Omaha Werner Enterprises $90 Million Verdict — What Happened, What Was Reversed, and What It Means for Your Family
You are reading this because someone you love was hurt or killed in a crash involving a commercial truck. Maybe it was a Werner Enterprises tractor-trailer — the company headquartered right here in Omaha at 14507 Frontier Road, running one of the largest truckload fleets in the nation with nearly 10,000 power units and over 9,000 drivers on the road. Maybe you heard about the Texas jury verdict that hit Werner with nearly $90 million and thought: that could be us. What you almost certainly have not heard is what happened next. The Texas Supreme Court reversed that verdict on June 27, 2025, and rendered judgment for the defense — finding that the Werner driver’s lawful presence on the highway “merely furnished the condition” for the crash but did not proximately cause it, and that the sole proximate cause was another vehicle crossing the median.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle 18-wheeler and commercial truck crash cases across the country, working with local counsel where required, and we tell you the reversal up front because it is the single most important lesson this case teaches: a headline verdict is not a recovery. The difference between a jury number and a check your family can deposit is measured in the quality of the evidence preserved in the first 72 hours, the strength of the liability theory, and the lawyer’s understanding of what the appellate court will do with the case years later.
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you — and now sits on your side of the table. We are writing this page to give you everything we know about what a catastrophic commercial trucking case actually requires, so that whether you call us or someone else, you walk into the fight with your eyes open.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Verdict That Made Headlines — and the Reversal That Followed
A Texas jury returned a verdict of approximately $90 million against Werner Enterprises — one of the larger commercial carrier verdicts in Texas litigation history. The jury apportioned fault at 70% to Werner, 14% to the Werner driver, and 16% to the driver of another vehicle who crossed the median. The judgment entered on that verdict exceeded $100 million.
Then the Texas Supreme Court reversed it.
In Werner Enterprises, Inc. and Shiraz A. Ali v. Blake, No. 23-0493, decided June 27, 2025, the Court held that the Werner driver’s presence on the roadway, traveling at a lawful speed, “merely furnished the condition that made the injuries possible but did not proximately cause them.” The sole proximate cause, the Court found, was the other vehicle hurtling across the median into the truck’s path. The Court reversed the court of appeals’ judgment and rendered judgment for the defense.
That means the family’s recovery from Werner — after years of litigation, after a nine-figure jury verdict — was zero. The verdict that made headlines was erased. Not reduced on appeal. Not trimmed by remittitur. Reversed and rendered for the defendant.
We tell you this not to discourage you. We tell you because it is the single most honest thing any lawyer can say about a catastrophic trucking case: the verdict is only as strong as the liability theory behind it, and the liability theory is only as strong as the evidence that was frozen in the first days after the crash. A jury can be moved to return a enormous number. An appellate court can take that number away if the proximate-cause theory does not hold. The lesson is not “these cases are hopeless.” The lesson is “these cases are winnable, but only when they are built right from day one.”
Who Werner Enterprises Is: Omaha’s Largest Trucking Company
Werner Enterprises is a publicly traded interstate motor carrier (NASDAQ: WERN) headquartered here in Omaha, Nebraska, at 14507 Frontier Road. It operates one of the largest truckload fleets in the United States with nationwide operating authority. As of June 2026, federal safety records show approximately 9,863 power units and 9,107 drivers operating under USDOT number 53467 and MC-138328. Over a recent 24-month reporting window, the carrier was involved in 14 fatal crashes, 223 injury crashes, and 476 tow-away crashes — 713 total. Those are involvement numbers, not fault findings. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration makes no determination of responsibility for any individual crash, and crash preventability determinations are not admissible in a civil action for damages under federal law.
What matters to your family is this: Werner is not a small operator with a thin insurance policy. It is a publicly traded corporation with significant financial resources, robust insurance coverage, and the MCS-90 endorsement required for interstate motor carrier operations. When one of its trucks causes catastrophic harm, the resources to compensate your family exist. The question is whether the evidence and the legal theory are strong enough to reach them.
