Wayne County Jury Awards $96 Million to Family of Father and Son Killed by Truck on I-75
After trial: The verdict is on appeal: Challenger Motor Freight's appeal, docket 371420, was set for the Michigan Court of Appeals' August 2026 session. We found no appellate decision, remittitur or post-verdict settlement, so the final amount is unconfirmed.
Won by McKeen & Associates, PC.
In April 2023 a Wayne County jury awarded $96 million to the widow and mother of Jude and Zachary Attianese, a New Jersey father and son killed when a Challenger Motor Freight tractor-trailer rear-ended their car in an I-75 construction zone in 2018. The company had acknowledged responsibility, so the trial addressed damages. The driver was taking medications for Parkinson's disease, and the company had known of his diagnosis since 2015.
What happened
On April 20, 2023, a Wayne County Circuit Court jury in Detroit returned a $96 million verdict for Natalie Attianese, whose husband Jude and son Zachary were killed in a trucking crash on Interstate 75 in June 2018. The family's lawyers called it possibly the largest verdict of its kind in Michigan.
Jude Attianese, a small business owner and youth baseball coach from Matawan, New Jersey, and his son Zachary, 20, were driving to a funeral in the Detroit area. Near Brownstown Township, traffic on I-75 had slowed to roughly five miles per hour through a construction zone. A tractor-trailer traveling at about 55 miles per hour struck their Ford Explorer from behind. Both men died.
The truck belonged to Challenger Motor Freight, a Canada-based carrier with roughly 900 to 1,000 employees. Its driver was taking three Parkinson's disease medications, each carrying warnings about drowsiness, sudden sleep attacks and operating heavy equipment. Michigan State Police found no evidence that he braked before impact. At trial, the family's lawyers showed that the company had been told in 2015 that the driver had Parkinson's disease and had not carried out the assessments that would have shown whether he could safely drive.
Challenger Motor Freight acknowledged responsibility for the crash, which left the jury to decide damages. The jury found both the driver and the company negligent. Zachary was among the country's highest-ranked left-handed pitchers and had signed to play at Florida State University. Attorney Brian McKeen told reporters that baseball was an integral part of the family's life and that they had looked forward to following his career. After the verdict he said that companies that hire people to operate heavy machinery have an obligation to make sure their employees are competent and safe.
The family was represented by Brian McKeen of McKeen & Associates in Detroit and Judith Livingston of New York.
Defense attorney Brian Del Gatto told CBS Detroit that the company considered the verdict highly excessive and that any appeal would set out the reasons. After his death, his baseball coach at Old Bridge High School in New Jersey said no player would wear his number 49 again.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CBS Detroit, 'Jury awards $96M in crash that killed baseball star and dad', April 2023·Archived copy
- 2.WXYZ Detroit, 'Woman wins $96 million verdict after husband, son killed in trucking crash on I-75', April 2023·Archived copy
- 3.Transport Topics, 'Canadian Carrier to Appeal Nuclear Verdict', May 18, 2023·Archived copy
- 4.Detroit Free Press, 'Jury awards $96 million to mom whose son and husband died on I-75', April 24, 2023·Archived copy
- 5.U.S. District Court, E.D. Michigan, Attianese v. Nogueras, No. 2:20-cv-10274, docket
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