LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Wabash National has announced it is evaluating all available legal options in response to the verdict by a St. Louis jury resulting in the company being found liable for $12 million in compensatory damages and $450 million in punitive damages related to a 2019 motor vehicle accident in which a passenger vehicle traveling at a high speed struck the back of a nearly stopped 2004 Wabash trailer.
On Friday, the industrial manufacturing company said that it believes the $12 million charge will be covered by its insurance policies, but that the outcome of the case could materially hit its financial condition, operations and cash flows.
“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.”
After a two-week trial, a St. Louis City jury awarded the verdict on Thursday 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 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.
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.
According to a statement on the company’s website, the accident occurred nearly two decades after the trailer involved was manufactured by Wabash in compliance with all existing regulatory standards.
Wabash also maintains that despite precedent to the contrary, the jury was prevented from hearing critical evidence in the case, including that the driver’s blood alcohol level was over the legal limit at the time of the accident. The company also stated the fact that neither the driver nor his passenger was wearing a seatbelt was also kept from the jury, even though plaintiffs argued both would have survived a 55-mile-per-hour collision had the vehicle not broken through the trailer’s rear impact guard.
“Wabash stands firmly behind the quality and safety of all its products, and this ruling will not prevent the company from continuing to provide its customers with products that contribute to safer roads,” the company said.
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.
So it is allowed that a drunken driver not using seat belts is not considered that same as a suicide using the vehicle as the instrument. Wow where is the law in that?
Excuse me but it’s negligence on t he car part for rear ending the back if that trailer.
Jury got it wrong but they weren’t given all the evidence. Why the hell didn’t they expose the driver was drunk and no seat belts?
It just goes to show you just how crooked out justice system is. If someone crashes into a guard rail and gets killed because they had been drinking and not wearing a seat belt we can sue the state or manufacturer of the guard rail. I hope Wabash fights this verdict.
I don’t understand why the jury couldn’t hear all the facts. This kind of crap is why trucks and drivers get a bad rap all the time.
The drunk drivers insurance should have paid the company for the loss of work of the truck driver and for the expense of the trailer damage.
Truck Driver got lucky,
Square hit from behind is car error.
Someone was wheelin dealin that case