MOUNT Nice, Texas (PRNewswire) — A Texas jury on Monday rendered An complete award of $730 million to the survivors of Toni Combest, a 73-yr-previous good-grandmcompletely different who was killed in a 2016 collision with an oversize-cargo truck hauling a propeller for a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine.
The jury awarded $480 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages, making it Definitely one of many largest wrongful-demise verdicts Inside the nation.
The accident occurred on Feb. 21, 2016, when an oversize-cargo truck operated by Landstar Ranger, Inc. tried to haul a 197,000-pound submarine propeller throughout a slender bridge on U.S. Freeway 271 in Titus County, Texas. As he approached the bridge, the truck’s driver left his accredited lane of journey and struck a car pushed by Combest at roughly 65 miles per hour. She died On the scene.
“When trucking corporations are negligent, people die,” said Brent Goudarzi, a companion with Goudarzi & Youthful, LLP and an lawyer for the plaintiffs. “The defendants On this case Did not take care of An environment pleasant lookout, Did not converse with Every completely different, and failed to ask for assist from native and state regulation enforcement. This An element of Texas Is Full of slender bridges, and but That they had no plan for navigating them. I hope right now’s verdict will cease something like this from occurring as quickly as extra.”
“Texas highways are getting extra dangerous by the day, however our state regulationmakers Want to current huge trucking corporations a move,” said Nelson Roach, a companion with Roach Langston Bruno LLP and an lawyer for the plaintiffs. “In the final session, the Texas Legislature handed a regulation To shield trucking corporations from having To disclose proof in circumstances Similar to this one. Our state regulations ought to place safety of Texans above the income of truck corporations.”