Senior Partner John Veith, Esq., and Associate Jack Garwood obtained a defense verdict on February 14, 2024 in a difficult trucking case involving a multi-vehicle accident. The case had been transferred from another well-known law firm and reassigned to Luks Santaniello for trial. The accident occurred in the southbound lanes of I-95 just south of Jacksonville and involved four separate vehicles. Three plaintiffs in two of the vehicles alleged severe injuries after being rear-ended. Mr. Veith’s client, who was driving a tractor trailer hauling a forklift with a total weight of about 40,000 lbs., struck the rear of a Chevrolet pick-up truck at a high rate of speed. The force of the first impact propelled the pick-up truck forward, causing that vehicle to hit another pick-up truck towing a U-Haul trailer and then continue on to hit a fully stopped Volkswagen Jetta. Despite the presumption of negligence, Mr. Veith’s client denied liability and alleged the pick-up truck changed lanes right in front of the semi, effectively cutting her off and eliminating the safe zone in front of the tractor trailer. 

 The case was bifurcated and only the liability issues were tried to a jury. At trial, the Plaintiffs argued that the operator of the semi was primarily at fault, claiming she was distracted by an accident that had just occurred in the far left lane ahead and, therefore, she failed to see the Chevrolet pick-up truck right in front of her. Defendant Kayworth, the driver of the Chevrolet pick-up truck, however, denied cutting off the semi and testified he had been in the center lane all the way from downtown Jacksonville.  The defense called accident reconstruction expert Robert Ketchum P.E., who testified that the driver of the semi was not negligent and that accident was actually caused by the negligence of co-defendant Webster, the driver of a separate vehicle who had caused the accident in the far left lane, thereby setting in motion a chain reaction of collisions which none of the defendants could have avoided. Due to the entry of a default against Defendant Webster, the jury was instructed the Court had determined he was negligent and that his negligence was a contributing cause of the accident. The night before closing arguments, one of the Plaintiffs settled with the defendants. As a result, only the claims asserted by the two remaining Plaintiffs were given to the jury for deliberations. After four hours of deliberations, the jury returned a defense verdict finding Defendants Dever and Kayworth not negligent.  Read More