$23.5 Million Verdict Against Swift Transportation for Meth-Impaired Driver Who Backed Into Highway Traffic

On the morning of March 16, 2006, a Swift Transportation driver attempted to pull into a highway rest stop off U.S. Highway 54 in rural New Mexico. Unable to complete the turn, she reversed her tractor-trailer back into oncoming traffic. A Yellow Freight tractor-trailer, traveling the highway, could not avoid the collision. Terry Frederick was in the sleeping berth of the Yellow Freight truck at the time of impact.

The crash left Frederick with severe, debilitating injuries. He and his wife Donna brought suit in federal court in Wichita, Kansas, against Swift Transportation. The case centered not only on the mechanics of the crash but on what Swift knew, and ignored, about the driver it had put behind the wheel.

Attorneys Lynn R. Johnson, Scott E. Nutter, and Douglas R. Bradley of Shamberg Johnson and Bergman built the record at trial. Evidence showed the Swift driver had lied on her job application, concealing prior drug use, felony convictions, and past license suspensions. She lacked the experience and training required to safely operate a commercial rig. Post-accident drug testing confirmed she had methamphetamine in her system at the time of the crash. Accident reconstruction disproved the driver's claim that the Yellow Freight truck had struck her from behind.

After six and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of $19.5 million for Terry Frederick and $4 million for Donna Frederick, totaling $23.5 million. The jury allocated 35 percent of fault to the Yellow Freight side, reducing the judgment to $15.275 million. The verdict was described at the time as the largest personal injury verdict in Kansas history.

Swift Transportation appealed, arguing among other things that the district court should not have allowed evidence of the driver's drug use and that she was acting outside the scope of her employment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected both arguments in an August 2010 opinion and affirmed the $15.275 million judgment in full.