Werner also operates through layered corporate entities. The operating carrier on the SAFER database may not be the only entity with legal responsibility. There may be separate leasing entities, logistics or brokerage arms, and subsidiary companies. Identifying the correct defendant — the entity whose driver was behind the wheel, the entity that controlled the truck, the entity that holds the insurance — is foundational work that begins the day you call a lawyer.
Texas Trucking Law: Comparative Fault, the 51% Bar, and Exemplary Damages
The Werner verdict was tried in Texas, and Texas law governed the case. If your crash occurred in a different state — including here in Nebraska — that state’s law would govern your case. The law of the state where the crash physically occurred controls, not the state where the trucking company is headquartered. But because the Werner case was a Texas case, here is the framework that produced the $90 million number — and the framework that ultimately reversed it.
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51% bar rule, meaning a plaintiff is barred from recovery only if found 51% or more at fault.
In plain English: your own share of fault reduces your recovery, and if you are 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. But if you are 50% or less at fault, you recover — reduced by your percentage. Every percentage point the defense pins on you is money. That is exactly why the adjuster works so hard in the first 72 hours to get you to say things that sound like you were partly to blame.
Texas does not impose caps on compensatory damages in commercial trucking cases. That means a jury can award the full measure of medical costs, lost earnings, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of companionship, and disfigurement — with no statutory ceiling. Exemplary (punitive) damages are subject to statutory limitations, but compensatory damages in a commercial trucking wrongful-death or catastrophic-injury case are uncapped. This is one of the reasons Texas has produced some of the nation’s largest commercial trucking verdicts.
Texas also recognizes two parallel claims after a fatal injury: a wrongful death action, brought by statutory beneficiaries (spouse, children, and parents), and a survival action, brought by the estate for damages the decedent could have recovered — including conscious pain and suffering before death. These are two separate doors, and a family that walks through only one leaves money on the table.
The Werner reversal turned on proximate cause — the legal requirement that the defendant’s negligence must be the actual cause of the harm, not merely a background condition. The Texas Supreme Court drew a sharp line between a truck being present on the road (a condition) and the truck’s conduct causing the crash (proximate cause). In your case, the strength of the proximate-cause theory is everything. If the truck’s driver was speeding, fatigued, distracted, or violated a federal safety regulation, and that violation contributed to the crash, the proximate-cause theory is strong. If the truck was simply present when someone else caused the wreck, the theory is weak — no matter how sympathetic the injuries.
The Stowers Doctrine: When an Insurer’s Refusal to Settle Creates Its Own Liability
Texas has a legal doctrine that most states do not — and it is one of the most powerful tools a family has against a commercial carrier.
The Stowers doctrine creates a duty on liability insurers to accept reasonable settlement offers within policy limits, exposing carriers to bad-faith liability and potential excess judgments for unreasonable refusal.
In plain English: if your family makes a reasonable settlement demand within the trucking company’s insurance policy limits, and the insurer refuses, and the case goes to trial and the jury awards more than the policy limits, the insurance company itself can be on the hook for the excess — not just the trucking company. The insurer’s own refusal to settle becomes its own liability.
This changes the entire dynamic of a commercial trucking case. Without Stowers, the insurance company can lowball you with impunity — refuse every reasonable offer, force a trial, and if they lose, pay the verdict up to the policy limit and walk away. With Stowers, every unreasonable refusal carries the risk of an excess judgment that comes out of the insurer’s own pocket. That risk is what drives large settlements in cases with strong liability. It is also why the preservation letter, the evidence demand, and the liability theory all matter so much — the Stowers demand is only as strong as the proof behind it.
The Stowers doctrine is specific to Texas. If your crash occurred in Nebraska or another state, different rules govern the insurer’s duty to settle. But the principle is universal: the stronger your evidence and your liability theory, the more pressure exists on the carrier to resolve the case rather than roll the dice at trial.
The FMCSA Regulatory Framework: What a Carrier Must Prove It Did
Every interstate commercial truck on the road operates under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, found in 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399. These federal rules establish the standard of care for interstate carriers and may serve as the basis for negligence claims where violations proximately cause injury. Here is what a carrier like Werner must prove it did — and what we look for when it did not.
