Jury Awards Ohio Trucking Company $1.3 Million After Navistar Concealed MaxxForce Engine Defects

Dutch Maid Logistics, a trucking company based in Ohio, purchased 20 Navistar ProStar trucks equipped with second-generation MaxxForce diesel engines. The engines used an exhaust gas recirculation system that Navistar internally knew was prone to cooler failures. Rather than disclose those known problems at the point of sale, the company's representatives told Dutch Maid the trucks were reliable and emissions-compliant.

The MaxxForce engine line had become a serious liability for Navistar. The company had staked its emissions compliance strategy on EGR technology instead of the diesel exhaust fluid systems that competitors adopted. When the EGR approach failed at scale, Navistar quietly abandoned it in 2012 and eventually absorbed billions of dollars in consumer claims. Dutch Maid, left with a fleet of chronically unreliable trucks, incurred repair costs, lost revenue from downtime, and took losses when forced to trade the vehicles early.

Clay Miller and Larry Lassiter of Miller Weisbrod, working alongside co-counsel from Kitrick, Lewis and Harris, brought the case to a jury in Licking County. They argued that Navistar's sales representatives had deliberately withheld material information about the EGR cooler failures, which constituted fraud by nondisclosure under Ohio law. Navistar countered that broad warranty disclaimers in the purchase agreements shielded it from any fraud exposure.

On July 29, 2019, the jury rejected that defense and found Navistar liable for fraudulent nondisclosure. The jury awarded $75,000 for lost profits, $200,000 for diminished vehicle value, and $1,025,000 in punitive damages, totaling $1.3 million. The jury found no breach of warranty, but the fraud verdict stood on its own.

Navistar appealed to the Ohio Fifth Appellate District, arguing that the warranty disclaimers barred the fraud claim and that the punitive award was excessive. On April 22, 2021, the court affirmed the trial judgment without modification, holding that boilerplate disclaimers cannot immunize a seller from liability when deliberate concealment of material defects has been proved. The $1.3 million verdict remained intact.