Latest trucking nuclear verdict: $81 million, this time in Utah

At the time of Michael Madsen’s death in December 2018, Allied had been owned by Beacon Roofing Supply for less than a year after Beacon closed on the acquisition in early 2018.  Beacon was listed as the corporate defendant in the case.

Now it’s QXO

In turn, Beacon Roofing Supply was the first acquisition of Brad Jacobs’ QXO (NYSE: QXO), the logistics entrepreneur’s latest venture which has as its business plan the rollup of a building products supply ecosystem he sees as fragmented and ripe for consolidation. The death of Michael Madsen at that point would have taken place more than six years before QXO made its first acquisition, but the company now has inherited the case.

A QXO spokesman confirmed reports the payment was fully covered by insurance.

But settlements do not render moot the fact that a company that drives trucks–in this case, a day cab with a flatbed trailer–got hit with an enormous nuclear verdict, and it will now go into the body of case law that demonstrates just how much a successful lawsuit against a trucker might win for a plaintiff.

Case looks like it’s one of the biggest

Although there is no definitive list of the largest trucking-related nuclear verdicts in recent history, the decision against Beacon–it is listed as the defendant in the suit–appears to rank as one of the biggest. 

Some of the largest verdicts in the past have been levied against carriers that were defunct or consisted of one truck, leaving the chance of collection at almost nil. For example, a $141.5 million verdict in Florida from 2024 was levied against a company, K&N Logging, that had not operated for two years at the time of the award. A 2020 verdict in Florida for more than $400 million went against a single-truck carrier that at the time of the verdict no longer had FMCSA authority. 

Another Florida jury verdict against two companies was in excess of $900 million. But those companies also were not believed to be in existence at the time of the jury verdict in August 2021 and had not participated in the legal steps before the trial began for about two years. 

Publicly-traded companies get dragged in

But big verdicts have not just been levied against tiny carriers. Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN) ultimately fought a nuclear verdict successfully to the Texas Supreme Court last June; the size of that initial 2018 verdict was almost $90 million. 

A lengthy appeals process saw the state’s highest court  toss out the award, which by the time that occurred had ballooned to more than $100 million with interest. 

A judgement of more than $460 million against trailer manufacturer Wabash National (NYSE: WNC) in a St. Louis court ultimately settled out of court for an undisclosed amount after it was first cut down to about $100 million.

A September 2024 verdict against Daimler Truck North America resulted in a $160 million award.

An extensive search and AI queries about other verdicts larger than the $81 million against Beacon did not produce further awards in excess of that figure. Even if they exist, there presumably aren’t many of them, making the Madsen case one of the biggest nuclear trucking verdicts.

Marathon Strategies, in a report on nuclear verdicts against all industries in 2024, said there were eight nuclear verdicts against trucking in 2024, with a total judgment levied against trucking of about $790.5 million.

Marathon’s definition of nuclear verdicts aligned with the general consensus that a verdict in excess of $10 million earns it the adjective of “nuclear.” Marathon described that the trucking and automotive sectors “are among the top targets of nuclear verdicts, mainly in wrongful death and negligence cases.”

Big one for Utah

Claggett & Sykes, one of the law firms that represented the Madsen family, said in online commentary about the case that they believed it was the largest award for any industry in Utah history. 

Testimony in the trial, in discussing what happened that evening, was never really in dispute. Michael Madsen had the Walk signal at an intersection and driver Rusty Cope did not come to a full stop before making a right turn into the intersection, killing the boy who was legally crossing the road in a crosswalk. He was accompanied by two friends at the time who had been at the movies with him.

A loss at first

In the first trial, the jury determined the driver was not negligent, which in turn led to no finding against Allied/Beacon. For the company to be found liable, the driver first needed to be found liable. As a result, the Madsen family plaintiffs received no award.

According to recaps of the case, the jury verdict kicked off a process in which the plaintiffs filed for a renewed motion for judgement as a matter of law on the question of Cope’s negligence. The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School has defined that as a step that “asks the court to enter a judgment based on the conclusion that no reasonable jury could reach a different conclusion.”

The Madsen family plaintiffs, which also included the parents of the two friends who were with Michael Madsen, were granted that motion from the trial court’s judge, which found the driver negligent. The defendants appealed that decision to the Utah Court of Appeals.

The appellate court upheld the trial court judge’s findings and sent the case back to the state’s district court for awards to be determined. It was that court that then handed down the $81 million verdict, which also included awards of $7.5 million to Michael Madsen’s two friends.

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