Texas Supreme Court overturns $90M Werner nuclear verdict

The case stems from an accident that occurred in December 2014 near Odessa, Texas. A pickup truck going eastbound lost control on a patch of black ice, crossed the Interstate 20 median, and struck an oncoming truck operated by Werner. A seven-year-old boy in the pickup was killed, while his mother and 12-year-old sister were left with serious brain injuries. His 14-year-old brother was also injured. A family friend was driving.

Police on the scene did not cite the pickup driver nor Werner’s driver, Shiraz Ali, a trainee at the time, for the unfortunate accident. Still, the lawyers for plaintiff Jennifer Blake, the mother of the deceased boy, argued that if Werner had not dispatched the driver in the inclement weather, the tractor-trailer would not be in the exact spot it was to collide with the pickup. The Werner driver was going under the speed limit at the time.

The initial jury agreed with the “proximate cause” reasoning, though none of the damages were punitive.

“If an accident like this is the fault of the driver who was hit by the out of control vehicle, think about what that means for every motorist on the roads,” Meisgeier said at the time.

After the lengthy appeal process, the case made it to the Texas Supreme Court last December, where the judges disagreed that this case met the standards for proximate cause.

According to the majority opinion: “A negligent actor incurs liability only for damages proximately caused by his negligence. Proximate cause is not established merely by proof that the injury would not have happened if not for the defendant’s negligence. Instead, proximate cause requires, among other things, proof that the defendant’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing the injury.”

The Texas Supreme Court ruled the Werner truck was on that stretch of highway as "a mere happenstance of place and time," and that "the sole proximate cause of this accident and these injuries (the sole substantial factor to which the law permits assignment of liability) was the sudden, unexpected hurtling of the victims' vehicle into oncoming highway traffic, for which Werner and its driver bore no responsibility."

The case is also a big win for trucking, as nuclear verdicts have caused a 10% annual growth in commercial auto liabilities every year since 2016, noted David McKnight, a principal at consulting firm The Brattle Group.