ST. LOUIS, Mo. — A Missouri Circuit Court has reduced the financial penalty against Wabash National last year in a fatal 2019 accident in which a passenger vehicle struck the back of a nearly stopped 2004 Wabash trailer.
According to court documents, in September 2024, after a two-week trial, a St. Louis City jury awarded damages totaling $462 million to two St. Louis families. The accident resulted in two fatalities following a rear-end collision by a passenger vehicle with a tractor-trailer owned and operated by co-defendant, the now defunct, GDS Express. Both 30-year-old Taron Tailor, who was driving, and his passenger, 23-year-old Nicholas Perkins were instantly killed on May 19, 2019, when their car went underneath the rear of a trailer along Interstate 44 and 55 near the 7th Street exit.
Wabash Found Negligent
Simon Law attorneys John Simon and Johnny Simon tried the case with co-counsel Brian Winebright of Cantor Injury Law and Lisa Tsacoumangos of Brown & Crouppen represented the families of the victims. Some of the evidence presented at trial dated to the 1967 underride crash that killed Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield.
During closing arguments, Johnny Simon told jurors Wabash failed to build safer RIGs for 30 years and this would have cost Wabash about $15 million a year. The jury awarded punitive damages at $450 million, which was the estimated amount Wabash saved by failing to include the safer RIGs for those 30 years. Compensatory damages included $6 million to the Perkins family and $6 million to the Tailor family.
“The jury found that Wabash was 65% at fault for the wrongful deaths based on negligence,” court documents said.
Wabash Appeal
In January, Wabash announced it would be evaluating all available legal options in response to the verdict.
“While this was a tragic accident, we respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict and firmly believe it is not supported by the facts or the law,” said Kristin Glazner, general counsel and chief administrative officer for Wabash. “No rear impact guard or trailer safety technology has ever existed that would have made a difference here.”
Motion for a New Trial
In its court filing, Wabash outlined a number of factors that company claimed that were not considered and that the court both “excluded and admitted evidence prejudicing it from receiving a fair trial.”
Wabash argued the court excluded evidence that the decedents were intoxicated and not wearing seatbelts at the time of collision with the stationary trailer.
“…if the intoxication and seatbelt evidence would have been admitted, they would have conclusively shown that plaintiff cannot prove that decedents would have survived the collision but for Wabash’s product failing to prevent their vehicle from under-riding the trailer,” the court documents said.
Wabash also argued that the court was in error for excluding evidence related to MADYMO animation. MADYMO is software used for simulating human safety in vehicle and transport industries, focusing on occupant and vulnerable road user safety.
According to Wabash, the court excluded the animation on the the grounds that it would have “aided the jury in evaluating causation and have revealed the impact on decedents if underride had not occurred which denied Wabash the ability to rebutt plaintiffs claims.”
Wabash also said the court erroneously admitted evidence related to:
- The company’s lobbyist activities.
- Industry conduct.
- Development of regulatory processes.
- Perry Ponder’s expert opinion related to survivability.
- Company wealth and size.
- Advisory Committee on Underride Protection.
- Wabash’s 2016 four-post RIG design.
- Reptilian tactics.
- Testimony from Marianne Karth, Terry Rivet and Aaron Keifer.
The court reviewed Wabash’s claims and denied a new trial saying the company did not meet its burden.
Financial Penalties Reduced
While Wabash was denied a new trial, the court did determine that the original punitive penalty amounts leveraged against Wabash should be reduced.
The punitive damages award was reduced to $108 million with the compensatory damages award remaining at $11.5 million.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
Wabash needs to keep fighting this. If a judge can exclude something as relevant as driving while intoxicated from evidence given to a jury then there is no defending against any lawsuit.