Jeremy Reymer, CEO and founder of DriverReach, was joined Thursday by a champion for the industry, Doug Marcello, chief legal officer of Bluewire and shareholder with Saxton & Stump law firm.
Truck drivers take risks each day delivering food to grocery stores, medical supplies to pharmacies, fuel to gas stations and just about everything else that’s required to keep society running smoothly.
But, when accidents occur involving semi-trucks, too often those same truck drivers are almost automatically suspected or faulted when they might not be to blame.
Sometimes, these situations can lead to lawsuits against trucking companies and their drivers.
In recent years, nuclear verdicts involving trucking companies have become alarmingly prevalent. Nuclear verdicts are unreasonably high damage awards from civil cases — sometimes defined as reaching $10 million or more. For many companies, penalties of this magnitude could directly lead to the end of their business.
As a trucking defense attorney, Marcello believes that the industry must take action against the trend of treating companies involved in these accidents as profit centers.
So why are nuclear verdicts becoming more common?
Marcello said it could be due to advertising, like on billboards and TV commercials, that have helped push the mindset of trucks as “18-wheel ATMs.”
Social inflation, or the trend that refers to the rising cost of insurance claim payouts, also plays a part. Marcello noted that some jurors may be anesthetized to large numbers in the courtroom due to high-profile cases in the media involving celebrities.
Another reason why nuclear verdicts have become more common, Marcello said, is the reptile theory.
“Rarely is there ever a nuclear verdict that deals with the accident,” he explained. What it deals with is the systemic failure and the impression that the systemic failure is going to be a community threat to not just them and their family, but the entire community.”
In other words, sometimes plaintiffs and their lawyers may use these cases to take action against a systemic problem. In the process, it perverts the justice system by making a situation into one of absolute fault rather than about whether or not a driver acted reasonably in an accident.
“One of the primary systemic failures that the plaintiff attorneys try to prey upon is the qualification of the driver in the accident,” Marcello said.
In today’s litigious environment, trucking companies can’t afford to put drivers behind the wheel if they’re not qualified or if there are red flags. If something goes wrong, the outcome could devastate a business.
Getting ahead of nuclear verdicts is paramount, which is why Bluewire, a software-as-a-service company, analyzes publicly available data to help trucking companies identify vulnerabilities in their businesses.
By discovering vulnerabilities early, companies can rectify them before they become issues.
To learn more about Bluewire, click here.
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