Texas Appeals Court Upholds $100 Million Judgement Against Werner

The accident occured near odessa tx but lawsuit was filed in harris county(houston)…had to be a reason for that..

 

"noting that Ali had the “second-lowest possible” evaluation score and was driving a “high-pressure (just in time) delivery.”"​

Basically they argued that the driver was unqualfied and shouldn't have been behind the wheel in the first place. A "qualified driver" would have parked the truck and wouldn't have been there to be hit. I don't agree with the logic, but it is valid legal theory.

It's not going to happen.

What is happening is the paper trail is disappearing. No more written evaluations, just a pass/fail form. Nothing sent via messaging or email, it's all phone call discussions so there is no "discovery" to turn over.

This has resulted in Operations overruling Training in the firing of some of these unqualfied drivers. Ops was loathe to bring on a driver when there was a paper record of me saying things like:

• "Rick is unable to follow verbal instructions", or
• "Bob has not demonstrated an ability to adjust axles for legal weights and calculate time remaining on HOS", or
• "Mark has trouble mainting his lane, does not read/follow road signs, and has not successfully backed into a standard truck stop sized space",

Now they're willing to roll the dice because it won't come back on them.

No, it will result in a flurry of automated messages from OPs reminding drivers they have stop work authority; advising the driver they are in a "weather event" ; and "suggesting" they stop.

The problem with these messages is they get to the truck AFTER I'm already parked or in the thick of it.

We're not going to see any improvement in driver training or management out of this, the weasels are just going to have Lunch Lady Doris grease them up.

 

In the original trial the plaintiffs attorneys presented "recommendation" from the CDL manual, that trucks should park during poor weather, as if it were law... This was one of the many things the original jury hung thier desicion on.

 

I could POSSIBLY get behind the theory that this is just about safety IF ONLY tptb would add a serious focus for 4-wheelers on safely sharing the roads with the Big Rigs... both in the initial driver training, and also in a noticeable law enforcement crackdown on their reckless and aggressive anti-truck driving behaviors. Until then, I'm not having it. As long as the truckers and their companies are the ones held responsible for the consequences of every other idiot on the road using our trucks to attempt (and sometimes succeed in) their own suicides, things will only get worse for all of us. This may not have been what caused the Werner accident, but my point remains: If safety is the issue, do a much better job training the 4-wheelers. I have personally saved more of their own lives from their own stupid decisions than I can even remember, and they will never know! We aren't the problem... at least not most of us!

 

@gentleroger
@CoveringBases
I understand what y’all are sayin....but for an old part time retired guy.....I guess I’m hopefully optimistic and trying to be positive
Because for at least the last 20 of my 45+ years out here. ...I’ve had to work very hard at not choking some of these morons

 

Did you listen to the brief?

 

The plaintiff lawyers went jury shopping in EXTREMELY liberal Houston. 'Nuff said!

 

Last week I had a guy miss the fuel tank with the nozzle - he wedged it between the cab and the tank. Only reason we didn't spill a whole bunch of fuel everywhere is the idiot didn't lift the lever of the pump.

So, yeah, I'm not optimistic about anything anymore.

 

No more paper logs

 

If the Werner driver shouldn't have been there, neither should the driver that caused the crash.