachim), crash date, time and location, the chain of events and where Nance was standing, the 22-hours-without-consistent-sleep finding from court documents, Taylor and Highridge's dismissal after their insurer settled, presiding judge, defense counsel, verdict amount and date, jury's full-fault finding
- 2.Law.com Daily Report Online, June 11 2024: verdict amount, venue, plaintiffs' counsel named as Peter Law Sr., Michael Moran and Brian Kaplan of Law & Moran, Moran's post-verdict quote
- 3.Law360: confirms Schneider's active appeal to the Georgia Court of Appeals and the cross-examination issue raised over the former co-defendant witness
- 4.Caplan Cobb (Schneider's appellate counsel), June 5 2026: oral argument week, defense appellate counsel names, the three issues raised on appeal, confirms no ruling yet
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