Hours of Service. Federal law caps a commercial driver’s driving time at 11 hours within a 14-hour shift, after 10 consecutive hours off duty. A driver may not drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 days (or 70 hours in 8 days for carriers operating every day). These rules exist because fatigue is one of the deadliest factors in commercial trucking — a tired driver is a slow-reacting driver, and a slow-reacting driver in an 80,000-pound machine is a weapon.
Electronic Logging Devices. Drivers must record their hours using an Electronic Logging Device synchronized with the truck’s engine. The ELD data and supporting documents — up to eight per 24-hour on-duty period, including fuel receipts, toll records, dispatch records, and GPS pings — corroborate or contradict the driver’s logs. When the log says the driver was off duty but the fuel receipt shows a purchase 500 miles away, the log is a lie. That gap is the case.
Driver Qualification Files. Before a carrier ever hands someone the keys to a tractor-trailer, federal law requires it to build a qualification file: the employment application, the motor vehicle record from each licensing authority, the road-test certificate, the annual driving-record review, the medical examiner’s certificate, and any medical variance or exemption. The carrier must investigate the driver’s record before and during employment. When a driver with a history of crashes or violations is put behind the wheel without proper screening, the carrier’s own hiring decision becomes a separate ground of liability — negligent hiring, entrustment, and supervision.
Post-Crash Drug and Alcohol Testing. After a crash involving a fatality, or a crash involving injury with a citation, or a crash involving disabling damage with a citation, federal law requires the carrier to test the driver for alcohol and controlled substances. For alcohol, the carrier must attempt the test promptly and stop trying after 8 hours. For drugs, the carrier must stop trying after 32 hours. If the test was not done, the carrier must document why. A missing test is its own kind of evidence.
Vehicle Maintenance and Inspection. Drivers must complete a Daily Vehicle Inspection Report at the end of each day, identifying any defect affecting safety — brakes, steering, lights, tires, coupling devices. The carrier must certify that defects were repaired before the truck rolls again. A prior driver’s written complaint about bad brakes, followed by no repair record, is proof the company knew and did nothing.
You can learn more about how these regulations shape a commercial truck crash case in our definitive guide to commercial truck accidents.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Exist and How Fast They Legally Die
This is the section that decides whether your case is a verdict or a memory. Every record below exists because federal law forces it into existence. Every record below can be legally destroyed on a schedule the carrier controls. The only thing that stops the clock is a preservation letter — and it has to go out in days, not months.
A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt.
— 49 CFR § 395.8(k)(1)
Electronic Logging Device and Hours of Service records. The driver’s minute-by-minute record of driving time, on-duty time, and rest periods. This is the proof of fatigue. The carrier is only required to keep it for six months from the date of receipt. After that, federal law allows the company to legally destroy it. The preservation letter demanding these logs must go out before the funeral, not after the insurance company calls.
Event Data Recorder / black box data. The truck’s computer captures vehicle speed, braking input, throttle position, and other parameters in the moments before impact. This data can be overwritten or lost if the vehicle is returned to service, if the recording unit is replaced, or if the truck is scrapped. Unlike a passenger car’s EDR, which under federal regulation must lock deployment-event data, a heavy truck’s engine ECM data sits in a small buffer and can be overwritten by the next hard event — sometimes within hours of the truck being driven again.
Driver qualification file and employment history. The driver’s application, motor vehicle record, road-test certificate, annual reviews, medical certificate, and any drug and alcohol test results. The carrier must retain this file for as long as the driver is employed, plus three years after separation. For a currently employed driver, the file is alive now — demand it before a separation starts the three-year clock.
Vehicle maintenance and inspection records. The DVIRs, repair certifications, and inspection histories that show whether the carrier knew about mechanical defects. The DVIR itself only must be retained for three months — the shortest retention clock in the entire FMCSA framework. A defective-equipment case can live or die on a preservation letter sent within weeks.
Qualcomm and GPS telematics data. Real-time tracking of vehicle location, speed, and route, corroborating or contradicting the driver’s logs. Telematics providers may purge data on varying cycles depending on system configuration and contract terms. This data is not subject to a uniform federal retention mandate — it dies on the vendor’s schedule.
