A Georgia jury recently awarded more than $47 million to the family of a 35-year-old owner-operator who was killed in a August 2017 crash involving a former company driver for Wisconsin-based Schneider National Carriers.
“Nuclear verdicts” are described as jury awards in which penalties exceed $10 million.
Following a five-day trial, jurors in Cherokee County State Court in Canton, Georgia, awarded $47 million in compensatory damages on June 7 against Schneider National (NYSE: SNDR), headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and one of its former company drivers, Darryl Joachim, 29, of Lawrenceville, Georgia. The jurors apportioned 100% of the blame against Schneider and Joachim in the wrongful death lawsuit.
What happened? It’s complicated
According to court documents, Jarvis Nance Sr., owner of Nance Truckin LLC of Powder Springs, Georgia, was struck and killed around 5:40 a.m. on Aug. 17, 2017, near the Camp Creek Parkway, after exiting his 2007 International 9400 tractor after investigators stated he was forced to brake suddenly and steer his tractor into the emergency lane, striking the concrete median, on southbound Interstate 285.
Phillip Taylor, who was driving a 2009 GMC Sierra C1500 truck owned by Highridge Partners of Canton, Georgia, told investigators with the Georgia State Patrol’s Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team, that Joachim, who was driving a white tractor-trailer for Schneider, swerved across multiple lanes of traffic and into Taylor’s lane, forcing him into the left lane and onto the shoulder where he struck and killed Nance, who was a father of three.
Jarvis Nance’s widow, Mistie Nance, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in April 2018, which originally named Taylor and his employer, Highridge Partners, in the suit. However, Taylor and Highridge were later dismissed from the lawsuit after Highridge’s truck insurance company settled with Nance, who was also the administrator of her late husband’s estate, before trial.
During his deposition, Joachim testified that he started working for Schneider in June 2017, two months prior to the crash, and had only had his CDL license for about four months, which he received from the Earle C. Clements Job Corps Center in Morganfield, Kentucky.
In court documents, attorney John Dixon of Dennis Corry Smith & Dixon, which represented Schneider and Joachim, stated there was no mention of a Schneider tractor-trailer being in the area at the time of the crash until nearly a year later when Taylor and Highridge were named in the lawsuit filed by Nance’s widow. However, an investigator with the GSP, who interviewed Taylor and his co-worker, Joe Blackwell, who was a passenger in Taylor’s truck, were taken by ambulance to an Atlanta area hospital after the crash. Both testified that their statements taken after the crash mentioned that a driver in a white tractor-trailer for Schneider allegedly cut them off, causing them to swerve into the emergency lane where Nance was standing by his disabled rig.
Nance’s attorneys asked Schneider, which has nearly 12,000 truck drivers, to check its tracking software to see if any of its drivers were traveling on 285 between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. on the morning of the crash near the area where Nance was killed. According to documents produced by Schneider, Joachim’s white tractor-trailer was the only one operating in the area during that time frame.
Another investigator with the GSP stated in his deposition that the impact from the crash knocked Nance’s body over the median barrier into the northbound lane of 285. One of Nance’s shoes was found near his International tractor, while the other shoe was later found stuck in the engine compartment.
Schneider, Joachim added to amended complaint
Schneider National Carriers and Joachim were added to the second amended complaint after Schneider provided driver radius data for Joachim’s white tractor-tractor, which allegedly pinged him driving southbound on 285 around the time of the crash near Camp Creek Parkway. During his deposition, which was originally recorded in March 2021, Joachim testified that he was nowhere near the crash site and claimed he parked his rig around 5 a.m. at the JCPenney Distribution Center in Forest Park, Georgia.
Based on Schneider’s electronic logging data, Joachim’s truck was moving between 4:43 a.m. and 5:44 a.m. and wasn’t parked as Joachim claimed. Schneider also provided Nance’s attorneys with a photo of the 2016 white Freightliner Cascadia Joachim was driving after starting his shift a little after midnight EST on the day of the crash as he moved trailers between JCPenney warehouses in Georgia and Florida.
As of publication, Dixon declined to comment about whether Schneider and Joachim planned to appeal the nuclear verdict.
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.
Court records state that Joachim worked for Schneider until January 2018 when the carrier terminated him after his random hair follicle drug screen tested positive for methamphetamines. He testified that he was surprised that he failed the random drug test and claimed that a person he met on a dating app, who was a known meth user, must have spiked his drink while the two were at a TGI Fridays Restaurant in Georgia.
He claims he later paid a $30 fee to have his hair follicle sample retested at the lab, which again tested positive for meth.
Driver dinged with multiple safety violations
However, Joachim’s Qualcomm records showed that he had amassed several critical driving events for hard braking and stability control issues. His motor vehicle record [MVR] report, which he reviewed during his deposition, showed he had been involved in multiple crashes during his seven-month employment at Schneider. While on a three-month performance improvement plan at Schneider, court records showed that his dispatcher documented that he had received five more critical event notices prior to being fired.
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