$39 Million Verdict in I-40 Pileup That Killed Four

On the night of November 23, 2013, Sarah Gregory was hauling freight for New Prime, Inc. along Interstate 40 near the New Mexico-Texas state line. She spotted brake lights ahead, applied the brakes hard, and the eighteen-wheeler skidded on a patch of ice and jackknifed across the highway. The disabled trailer came to rest blocking traffic lanes in an unlit stretch of road, with no hazard warnings deployed.

The pile-up that followed pulled in additional tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles. Among those trapped in the chaos were members of an El Paso family riding together in a Chevy van. Belinda Vasquez and Hector Perales were killed; other relatives in the van, including van driver Guillermo Vasquez and Alma Perales, survived with serious injuries. Bhupinder Singh Deol, a truck driver who had pulled over, was struck and killed when the van was hit from behind and rolled over him. A fourth person, Tracy Jones, also died in the chain reaction.

The surviving family members and representatives of the deceased estates brought wrongful death and survival claims against Gregory and New Prime. Tim Dollar and JJ Burns of Dollar, Burns, Becker and Hershewe, L.C. tried the case for the Vasquez and Perales family, with Texas local counsel Mike Bassett. The jury found Gregory and New Prime jointly and severally liable, apportioning fifty-five percent of fault to Gregory and thirty percent to New Prime. The remaining fifteen percent fell on the driver of a third carrier involved in the chain of collisions.

The jury returned a verdict of approximately $38.8 million across all plaintiff families, with the Deol family alone receiving a judgment of $16,447,272.31 after settlement credits. The award included roughly $15 million in noneconomic damages covering past and future mental anguish and loss of companionship for six of Deol's family members.

The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in full in November 2020, rejecting all twelve issues raised by Gregory and New Prime. The Texas Supreme Court, however, reversed and remanded for a new trial in 2023, holding that the noneconomic damages lacked a rational connection to the evidence at trial. The court singled out plaintiffs' counsel's closing argument, which urged jurors to award 'two cents for every mile' New Prime's fleet drove that year, and held that such unsubstantiated anchoring cannot support a damages figure. Gregory v. Chohan is now the leading Texas authority on how noneconomic damages must be proved.