The accident register. Federal law requires the carrier to maintain a register of all crashes for three years. This is where a pattern hides — proof the company knew this kind of wreck kept happening and did nothing.
Drug and alcohol testing records. Post-accident test results, positives, and refusals must be retained for five years. Negative results may be purged in as little as one year.
The preservation letter goes to the carrier, the driver, the truck’s telematics provider, and any third-party data vendor. It names every record by category. It demands that nothing be destroyed, altered, or overwritten. It is the single most important document in the first week of a catastrophic trucking case — because the evidence that proves fatigue, negligence, or a regulatory violation can be legally erased before a lawsuit is ever filed.
The Insurance Tower: Following the Money in a Commercial Carrier Case
A regular freight carrier operating in interstate commerce is federally required to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. A carrier hauling hazardous materials must carry $1,000,000, and a carrier hauling the most dangerous hazmat in bulk must carry $5,000,000. These are statutory floors set decades ago and not adjusted for inflation. A large publicly traded carrier like Werner carries layered excess coverage far above the federal minimum — a tower of primary, excess, and umbrella policies stacked on top of each other, often reaching into the tens of millions.
The MCS-90 endorsement is the federal filing that guarantees a carrier’s insurance will respond to public liability arising from interstate operations, regardless of certain policy exclusions. It is the floor that ensures there is money behind the truck. You can learn more about how the MCS-90 works in our guide to MCS-90 auto endorsements.
For a catastrophic injury or wrongful death, the coverage tower is where the recovery lives. A single night in a trauma center can exhaust a $750,000 policy. A lifetime of care for a spinal cord injury or a severe brain injury can run into the millions. The first policy pays until its limit, then the next layer pays, then the next. Identifying every layer — through discovery, through the FMCSA Licensing and Insurance database, through the carrier’s own filings — is how a case moves from a policy-limits settlement to a recovery that actually pays for a family’s future.
The self-insured retention is another pressure point. Many large carriers are self-insured for a portion of their liability, meaning the company’s own dollars sit on the first layer of any claim. A large retention means the carrier feels every dollar of the first settlement offer in its own bank account — which makes the decision to refuse a reasonable Stowers demand a direct financial risk, not just an insurer’s problem.
The Adjuster Playbook: What the Carrier’s Insurance Team Will Try
Lupe Peña sat in the rooms where these decisions were made. He was a former insurance-defense attorney at a national firm — trained inside the industry, now fighting it for injured clients. Here is what he knows the adjuster will do, and what you need to know before it happens.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Within days of the crash, someone friendly will call to “check on you” and ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording. The purpose is to get you to say “I’m feeling okay” or “I didn’t see the truck” or “I think I might have been going a little fast.” Every word is transcribed and becomes a defense exhibit. The counter: do not give a recorded statement without a lawyer. You are not required to. Say: “I need to speak with an attorney first.” That sentence protects your case more than any other.
Play 2: The fast check with a release buried under it. A settlement check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks — with a release document printed on the back or attached to it. The release says that by cashing the check, you give up all claims forever. The check arrives before the MRI results, before the surgery is scheduled, before the full extent of the brain injury or spinal damage is known. The counter: never cash a check from a trucking company’s insurer without having a lawyer read every word of every document that comes with it. A check for $10,000 that costs you a $2 million case is not a settlement. It is a trap.
Play 3: The “you were partly at fault” pressure. The adjuster will look for anything — your speed, your lane position, your phone records, your social media posts — to pin a percentage of fault on you. Every percentage point is money off the verdict. In a modified comparative negligence state, if they can push you past the bar (50% or 51%, depending on the state), you recover nothing. The counter: do not discuss fault with anyone. Do not post on social media. Do not speculate about what happened. Let the evidence — the EDR, the logs, the reconstruction — speak for you.
Play 4: The independent medical examination with their doctor. The insurer will send you to a doctor they choose for an “independent” examination. That doctor is not independent. The examination is designed to minimize your injuries, attribute them to pre-existing conditions, or find that you are “healing faster than expected.” The counter: attend if required, but have your lawyer present or recording. Bring your own medical records. Answer questions honestly but do not volunteer. And make sure your own treating physicians are documenting your injuries thoroughly and contemporaneously.
