Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

This case involves an injury to the driver of a tractor-trailer, due to a defectively designed cruise control on a Freightliner truck. The driver in this case had his cruise control set on his Freightliner FLD 120 tractor when he entered an interchange ramp between two highways. When he stepped on the brake, he claimed the cruise control failed to disengage and he could not make the turns on the ramp. The truck tipped over, rolled over the guardrail, down the embankment, and landed upside-down, crushing the roof. The truck driver was trapped inside for two hours until rescue workers finally freed him.

The driver had to have his left arm amputated above the shoulder. After this, he could not drive a truck and had difficulty using a prosthetic arm due to skin breakdown and continuing pain.

At trial, the injured driver presented evidence showing that Freightliner knew that the cruise control on all cars made in this country includes a redundant, failsafe cutoff switch. However, Freightliner designed its cruise control with only one cutoff switch, according to the driver's experts. With a single cutoff cruise control switch, if something goes wrong in the switch monitoring the brake pedal, there is no backup device to disengage it. Instead, it stays on — plowing ahead at full speed, at precisely the time when the driver needs to slow down.

The driver also showed that while rollover accidents are the leading causes of injuries to truck passengers, Freightliner resisted efforts to establish specific crashworthiness rules and standards to prevent injuries.

Freightliner claimed that the driver was going too fast when he entered the ramp. They said no truck could withstand the forces involved in rolling over at that speed, and that they had strengthened the cab roof when designing the truck model in question, compared to previous models. The jury disagreed with Freightliner and found that the driver suffered damages totaling $5,500,000 and awarding punitive damages of an additional $10,000,000.