$462 Million Verdict After Fatal Underride Crash Killed Two Young Fathers
After trial: Post-trial the award was cut to roughly $119.5 million, about $108 million in punitive damages and $11.5 million compensatory.
Won by The Simon Law Firm (lead counsel), Brown & Crouppen (co-counsel) and Cantor Injury Law (co-counsel).
A St. Louis jury awarded $462 million against trailer maker Wabash National after its defective rear-impact guard failed and allowed a car to slide beneath a trailer on I-55, killing Taron Tailor, 30, and Nicholas Perkins, 23, in 2019.
What happened
On the evening of May 19, 2019, a car carrying Taron Tailor, 30, and Nicholas Perkins, 23, struck the rear of a semi-trailer on Interstate 55 near the 7th Street exit in St. Louis. The collision should have been survivable. Instead, the trailer's rear-impact guard, a steel bar required by federal regulation to prevent cars from sliding underneath, tore free on contact. Both men died as a result of the underride.
The trailer had been manufactured by Wabash National Corporation in 2004. The rear-impact guard, known as a RIG or underride guard, is designed to stop a passenger vehicle before it travels beneath the trailer bed. Plaintiffs contended that the guard Wabash installed was inadequately engineered and that the company had known for years that its design could fail exactly this way.
The Simon Law Firm filed suit on behalf of the families of both victims. Attorneys John Simon and Johnny Simon led the case to trial in City of St. Louis Circuit Court before Judge Christopher McGraugh. An earlier trial in 2023 ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a verdict. In the retrial, the jury heard evidence that Wabash bore responsibility for a foreseeable and preventable failure mode.
The jury assigned 65 percent fault to Wabash National and 35 percent to the plaintiffs. It awarded $12 million in compensatory damages, covering losses to the victims' families, and $450 million in punitive damages, reflecting the jury's judgment about the company's conduct. The combined verdict totaled $462 million.
Wabash National, which trades on the NYSE under the ticker WNC, said after the verdict that it was evaluating all available legal options and that additional proceedings would occur before a final judgment. The company had argued at trial that the trailer met the federal standards in effect when it was built in 2004 and had sought to introduce evidence about the driver's blood alcohol level and seatbelt use, evidence that the court did not allow the jury to hear.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Missouri Lawyers Media, Sept. 25, 2024·Archived copy
- 2.Trucking Dive, Sept. 2024·Archived copy
- 3.Transport Topics, Sept. 2024·Archived copy
- 4.Courtroom View Network - Top 10 Plaintiff Verdicts of 2024·Archived copy
- 5.The Trucker - judge reduces $462M Wabash verdict·Archived copy
- 6.Missouri Lawyers Media - Missouri's Top Verdicts & Settlements of 2024·Archived copy
- 7.KSDK - St. Louis jury returns $462M underride verdict·Archived copy
- 8.Courtroom View Network: $462M Verdict Returned in Rear Impact Guard Design Trial·Archived copy
- 9.Trailer Body Builders: Jury Returns $462 Million Verdict in Wabash Underride Case·Archived copy
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