Play 5: The surveillance and social-media watch. The insurer may send an investigator to film you, or they may monitor your social media for photos of you smiling, walking, or doing activities. A photo of you at your daughter’s wedding will be used to argue you are not really injured — even if you were in agonizing pain the entire time. The counter: set your social media to private. Do not accept new friend requests from people you do not know. Assume you are being watched. And never post about the crash, your injuries, or your case.
The Medicine: What an 80,000-Pound Truck Does to a Human Body
A fully loaded tractor-trailer can weigh 80,000 pounds. A passenger car weighs about 4,000 pounds. That is a 20-to-1 weight disparity. When the two collide, the people in the car absorb a disproportionate share of the energy — the change in velocity that crash researchers call delta-V, the single best available predictor of occupant injury severity. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, large trucks weigh 20 to 30 times as much as passenger vehicles, and in fatal crashes involving large trucks, approximately 65% of the people killed are occupants of the passenger vehicle — not the truck.
Speed multiplies the danger. Kinetic energy — the destructive force a vehicle carries — increases with the square of speed. A truck traveling 60 miles per hour carries four times the energy of one traveling 30. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s own safety material states that a fully loaded tractor-trailer traveling at 65 miles per hour needs approximately 525 feet to stop — roughly the length of two football fields — under ideal conditions. A passenger car needs about 316 feet. When a truck is following too close, or speeding, or the driver’s reaction time is slowed by fatigue, the laws of physics have already taken the choice away.
Here is what that energy does to the people in the car.
Traumatic brain injury. The brain does not have to hit the skull to be damaged. In a crash, the head undergoes rapid acceleration and deceleration — the skull stops, the brain keeps moving — and the twisting force tears the brain’s internal wiring, a injury called diffuse axonal injury. A standard CT scan comes back normal in approximately 90% of mild traumatic brain injury cases — not because nothing is wrong, but because the damage is microscopic tearing a standard scan was never designed to see. The word “mild” is a hospital triage word, not a prognosis: more than one-third of patients with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13 — the top of the “mild” range — have potentially life-threatening intracranial bleeding. At least 15% of mild TBI patients develop persistent postconcussion syndrome: headaches, memory loss, personality changes, and inability to concentrate that never fully resolve. The injury is proven through neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging, and the testimony of people who knew the person before.
Spinal cord injury. When the forces of a truck crash fracture or dislocate vertebrae, the spinal cord — the bundle of nerves that runs every signal between the brain and the body — can be compressed, contused, or severed. The National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center at the University of Alabama tracks every spinal cord injury in the country. Their 2025 data, reported in 2024 dollars, puts the first-year cost of a high tetraplegia (neck-level paralysis affecting all four limbs) at $1,410,163, and the estimated lifetime cost for a person injured at age 25 at $6,256,937. For paraplegia, the lifetime cost is $3,059,615. Those figures cover only medical care and living expenses — they exclude every lost paycheck, every year of vanished earning power, and every human loss no receipt can measure. The federal data adds approximately $95,309 per year in indirect costs (lost wages and productivity) on top of the care total.
Amputation and crush injury. When a truck crash traps a limb, the damage can be immediate — bone shattered, tissue destroyed — or it can develop over hours as compartment syndrome sets in. Muscle lives inside a tough sheath that does not stretch. When a crushed limb swells, pressure inside that sheath rises until it strangles the muscle’s own blood supply. The body has roughly a six-hour window to cut the sheath open and relieve the pressure. Inside that window, limb function recovers almost completely. Past it, the muscle dies. The largest study ever conducted on limb-threatening injuries found that the projected lifetime healthcare cost for amputation patients was $509,275 — roughly three times the cost of limb reconstruction — because a prosthetic limb is never bought once. It is bought, worn out, and replaced every three to five years for the rest of a person’s life. A computer-controlled knee for an above-knee amputee can cost as much as a new car, and the warranty runs out in three years.
