Memphis Jury Awards Tanker Driver $3.7 Million After I-55 Rear-End Truck Crash

On July 1, 2009, three tractor-trailers collided on Interstate 55 in Memphis. Donriel A. Borne had brought his rig, a tanker he used to haul chemicals, to a stop in a construction zone. A Celadon Trucking Services tractor-trailer driven by Harold Foster rear-ended him. Moments later a third truck, owned by Chickasaw Container Services, struck the Celadon truck from behind.

Borne, who was stopped and had done nothing to cause the crash, suffered back and neck injuries. In June 2010 he filed a personal-injury suit in Shelby County Circuit Court, naming Celadon and Chickasaw and seeking $5 million in compensatory damages.

R. Sadler Bailey and Thomas R. Greer represented Borne. Their investigation pointed to Celadon as the at-fault truck and concluded that Chickasaw bore no responsibility. Celadon's defense was built on shifting blame to Chickasaw. That strategy collapsed on the second-to-last day of the six-day trial in May 2013: Celadon withdrew its comparative-fault allegation against Chickasaw, Chickasaw won a directed verdict, and Celadon was left as the only defendant.

The plaintiff's case put concrete numbers to the harm. Borne could no longer perform the heavy work of loading and unloading chemicals into a tanker, so his lost earning capacity was central, alongside his pain, his permanent injury, and the activities the crash took from him. The jury returned an itemized verdict of $3,705,000: $1,455,000 for loss of earning capacity, $750,000 for physical pain and mental suffering, $750,000 for permanent injury, and $750,000 for loss of enjoyment of life.

Celadon moved for a new trial or, alternatively, for a remittitur. The trial court found the award excessive and cut it by $1,605,000, to $2.1 million. Borne accepted that reduction under protest, and the dispute over how far a court may cut a jury's number went up on appeal.

In 2017 the Tennessee Supreme Court used the case to fix the rule. An appellate court may order its own remittitur only when an award exceeds the uppermost boundary of the range of reasonableness, and when it reviews a trial court's reduction it must decide whether that reduction is supported by a preponderance of the evidence. Because the trial judge had offered little explanation for the cut, the court sent the case back so the reasons could be stated. On the later remand, the loss-of-earning-capacity award was set at $1,334,647, leaving Borne's recovery below the jury's original $3.7 million figure.