newsworthy
2002 truck accident still
sends tremors through
transport law fraternity
ON MAY 5, 2002, A PICKUP TRUCK TRAVELING ON A RURAL
Maryland state road collided with a tractor-trailer carrying soymilk
between warehouses in Joplin, Mo., and Carteret, N.J. The accident left
the pickup’s two occupants with permanent and devastating injuries. Its
driver, a minor at the time, fell into what was described as a “
semi-vege-tative” state from which he would be unlikely to recover.
No one knew it then, but the accident and the personal injury case that
would take more than two years to decide would change the calculus of
freight transportation law in the United States.
The victims’ families sued the driver, the carrier who assigned the load,
and C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., a giant property broker and third-party logistics service company (3PL) hired by the shipper to arrange the
transportation. The plaintiffs alleged that Eden Prairie, Minn.-based
The defendants knew it would be a difficult case.
The trauma of the victims, Tyler Schramm and
Mitchell Thompson, and their families would
almost assuredly elicit a jury’s sympathy if the case
went to trial.
The facts were also not on the defendants’ side. The rig’s driver, Brian
Foster, had exceeded his federal hours-of-service limitations when he
pulled off Interstate 68 in Maryland and onto the state route, court documents show. Upon reaching the stop sign at the end of the off-ramp,
Foster failed to stop or yield the right-of-way to oncoming traffic, thus
blocking all of the road’s southbound lanes, according to court documents. The pickup, heading south on the road, then collided with the
truck, according to court documents.
The trucker, Groff Brothers Trucking LLC, had not been issued a “
satisfactory” safety rating from the federal government because it was a new
carrier, according to attorneys who have followed the case. Groff had a
rating of “74” under the federal government’s “SafeStat” safety measurement system—then the yardstick for determining a carrier’s fitness—
coming in just below the “75” or higher rating the government concluded made a carrier deficient to operate, they said. In addition, Groff was
formed in the wake of a safety performance problem with its predecessor
carrier, attorneys have said.
While legal experts could foresee a defense nightmare given p. 20
FedEx to buy French
delivery firm Tatex
FedEx Corp. will acquire French business-to-business delivery company
Tatex for an undisclosed sum, making
it FedEx’s second so-called tuck-in
European acquisition in slightly more
than a month and seemingly confirming the company’s strategy to grow its
European presence without countering rival UPS Inc.’s bid for Dutch delivery concern TNT Express.
Privately held Tatex, founded in
1976, has a primary hub at Lieusaint,
south of Paris, and 35 shipping centers
that include six regional hubs. The deal
gives FedEx Express, the company’s air
express and international unit, access
to a nationwide domestic ground network carrying 19 million shipments.
The acquisition “shows we are continuing to systematically and strategically invest in growing our network and
value proposition in these important
areas of the world,” said Frederick W.
Smith, FedEx’s chairman, president, and
chief executive officer, in a statement.
In early April, FedEx announced
plans to acquire Opek Sp. z o.o., a
Polish shipping company. The two
moves are part of FedEx’s strategy to
expand its European presence through
acquisitions of smaller companies that
could be folded into its network, as
opposed to one major deal for a conti-nentwide carrier like TNT Express.
The two announcements have come
after comments made by Smith in a
late March analyst call that FedEx has
enough firepower to succeed in
Europe on its own. At the time, Smith
said the company was “confident in
our plans to continue expansion, pri-
marily through organic growth.”
Smith’s comments seemed to quash
speculation that FedEx would counter
UPS’s $6.8 billion offer for TNT Express,
which TNT approved March 19. ;