Burn injury. When a truck crash ruptures a fuel tank, a survivable impact can become a fire. Doctors estimate the severity of a burn by mapping the body against a chart called the Rule of Nines — the front of each leg counts as 9% of total body surface area, the front of the torso as 18%. A burn covering 25% of the body can mean a month in a burn unit, multiple skin-graft surgeries, and years of operations to release scars as they tighten. A full-thickness burn is painless at the burn site itself — the nerve endings are destroyed — which is why a silent victim may have the worst burn of all. The American Burn Association publishes referral criteria that require every chemical burn, every high-voltage electrical burn, and every burn to the face, hands, or genitals to be sent to a specialized burn center.
For families dealing with the loss of a loved one, we handle wrongful death claims that account for both the economic loss — the paychecks that stopped, the benefits that vanished, the household services that now have to be hired out — and the human loss that no dollar figure can truly capture.
What a Case Like This Is Worth
Every case is different. The Werner verdict — approximately $90 million — was built on a specific set of facts, a specific liability theory, and a specific jury. It was also reversed. The case-value range the forensic analysis suggests for a catastrophic commercial trucking case with strong liability is broad: from the low end of $30 million to the high end of $90 million or more. But that range is pre-appeal, and it depends on liability findings that survive appellate review.
Here is what drives the number. A complete damages model in a catastrophic trucking case is built from several streams:
Economic damages. Past and future medical expenses, including hospitalization, surgeries, rehabilitation, medication, and durable medical equipment. Past and future lost wages and lost earning capacity — projected using worklife expectancy tables derived from federal labor data, not a guess. Lost employer-paid benefits — federal figures show benefits run approximately 30% on top of wages for a typical private-sector worker, and a complete claim counts all of it. Lost household services — the cooking, childcare, repairs, and management work your loved one did for free, valued at the market replacement rate. In a death case, the decedent’s personal consumption is subtracted from gross lost earnings to reach the net support the family would have received.
Non-economic damages. Pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of companionship and consortium, disfigurement, and the life the injured person no longer gets to live. In Texas, there is no statutory cap on compensatory non-economic damages in commercial trucking cases. In other states, caps may apply — and the caps are different in every state. Some states cap non-economic damages in all personal injury cases. Some cap them only in medical malpractice. Some have had their caps struck down by their state supreme court. The cap question is state-specific and must be confirmed for the state where the crash occurred.
Exemplary (punitive) damages. In Texas, exemplary damages are available when the defendant acted with fraud, malice, or gross negligence — defined as conscious indifference to the safety of others. A trucking company that knew its driver was fatigued, or knew its brakes were defective, and put the truck on the road anyway, may face exemplary damages. Exemplary damages are subject to statutory limitations in Texas. In other states, the rules vary widely — some allow punitive damages, some cap them, some do not allow them at all.
The life-care plan. In a catastrophic injury case, a certified life-care planner builds a document — to a published professional standard — that prices out, year by year, every surgery, therapy, wheelchair, medication, and caregiver hour the injured person will need for the rest of their life. A forensic economist then reduces that future cost stream to present value, because a jury pays the whole future in one check today. The discount rate is a battleground — the defense argues for a high rate that shrinks the number, the plaintiff argues for a low rate that preserves it. The Supreme Court has held that the choice of discount rate must be a deliberate one, not a thumb on the scale.
Compensatory damages for personal physical injuries or wrongful death are generally tax-free under federal law. Punitive damages and interest are generally taxable. How a settlement is structured matters — not just for how much you receive, but for how much you keep.
The honest bottom line: a case like this can be worth millions, or it can be worth nothing — as the Werner family learned when the Supreme Court rendered judgment for the defense. The value is not in the headline. It is in the evidence, the theory, and the lawyer’s ability to build a case that survives both the trial and the appeal.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap
If your family has been hurt in a crash involving a commercial truck — whether it was a Werner truck, another national carrier, or a regional operator — here is what matters in the first 72 hours.
Medical care first. Get to a trauma center. A “mild” brain injury can come with a perfectly normal CT scan and still be life-altering. A spinal cord injury may not show its full extent for hours. Internal bleeding may not produce symptoms until it is too late. Let the doctors do their work. Follow every recommendation. Keep every appointment. The medical record being built right now is the foundation of the damages case — and gaps in treatment become the defense’s favorite argument that you were not really hurt.
