Tire Shop Held Liable for Share of Casper Truck Brake Crash Verdict
After trial: The $6.4 million figure is the jury's combined finding for Skalicky and his wife before Wyoming's comparative fault statute, Wyo. Stat. 1-1-109(e), limited each defendant to its own share. Dickerson was dismissed as a defendant in April 2023 and Magic City Stoves settled before trial on terms that were not disclosed, so the 85 percent share the jury assigned to Dickerson was never collectible from Tire-Rama. Tire-Rama's judgment stands at about $960,000, its 15 percent share. No appellate decision in the case could be located in the Wyoming Supreme Court reporters or on CourtListener, and whether that judgment has been paid is not public.
Won by Ochs Law Firm.
A Natrona County jury found that Casper tire shop Tire-Rama shared responsibility for a 2019 truck crash that injured Nicholas Skalicky, awarding him $6.1 million and his wife $300,000 after eight days of trial. Skalicky argued the shop's technicians had failed to verify the brakes on a tractor-trailer before releasing it to the driver who rear-ended him. The jury apportioned 85 percent of the fault to that driver, who had already been dismissed from the case, leaving Tire-Rama liable for its 15 percent share, about $960,000. Jason Ochs of Ochs Law Firm represented Skalicky at trial.
What happened
On September 9, 2019, Nicholas Skalicky was stopped at the light on CY Avenue at Southwest Wyoming Boulevard in Casper, Wyoming, facing east and waiting to turn left, when a 1998 Volvo tractor-trailer rear-ended his car. The truck's driver, George Dickerson, was working for Magic City Stoves and had just picked the rig up from Tire-Rama, the shop on Prospector Drive where it had gone in for brake service.
Dickerson testified that he had no brakes and that he had tried everything he could think of to slow the truck over the quarter mile before the impact, including the trailer brakes and the emergency brake on the air compressor, before settling for the engine brake and downshifting. Skalicky's suit against the shop argued that its technicians had failed to verify the brakes were working before releasing the vehicle back onto the road.
Jason Ochs of Ochs Law Firm represented Skalicky at trial in the District Court of Natrona County. Ochs told jurors that his client, once an active volunteer firefighter and captain of his local Mine Rescue Team, was left in constant pain with pinched nerves and herniated discs that needed surgery, and that the former coal plant technician had been having debilitating back pain and nerve flare-ups since the crash. "You're going to learn all about air brakes in this trial," Ochs said at the start of what became eight days of testimony.
Defense counsel Scott Klosterman of Williams, Porter, Day & Neville represented The Tire Guys Inc., which does business as Tire-Rama. Klosterman argued that the blame belonged to Dickerson as an inattentive driver, and that the shop's records showed its employees had not touched the braking system beyond replacing one shoe while repairing a seal leak. Dickerson had been dismissed as a defendant in April 2023 and Magic City Stoves settled before trial, which left the shop as the only defendant when the case reached the jury.
On November 1, 2023, the jury awarded Skalicky $6.1 million and his wife $300,000 for damages tied to her husband's symptoms, a combined $6.4 million. Jurors then apportioned fault: 85 percent to Dickerson, who was no longer a defendant, and 15 percent to Tire-Rama.
Under Wyoming's comparative fault statute, a defendant is liable only for its own assigned share of the damages, even when the larger share belongs to someone no longer in the lawsuit. That left Tire-Rama responsible for about $960,000 of the $6.4 million. "I still believe Tire-Rama triggered the avalanche and Dickerson got caught up in it," Ochs told Oil City News after the verdict, adding that a 15 percent finding was enough to put the shop on notice that the work fell short of the recognized standard. No appeal has been reported in the case, and what Magic City Stoves paid to settle before trial has not been made public.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Oil City News (Greg Hirst), Nov. 3, 2023: the verdict, the $6.1 million and $300,000 awards, the 85/15 fault apportionment, the $960,000 figure, and Jason Ochs named as Skalicky's attorney
- 2.Oil City News, Oct. 25, 2023: trial coverage naming Jason Ochs as Skalicky's counsel, the air brakes quote, Skalicky's pinched nerves and herniated discs and his volunteer firefighter and Mine Rescue Team roles, the defendant's legal name The Tire Guys Inc., and the dismissal of Dickerson and the Magic City Stoves settlement
- 3.CDLLife, Nov. 3, 2023: independent trade-press report corroborating the $6.1 million and $300,000 awards, the 85/15 split, and that Skalicky was struck while stopped at a traffic light
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