Latest nuclear verdict in trucking: $141.5M against defunct Florida carrier

November 13, 2024

A Florida Circuit Court jury has levied punitive damages of $125 million against a trucking company that no longer exists and was no more than a few trucks in size when it was in operation.

The punitive damage award was assessed last week against K&N Logging LLC. John Moffitt Howell, the attorney who represented K&N, its owner and the driver of the logging truck involved in a March 2020 series of collisions near Fernandina Beach, Florida, said in an interview with FreightWaves that the company has not existed for at least two years.

K&N was owned by Candy Legree, whom Howell described as a full-time school janitor who had purchased a truck as a side business to supplement her income. In turn, Legree hired Ellis Trollinger to drive the truck. The company hauled logs to paper and pulp mills.

“There are no assets from which that [punitive] judgment can be satisfied, and there’s no insurance policy on the face of the earth that covers punitive damages,” Howell said. He added that he continues to represent the principals in the case, “and we are going to be filing a motion for a new trial on the ground that the law is that a jury cannot financially destroy, bankrupt or financially castigate a defendant, and the jury did so in this case.”

The nonpunitive damages awarded in the case are more than $16.5 million. They are to be assessed equally against Legree and Trollinger. The three individuals eligible for compensatory damages were in cars when Trollinger drove his truck into a line of stopped vehicles.

A nuclear verdict is generally defined as totaling more than $10 million.

Defendants concede many negative points

In a pretrial stipulation filed by Howell on behalf of his clients, almost all the allegations made against Trollinger and Legree were conceded by the defendants.

In March 2020, Trollinger collided with a car driven by one of the plaintiffs, Angel Rodriguez-Santiago, in which another plaintiff, Yadelis Lopez (who is a minor), was riding. That car then struck a car driven by Michael Miller, who also is a plaintiff. Two other collisions then occurred but were not part of the lawsuit.

There were extensive injuries but no deaths. The truck had transported wood products to a pulp and paper mill but was returning empty.

The defendants admit that “Ellis Trollinger was negligent in causing the collisions,” according to the stipulation. It also admits that Legree “negligently hired, trained, supervised, employed and entrusted Trollinger as a tractor-trailer driver for K&N Logging.”

The lengthy list of admissions in the stipulation filed by Howell reflect the fact that, as he said, “this case was indefensible. As to the allegations of negligence and punitive damages, there was no way we could have mounted any type of legitimate attack against the plaintiff’s allegations.”

What Howell said the defendants were seeking was a “bifurcated” trial, in which punitive damages would be established separately. That goal is, on a micro level, what a recent trucking-led initiative in Texas is seeking on a macro level through the Lone Star Economic Alliance: an easier way for defense attorneys to bifurcate a trial, which they believe will help restrain some of the largest punitive damage awards.

Driver’s legal problems were lengthy

Among what was admitted in the stipulation is a long list of Trollinger’s poor driving record and other brushes with the law. It includes a DUI charge, two charges of an open container in a vehicle, battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest without violence and four contempt-of-court citations for not paying child support. In all, there are 25 charges against Trollinger listed in the stipulation, some with multiple incidences.

As to the accident itself, the stipulation says Trollinger “was driving recklessly and in willful disregard for the safety of others, as he was speeding at an estimated 67 mph (in 45 mph zone) and he never hit his brakes as he barreled K&N’s log truck directly into the rear of the line of traffic” that was lined up westbound on State Road 200.

The stipulation also says K&N “knew or should have known that Trollinger was unfit to drive a commercial motor vehicle tractor-trailer log truck over the highways of this state.”

Trollinger did have a CDL, Howell said.

In a news story about the verdict, Curry Pajcic, the attorney for the plaintiffs who were injured in the collision, said “the jury wanted to send a message, and they did.”

Pajcic’s firm had not responded to an email query from FreightWaves by publication time.