Attorney Scott Faultless, a founding partner of the law firm Craig, Kelley & Faultless, recently testified before the Indiana Senate Judiciary Committee concerning Senate Bill 324. The Indiana Trial Lawyers Association was against the Bill and asked Scott to share his knowledge and expertise with respect to litigation involving commercial motor vehicles.
Scott is nationally recognized for representing victims of car accidents with semis and other commercial motor vehicles. Scott sits on the Board of Regents for the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys (that requires Board Certification in Truck Accident Law). In 2020 and 2022 Scott was awarded the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association Presidents Award. He has also been identified on the 2023 Indiana Super Lawyers List as well as was selected by his peers for inclusion in the 29th Edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the practice area of Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs. Scott has been recognized among the Top 100 Indiana Trial Lawyers and the Top 10 Trucking Attorneys by the National Trial Lawyers.
Senate Bill 324 had the support of the trucking industry and would have given trucking companies a special rule not available to any other business or industry. The Bill required mandatory bifurcation of the claims against commercial motor vehicle drivers and the motor carrier. Under the Bill, if you lost the case against the driver, there could not be a case against the trucking company for its own direct negligence. It limited the type of claims that could be asserted against the motor carrier, and it limited the type of evidence that could be included against the motor carrier.
The Bill was heavily lobbied for by trucking industry representatives. At the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on February 1, 2023, trucking company delegates expressed their support for the Bill and testified about their increasing insurance costs in the past decade by claiming, without any proof, that the increases were due to “nuclear” jury verdicts against trucking companies. The cost increases for insurance have not been caused by so called “nuclear” verdicts against trucking companies.
The non-profit Truck Safety Coalition has demonstrated that the trucking industry’s use of the phrase “nuclear verdicts” is based upon a poorly drafted report by the trucking industry that was “full of errors, exaggeration, and misinformation.” https://trucksafety.org/press-release-tscs-atri-rebuttal/. It is clear the trucking industry is using the “nuclear” verdict myths as part of a scheme to influence law makers across the country with misinformation, including Indiana, to garner special laws that benefit them to the detriment of ordinary citizens and truck drivers.
During the committee hearing, the trucking industry showed up. A representative from Horizon Transport testified that so-called “nuclear verdicts” was increasing its insurance cost. He did not tell the committee that Horizon Transport’s insurance increase was likely due to a $26,500,000 verdict in Oregon in 2019 for its driver’s role in a road rage crash that killed a 30-year-old wife and seriously injured her husband. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/05/jury-awards-265-million-in-damages-against-truckers-in-road-rage-episode-that-ended-in-idaho-womans-death.html. Other motor carriers or trucking industry partisans had representatives testified: Quality Drive Away, Inc., Foremost Transport, Inc. Transport US, LLC, an attorney for the Truck Renting and Leasing Association, and the deputy general counsel for the American Trucking Association. Besides continual beating the trucking industry’s self-serving drum of “nuclear verdicts” being the cause of insurance increases, there were gross misstatements about the underlying facts in one of the verdicts against Werner.
Scott was the only person to testify against the Bill.
Some of the key points he raised:
- The Bill allowed truck drivers to blame the motor carrier for their lack of training to gain a defense verdict in the first phase of a trial. If the jury accepted the argument and found for the truck driver, there could not be a second phase against the motor carrier for negligent training.
- The Bill did not permit evidence against a motor carrier for putting a semi on the road with defective brakes (or any other mechanical problem) that is unknown to the truck driver until an emergency arises and a hard brake is needed. During the 2021 “Brake Safety Week,” the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance reported that commercial vehicle law enforcement officers found 13.5% (almost 4,000) of the 28, 694 CMV’s inspected during one week had defective brakes that required them to be taken out-of-service. https://www.cvsa.org/news/2021-brake-safety-week-results/.
- The Bill did not permit evidence against a motor carrier for allowing a driver who was ill, fatigued, or had untreated sleep apnea to drive a CMV.
- The Bill encouraged bad, out-of-state motor carriers who disregard the rules and who do not use current safety tools and telematic systems to come to Indiana and outbid the good motor carriers who invest in safety.
Scott went through different sections of the Bill and explained how it would be detrimental and would actually be a step backwards for the trucking industry. The Bill would create loopholes for, and incentivize, unethical “bad actors” in the trucking industry to ignore safety rules. If trucking companies invested in safety technology (e.g. blind spot detection, side underride guards, dash and driver facing cameras, real-time telematic information about the vehicles speed, hard braking, etc.) and proper training and coaching of drivers, not only would the welfare and safety of truck drivers and those who share the roadways with them be increased, but the trucking companies would see a decrease in accidents and a reduction in the number of lawsuits.
Scott believes that: “Passing a law with many known negative consequences to those who have survived or lost loved ones in a large truck crash, to possibly help a few non-Indiana corporations, is harmful to ordinary Hoosier families. SB 324 is nothing more than a scheme to make everyday Hoosiers, including hard working truck drivers, socialize the costs of large trucking and insurance companies’ operations to increase the profits of these businesses by putting dangerous trucks and drivers on the road. SB 324 would further burden our judiciary and delay justice. Given that Indiana already has statutes, procedures, and rules that allow its civil justice system to fairly handle truck crash cases, lawmakers should abandon this misguided effort in favor of advancing policies that will improve truck safety in Indiana.”
SB 324 died in the committee by a vote of 5-6.
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