Trial Magazine

They should not have died. Camille was driving three friends home one night when a tractor-trailer slammed into her car and forced it under a trailer that was stopped ahead. All four young people died at the scene. For their parents, nothing will ever be the same again.

This story really hit me hard. My twin sons are everything to me, so losing a child would be to utterly lose myself. In an instant, these young lives were brutally ended, but there is a way forward to demand accountability for crash victims and to save future lives so that others are spared the unbearable sadness of outliving their children.

The tractor-trailer that hit Camille’s car had the minimum required insurance of $750,000. The federal trucking insurance minimum for interstate truck drivers has not been adjusted—even for inflation—in more than 40 years. And this minimum applies to the entire crash, regardless of how many vehicles are involved or how many people are injured. To keep pace with medical cost inflation, the minimum insurance required for general freight carriers today should be around $5 million.

AAJ released a report last year—“Raise Trucking Insurance Minimums to Raise Safety”—a scathing indictment of this ill-conceived policy that continues to wreck lives. (Read more at www.justice.org/resources/research/federal-truck-insurance-2021.) The report shows that raising the federal trucking insurance minimum will provide justice for our clients and accountability for wrongdoers and also will save lives by incentivizing trucking companies to operate safely.

Because of the low federal minimum, insurance is currently so cheap that there is no economic incentive to improve safety. In a functioning insurance market, safe companies pay lower premiums, and unsafe companies pay higher premiums. However, in the trucking world, archaic minimum insurance levels keep premiums artificially low for even the most dangerous companies.

This issue needs to be addressed now: The rate of truck crashes and fatalities has more than doubled over the last 10 years. Policymaking matters, and inaction often has tragic real-world consequences. Many could be alive today if not for a shocking dereliction of duty by policymakers over the last few decades.

AAJ continues to work hard to achieve justice for crash victims. In the current Congress, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) reintroduced a stand-alone bill (H.R. 2687, the INSURANCE Act) to increase the federal insurance minimum to $5 million to reflect medical cost inflation. Also, a provision to raise it to $2 million was included in the House-passed surface transportation bill.

However, the Senate bipartisan infrastructure package—which passed last August—did not include the provision to increase the federal trucking insurance minimum. The House passed the Senate version—with no trucking insurance provision in the final legislation, and the president signed the bill into law last November. AAJ is now exploring other options to increase the federal trucking insurance minimum, such as regulatory action.

AAJ also provides support to members through Litigation Groups, such as the Trucking Litigation Group, which has resources and education programs for members handling truck crashes. For more information, visit https://www.justice.org/community/litigation-groups.

And beyond trucking, in this month’s Trial read about what’s ahead for personal jurisdiction (p. 18); auto crash cases involving ride-hailing companies (p. 26); preemption in aviation cases (p. 36); developing damages evidence and visuals (p. 46); and navigating recreational boating cases (p. 54).

Out of horrible tragedies, we often see positive change. Accountability and justice for our clients are crucial, but I believe deterrence is the core principle underpinning everything trial lawyers do. AAJ will continue to fight for crash victims and their families: Our clients’ rights and others’ lives depend on it.

Navan Ward Jr. is a principal at Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis & Miles in Atlanta and can be reached at navan.ward@justice.org.