C.H. Robinson loses in $604 million nuclear verdict
Key takeaways
- A Texas Jury found that C.H. Robinson, a carrier, and a driver were responsible in a $604 million nuclear verdict for a deadly 2021 crash.
- The crash's driver allegedly falsified logs and continued driving after saying he was sick.
- One influential plaintiff argument was that C.H. Robinson did not reference carriers' SMS scores
A Dallas County jury issued a nuclear verdict against C.H. Robinson, Lupus Superior, and a driver over a 2021 crash.
The crash occurred on March 25, 2021, and involved two tractor-trailers and four passenger vehicles. The crash killed three people and injured two others.
The jury last week decided that the defendants were responsible for $604 million in damages. The verdict is another major story for the trend of rising nuclear verdicts, one of transportation companies’ top concerns for years.
The payout could ultimately be significantly less than that headline number, and C.H. Robinson itself will likely pay only a small share of that smaller payout. As one of three defendants found responsible for the incident, the jury’s charge suggested that C.H. Robinson was only partially responsible for the incident.
Details of the case’s fatal crash
In 2021, C.H. Robinson hired Lupus Superior to ship beverages from Lakeland, Florida to Fort Worth, Texas. Lupus Superior’s driver, whose last name was Gonzalez, drove an unidentified tractor-trailer to move the load.
At 2:00 in the morning of the day of the crash, Gonzalez secretly drove four hours off-route in Mississippi, 164 miles north. The driver falsified his logbooks to hide the activity. Later that morning, he told Lupus Superior that he was sick and had to pull over. However, Gonzalez continued driving on his route.
Sometime later, on I-20 in Mississippi, traffic slowed to a stop—Gonzalez’s truck did not stop. It rear-ended another tractor-trailer, causing a fiery multi-vehicle pileup and three fatalities.
Three arguments to convince juries
Is this related to the Montgomery Supreme Court ruling?
Not really. The defendant (C.H. Robinson) may be the same, but the rest of the case is unrelated.
Brokers have been vulnerable to negligent hiring claims in many U.S. states before Montgomery. C.H. Robinson tried to claim FAAA pre-emption in this case, but it was seemingly denied. To the best of my understanding, this Dallas case took place within a circuit where brokers were already vulnerable to negligent hiring torts before Montgomery: the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Brown v. Minnaar).
I counted three main arguments from the plaintiffs against C.H. Robinson. From the perspective of someone without legal training, these seem like the most persuasive points of the case:
- C.H. Robinson’s activities went beyond the typical broker/carrier relationship.
- When C.H. Robinson learned that the driver was sick, it did not order Lupus Superior to stop its driver.
- To vet carrier Lupus, C.H. Robinson looked at the carrier’s FMCSA safety rating, but did not monitor the carrier’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) score.
Ultimately, it seems that the plaintiffs were able to sway the jury in their favor.
In the arguments regarding SMS scores, the plaintiffs used this particularly powerful quote from the words of expert witness and professor Thomas Corsi:
“The evidence shows that during every month of the year preceding the incident (March 2020 through March 2021), Lupus Superior LLC exceeded the FMCSA thresholds in Unsafe Driving and Hours-of-Service Compliance, a fact C.H. Robinson knew or should have known.”
In C.H. Robinson’s public statement on the verdict, Dorothy Capers, chief legal officer at C.H. Robinson, said this related note:
“We strongly disagree with the verdict in Lipe v. Lupus Superior, LLC, et al. and will immediately appeal. C.H. Robinson should not be held liable and did not act negligently. The carrier had safely delivered nearly 270 loads for our customers and held a Satisfactory FMCSA rating when we selected it. That rating remained Satisfactory following a federal review of this accident.”
More case information is available at the Dallas County court document search portal under case CC-22-07326-D.
About the Author
Jeremy Wolfe
Editor
Editor Jeremy Wolfe joined the FleetOwner team in February 2024. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with majors in English and Philosophy. He previously served as Editor for Endeavor Business Media's Water Group publications.