Products Liability Law Reporter

While driving his sedan on an interstate highway, Taron Tailor, 30, rear-ended a Wabash National Corp. trailer and contacted its rear impact guard. The guard failed, and the sedan underrode the trailer. Tailor and his passenger, 23-year-old Nicholas Perkins, suffered violent, fatal injuries. Perkins is survived by his minor daughter. Tailor is survived by his wife, who was pregnant at the time of the crash.

Suit on behalf of Tailor and Perkins’s children and survivors alleged claims for negligent design and strict liability product defect. The plaintiffs asserted that the two-post rear impact guard was defective and that Wabash National Corp. should have standardized a stronger four-post design that it knew was safer. The plaintiffs also asserted that Wabash failed to implement and design a rear impact guard that would prevent underride in speeds above 30 mph and that the company had ignored decades of research and warnings about the failures of its rear impact guards.

The jury awarded the plaintiffs $462 million, including $450 million in punitive damages.

Citation: L.P. v. Wabash Nat’l Corp., No. 2022-CC00495 (Mo. Cir. Ct. St. Louis City Sept. 5, 2024).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ members John G. Simon, Johnny M. Simon, and Lisa Tsacoumangos, and Brian Winebright, all of St. Louis.

Plaintiff expert: Mariusz Ziejewski, biomechanics, Fargo, N.D.