Werner Hit With 90 Million Dollar Lawsuit

Am I missing something?? sure, he shouldn't have been out in those conditions, but either should have the F350. Besides, they hit him.....thoughts??

Werner will appeal $90M verdict in crash lawsuit

What a tragic event for the family. Many prayers for them.

As for Werner... Guess what they keep telling us in class was right:

• If you hit someone, it's your fault.
• If you get hit by someone, it's your fault.
• If a plane falls out of the sky and hits your truck, it's your fault.

Hope Werner wins the appeal. If not, everytime something happens, it will be the driver's fault, as per this very bad precedent. This judge basically ruled that if the Werner truck had not been there (driving correctly), the accident would not have occurred, so Werner must pay $90 million for that fact ?!?!? This country is really going over the cliff. What's next? I'm driving under an overpass and a drunk drives his car off the roadway, lands on my rig, and is injured. "The truck driver was at fault" rules the High Court....?

Because the children died, the parent who was driving did not take responsibility for their actions. My guess is they were contacted by an attorney while at the hospital right after the accident. We have all seen the bill boards. I can imagine that the attorney had big photos of the adorable children that were killed. It seems this case was decided on emotion as opposed to facts.

The facts as reported make me sick. By the logic in this case if the pickup hit a bridge with the same results, would the bridge be at fault?

Its the world we live in. Lawsuits for all!

Very tragic and sad accident. The facts; not sure if we know them all, and may never know all of them. Regardless, based on what we know, the legal precident is very disturbing and may effect liability of any vehicle, including non-commercial and their insurance companies.

I always try to find something, anything in an accident like this to learn from. A take-away to improve driving safety and awareness. Other than the Werner driver's decision to drive in wintery weather, I can't come up with anything here. And even so, he may have been looking for a place to shutdown.

Disturbing precident. Think about it; "wrong place at the wrong time", means anything goes, and individual responsibility and unlawful operation becomes irrelevant.

I still have some contacts with Werner and they are completely baffled on the Jury's decision to blame Werner for the accident. Highway patrol did fault and cite the pickup driver for the accident as "driving to fast for conditions". The Werner driver was not cited and was doing way under the speed limit and was in the right lane at the time of accident. It was a tragic accident and could have been easily prevented had the idiot in the pickup decided not to speed in a winter storm.

The verdict will likely be thrown out on appeal, based on the legal precedent from the suit that hit Bhandal Bros. several years ago. Cliff's Notes version: a minivan with a family of 4 plowed into the back of a truck parked in a wide turnout on the side of >-210 in SoCal late at night. The kids were able to get out from the back seat, but the parents were trapped, the car caught on fire and the parents burned to death. CHP investigation found zero fault on the part of the Bhandal driver, but the surviving daughter was awarded a $150 million judgement when a lawsuit was filed. The award was subsequently found on appeal to be excessive and based on both animosity toward truck drivers and sympathy for the child, rather than on any kind of fact or merit, and was summarily dismissed in its entirety.

The facts as reported make me sick. By the logic in this case if the pickup hit a bridge with the same results, would the bridge be at fault?

This. Seriously, I don't have a ton of love for our cross town "rivals" here in Omaha, but that lawsuit is just... awful. And it could set a precedent that could just cripple our industry.

I just don't understand how this even got this far... there has to be another angle to this story that is not being published or spoken about.