Schneider on the hook for $47M

Interesting case, in that the deceased, Jarvis Nance, was struck and killed by a different company's truck, and that company settled with the widow. She then brought suit against Schneider because the Schneider driver (Joachim) cut off the other truck, causing it to swerve and strike Nance (and also maybe because Schneider has deeper pockets than the small local company whose truck actually hit Nance). Also noted that the $47 million was for compensatory damages, not punitive. Not sure many actuaries would value a truck driver's life that high.

Not that there's anything funny about a situation that leaves a father of three dead, but I did get a chuckle from this part:
Three days before the crash, on August 14, 2017, Joachim went on Facebook Live as he demonstrated how to back up his Schneider tractor-trailer to a loading dock door at the JCPenney Distribution Center in Kissimmee, Florida. At his deposition, the video clip shows Joachim backing into a pole during the six-minute live recording.
Oops

 

Good.

 

Jury slams Schneider National with $47M ‘nuclear verdict’ in fatal crash

 

That would buy a lot of tacos.

Just saying.

Sirscrapntruckalot -

 

I don't understand how they can say that Schneider had any liability when they clearly had taken multiple steps to correct the driver's misbehavior. Sounds like they were building a case against him for termination, and rightly so.

100% of the liability should be on the driver here.

 

Based solely on what's in the article, Schneider could have and should have terminated him by the end of August. Simply having a critical event while on an 'improvement plan' is grounds for termination.

Knowing what I know about that terminal and it's instructors and that account and it's management- I'd say $47 million is getting off light.

 

Well then I could see considering Schneider guilty of contributory negligence and holding them partially responsible. But in the end it was the driver's actions that caused the sequence of events that ultimately resulted in loss of an innocent person's life, actions which undoubtedly are against Schneider's company policies.

 

The article is a little "loosey goosey" with dates, but from what I see his first day of training would have been June 6, finished trained on June 22, and on June 27 had already had multiple critical events. At that point, by company policy he should have been pulled off the road and put with a mentor or back with a trainer. But at that time, the Atlanta OC generally didn't do that. They had a reputation for doing the bare minimum training and then sweeping things under the rug when the new drivers tore stuff up. About a year after this incident, a different incident caused a purging of the Safety Critter Manager, the training manager, and a bunch of the on site trainers.

This guy should never have been allowed out on his own, and if he'd gone through Carlise, Charlotte, Indy, or GB he wouldn't have. Might have squeaked through Gary and Dallas, but would get through W Memphis and Atlanta. Would it surprise you to find that W Memphis and Atlanta have the highest turnover, incident rate, and worst CSA scores? They also tend to lead the pack in net revenue. Schneider is more than a contributing factor here.

I wish this verdict will lead to more scrutiny of who we hire and an more drivers getting fired for their stupidities. It won't. What will happen is we'll cram more technology into the truck instead of properly training drivers in the first place and holding them accountable once out on their own.