Omaha Jury Finds Navistar Committed Fraud in Sale of 24 Defective MaxxForce Trucks to Nationwide Transportation

Nationwide Transportation, an Omaha-based carrier, purchased 24 International ProStar trucks in 2011 from Cornhusker International Trucks. Each truck carried a MaxxForce 13-liter diesel engine, the centerpiece of Navistar's emissions strategy. Before the sale, Navistar representatives assured Paul D. Moore, Nationwide's owner, that the exhaust gas recirculation system had been field tested and would deliver a standard industry service life. Moore later testified that, on that basis, the purchase seemed straightforward.

Problems appeared shortly after the trucks entered service. The EGR coolers, EGR valves, and related components began to fail across the fleet. Repair crews cycled through the trucks repeatedly, but the underlying defects persisted. What Nationwide did not know at the time was that Navistar engineers and executives had internal knowledge of the EGR system's chronic failures before the trucks were ever sold. The company had bet its emissions compliance on EGR technology instead of the selective catalytic reduction systems its competitors chose, and by 2012 Navistar quietly abandoned the approach after absorbing cascading warranty claims across its fleet.

Clay Miller of Miller Weisbrod brought the case to trial in Omaha. The core theory was fraud by concealment: that Navistar's sales assurances about the EGR system were knowing misrepresentations, and that a buyer with accurate information would not have made the purchase. Moore told the jury directly: 'If I had known the true facts known by Navistar executives and engineers, I would have never bought these trucks in the first place.'

On February 18, 2020, the jury agreed. It found Navistar had committed fraud and awarded Nationwide $21,500 per truck, more than $500,000 in total. Nebraska is one of only three states that does not permit punitive damages when a manufacturer commits fraud in a product sale, so the award was compensatory only. Miller noted at the time that the verdict was the third of four separate jury findings of fraud against Navistar arising from MaxxForce engine sales.