Settlement in a trucking case

$1.6 Million Dollar Settlement. Don Woody represented the surviving wife in a wrongful death action involving a trucking accident. The decedent husband involved in the accident was a salesman from California, 56 years of age, driving his rented convertible along Highway 71 northbound on Highway 71 from Arkansas to Kansas City on a rainy evening. At or near the time of the accident, a semi-tractor-flat bed trailer unit was backing across four lanes of Highway 71 in Barton County. The northbound driver died instantly as the convertible ran under the trailer unit.

The trucking company blamed the Missouri Department of Transportation for inadequate signage alleging the State did not warn travelers on Highway 71 that a side road was temporarily closed due to flooding. The defendant brought MoDOT into the case as a third-party defendant. The trucking company also blamed the decedent for failing to see the tractor trailer unit backing across the highway. In addition to these liability issues, the trucking company contended the damages alleged by wife were excessive. The decedent had not filed any income tax returns for the last eight years of his life.