At the beginning of the trial, the rear impact protection of a truck is blamed for the fatal accident

CVN screenshot of plaintiff's attorney Johnny Simon during his opening statement

St. Louis, MO – A Missouri state court jury heard opening arguments Tuesday in a product liability case alleging that an allegedly defective rear impact protection device on a semi-truck caused two deaths in a seemingly survivable crash. The entire trial will be broadcast online from start to finish by the Courtroom View Network.

The families of deceased Aaron Tailor and Nicholas Perkins sued trailer manufacturer Wabash National following a rear-end collision in 2019. Their lawyers argue that they would not have died if the truck they collided with had more robust rear-end impact protection.

The plaintiffs accuse Wabash of not upgrading its safety devices to save money, but the company insists that it met federal safety standards and that at the speed at which the collision allegedly occurred, no safety device would have prevented deaths.

Attorney Johnny Simon of the Simon Law Firm, in his opening argument on behalf of the plaintiffs before a jury in St. Louis, said the case could potentially be worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Rear impact guards are designed to prevent smaller vehicles that hit the back of semi-trucks from sliding underneath. Simon argued that the two-post design used by Wabash offers significantly less protection to drivers than other four-post guards available.

Simon accused Wabash of selling the vehicle equipped with the protection in question for 30 years without conducting adequate crash tests, and he repeatedly stressed that the impact at 55 mph – which was supposedly reduced to about 45 mph by the truck's forward motion – would have actually been survived.

“Wabash and the entire semi-truck industry have known this problem for decades,” Simon said, according to the CVN webcast of the event.

Simon claimed that a 1998 federal standard for rear-impact guards, which is due to be updated this year, had obvious deficiencies and that Wabash and other manufacturers had knowledge from numerous similar accidents that showed them the two-post suspensions did not provide adequate protection.

“The 1998 standard was weak and the industry knew it,” Simon said.

Defense attorney Brian Johnson of Dickinson Wright, who represented Wabash, told jurors that no amount of rear impact protection, no matter how many posts he used, could have prevented the deaths of Tailor and Perkins.

“There is no rear impact protection anywhere that will protect a rear impact vehicle from being underdriven at 55 miles per hour,” he stressed.

CVN screenshot of defense attorney Brian Johnson during his opening statement

Johnson focused on the details of the accident, noting that it occurred on a clear, sunny day, that the truck had its hazard lights on at the time of the collision, and that the oncoming car made no attempt to swerve or even brake to avoid the truck.

Johnson told jurors that the car carrying Tailor and Perkins slowed from 55 miles per hour to zero in “the time it takes to blink.” He said the human body could not possibly survive that kind of deceleration, regardless of the type of barrier.

He said experts hired by the defense would dispute plaintiffs' claim that the actual collision speed was about 45 km/h, and repeatedly stressed that even the most modern protective devices that meet the soon-to-take-effect 2024 federal safety standards cannot prevent underride accidents at that speed.

“He drove into the back of a trailer in broad daylight at 55 miles per hour – and the number is 55,” Johnson stressed.

He denied that the 1998 federal guidelines were inadequate and urged the jury to avoid awarding punitive damages if possible, pointing out that doing so would effectively mean that every single trailer equipped with a rear guard, built by every manufacturer to meet government safety standards, would have to be considered unreasonably dangerous.

The trial will take place before Judge Christopher McGraugh and is expected to last approximately two weeks. CVN's coverage (available both live and on-demand) – including all witness testimony – will continue throughout the trial.

The case is titled Perkins et al. v. Wabash National Corp. et al. Case number 2022-CC00495 in the 22nd District Court of Missouri in the City of St. Louis.

Email David Siegel at [email protected]