Do not give a recorded statement. The insurance adjuster who calls is not your friend. The “just tell us what happened” call is engineered to produce words that will be used against you. Say: “I need to speak with an attorney.” That sentence is your right and your protection.
Do not sign anything. No release, no authorization, no settlement offer — nothing. The fast check with the release attached is designed to close your case before you know the full extent of your injuries. Nothing the trucking company’s insurer puts in front of you in the first weeks is designed to help you.
Do not post on social media. No photos, no updates, no “thank God we’re okay” posts. Everything you post can and will be used by the defense. A photo of you smiling at a family event becomes “proof” that you are not injured. Set your accounts to private. Do not accept new connections from people you do not know.
Preserve the vehicle. If your car is in a tow yard, do not let it be released, repaired, or scrapped. That vehicle is evidence — the crush patterns, the EDR data, the seatbelt condition, the airbag deployment marks. The car tells the reconstructionist what happened. Once it is gone, the story is gone with it.
Call a lawyer. The preservation letter — demanding that the trucking company freeze its logs, its ELD data, its telematics, its driver qualification file, its maintenance records, its DVIRs, its post-crash test results, and its accident register — has to go out immediately. Not next month. Not after the funeral. The ELD data can be legally destroyed in six months. The DVIRs can be legally destroyed in three months. The truck’s ECM data can be overwritten in hours. Every day you wait is a day the evidence is dying.
If you are wondering whether you can sue after a semi truck crash, our video on suing after being hit by a semi truck walks through the threshold questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue Werner Enterprises if their truck hit my family member?
Yes — if the truck’s driver was negligent and that negligence proximately caused the crash. A motor carrier is responsible for its driver’s negligence under the doctrine of respondeat superior when the driver was acting within the course and scope of employment. The carrier may also be directly liable for its own corporate failures — negligent hiring, training, supervision, or FMCSA regulatory violations. But the Werner reversal teaches a critical lesson: the truck being involved in the crash is not enough. The truck’s conduct must be the proximate cause. The strength of the liability theory, built from the evidence preserved in the first days, is what determines whether a case survives verdict and appeal.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit after a truck crash?
The deadline — the statute of limitations — depends on the state where the crash occurred. In Texas, where the Werner case was tried, the statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death is two years from the date of the crash or death. In other states, the deadline varies — some states allow more time, some allow less, and some have shorter deadlines for claims against government entities. The law of the state where the crash physically occurred governs, not the state where the trucking company is headquartered. Do not wait to find out. The evidence clock is shorter than the legal clock — the truck’s logs can be legally destroyed in six months, and the black box data can be overwritten in hours.
What happened to the $90 million verdict against Werner Enterprises?
The Texas Supreme Court reversed it on June 27, 2025, and rendered judgment for the defense. The Court held that the Werner driver’s lawful presence on the highway — traveling at a lawful speed — “merely furnished the condition” for the crash but did not proximately cause it. The sole proximate cause, the Court found, was another vehicle that crossed the median. The reversal means the family’s recovery from Werner after the appellate decision was zero. The case teaches that a jury verdict is only the first step — the appellate court can take it away if the proximate-cause theory does not hold. A case must be built to survive both the trial and the appeal.
What evidence disappears fastest after a truck crash?
The truck’s engine computer data — speed, braking, throttle — can be overwritten within hours if the truck is driven again. The surveillance video from nearby businesses or traffic cameras can overwrite in days to weeks. The driver’s electronic logging device data and supporting documents can be legally destroyed after six months. The daily vehicle inspection reports can be legally destroyed after three months. The preservation letter demanding that all of these records be frozen has to go out immediately — the day you call a lawyer, not the month you decide to file suit.
How much is my truck crash case worth?
No honest lawyer can answer that question without seeing the medical records, the crash report, the evidence of the truck’s speed and braking, the driver’s hours-of-service logs, the carrier’s safety record, and the full scope of the injuries. The Werner case produced a verdict of approximately $90 million — but it was reversed. The case-value range for a catastrophic commercial trucking case with strong liability can run from the low millions to the tens of millions, depending on the severity of the injuries, the strength of the liability evidence, the applicable state’s damage rules, and whether exemplary damages are available. What we can tell you is that the insurance company’s first offer will be a fraction of what the case is actually worth — and the life-care plan and the forensic economist’s projection are what close the gap.
What if the trucking company says their driver was not at fault?
They will say that. They always say that. The question is not what the company says — it is what the evidence shows. The truck’s black box tells the truth about speed and braking. The driver’s logs tell the truth about hours and fatigue. The maintenance records tell the truth about whether the brakes were inspected. The reconstructionist tells the truth about forces and stopping distances. The defense’s job is to create doubt. Our job is to replace doubt with physical evidence that does not change its story. When the EDR data, the ELD logs, the telematics, and the physical reconstruction all point the same direction, the “not our fault” argument collapses — no matter how many times the adjuster says it on the phone.
Will I have to go to trial?
Most personal injury cases settle before trial — widely cited estimates put the settlement rate at approximately 98%. But commercial trucking cases with catastrophic injuries and strong liability are different. The stakes are higher, the coverage towers are deeper, and the carrier has more resources to fight. Some cases settle after the preservation letter and the first round of discovery, when the carrier sees the evidence against it. Some settle after depositions, when the safety director admits the company’s failures under oath. Some go to trial — and some, like the Werner case, go to trial, produce a verdict, and then go to appeal. The decision to settle or try a case is yours, not ours. Our job is to build the strongest possible case so that either path — settlement or trial — produces the best possible outcome.
How much does it cost to hire a truck accident lawyer?
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. You can call us at 1-888-ATTY-911, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and speak with a live person — not an answering service. We advance the costs of the case — the filing fees, the expert witness fees, the reconstruction costs, the deposition expenses — and those costs are repaid from the recovery. If there is no recovery, you owe us nothing for our time.
What if my loved one was killed — who can file the case?
When a fatal crash takes a family member, the law opens two doors. A wrongful death action is brought by the statutory beneficiaries — in Texas, the spouse, children, and parents of the decedent — and compensates the family for the financial support, services, and companionship they lost. A survival action is brought by the estate of the decedent and compensates for the pain, suffering, and economic losses the decedent experienced between the injury and death. In other states, the beneficiary class and the available damages may differ. A court appoints a personal representative — the one person authorized to bring the family’s case — and we handle that appointment. The clock on both claims runs from the date of death, not the date of the crash, but the evidence clock runs from the crash — so the preservation letter still has to go out immediately.
How do I deal with the insurance adjuster who keeps calling?
Stop dealing with them. That is the short answer and the right answer. The adjuster works for the trucking company, not for you. Every call is designed to gather information that reduces the value of your claim. Say: “I have retained counsel. Please contact my attorney.” Then call us. If you have not retained counsel yet, say: “I am not prepared to discuss the case. I will contact you when I am ready.” Do not explain. Do not justify. Do not speculate. Do not apologize. Every word is a potential exhibit.
Why This Firm — and What the First Call Costs
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is a journalist who became a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the evidence tells, and he knows how to tell it to a jury. He is admitted to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and lead counsel in the active $10 million-plus Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston hazing lawsuit. He does not settle cases because they are hard. He tries them because the evidence demands it.
Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He knows how the claim is valued, how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours before the real injuries are diagnosed, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the IME doctor is selected, and where delay crosses into bad faith. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call costs you nothing. The first thing we do — the day you call — is send the preservation letter that freezes the evidence before it disappears. The logs, the black box, the maintenance records, the driver’s qualification file, the telematics, the post-crash test results — all of it. Every record the carrier is allowed to legally destroy on a schedule we know better than they do.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. 24 hours. 7 days a week. A live person answers — not a machine, not a call center. If you are reading this at 2 a.m., call at 2 a.m. We have been doing this since 2001, and the first conversation is always the same: we listen, we tell you the truth about what you are facing, and if we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you that too.
Hablamos Español. Lupe conducts consultations entirely in Spanish — your family does not need an interpreter to understand your rights.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.