The truck accident law firm of Wisner Baum has represented hundreds of people involved in commercial vehicle crashes and other car accidents in the US. If you or someone in your family was harmed in an Old Dominion Freight Line truck crash, you need a law firm with experienced, board-certified attorneys fighting for justice on your behalf.
Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. is an American shipping company that offers less-than-truckload shipping through regional and national service. Old Dominion also offers logistics services, including transportation management, ground and air expedited transportation, supply chain consulting, and truckload brokerage. Although Old Dominion’s core business is as a less-than-truckload carrier, it offers full container and less-than-container services internationally.
Less-than-truckload (also known as less-than-load) companies offer shipping of smaller freight or freight that does not require a full trailer. Often, their drivers work in a smaller area than drivers with full-truckload companies.
Old Dominion Freight Line was founded in 1934 by Earl and Lillian Congdon. In 1957, the company expanded its operations through major markets in North Carolina and part of Virginia, and in 1962, Old Dominion merged with Bottoms-Fiske trucking company. The company continued expanding through the 1980s by acquiring competing trucking lines, moving into Florida, Tennessee, California, Illinois, and Texas.
In 2016, Old Dominion had revenue of $2.99 billion. Headquartered in Thomasville, North Carolina, the company employs more than 20,000 people. Old Dominion has 235 shipping service centers and 32 transfer points serving the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Central, Gulf, and Western US regions.
Old Dominion’s fleet includes approximately 9,700 power units and over 22,500 trailers.
As of January 5, 2020, Old Dominion had a vehicle out-of-service rate of 7.7% and a driver out-of-service rate of 0.4%. In the past two years, Old Dominion has been subject to 1,611 inspections that uncovered violations. During the same period, the company was involved in 721 motor vehicle crashes. Of those, 21 were fatal, and 196 involved injuries. Old Dominion’s fatal truck crashes include a February 15, 2019 crash in Lubbock, Texas that killed two men in their early 20s.
Old Dominion currently has a satisfactory rating with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That rating, however, is from September 29, 1995. As of January 5, 2020, there had not been a more current compliance review.
The policies, procedures, and habits of a semi-truck’s owners, operators, and drivers have a crucial effect on trucking safety. If drivers behave unsafely behind the wheel—for example, texting, driving while fatigued, or speeding—other motorists’ lives are put at risk. Trucking companies may put profits ahead of safety by failing to properly maintain their trucks or by pushing drivers to operate the tractor-trailers in an unsafe manner. They may allow or even encourage drivers to falsify driving logs.
Old Dominion’s safety record includes the following violations:
Each of these violations puts others on the road at risk of a fatal car crash.
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In May of 2019, the jury in the case of Pilliod et al. v, Monsanto Company ordered the agrochemical giant to pay $2.055 billion in damages to the plaintiffs, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, a Bay Area couple in their 70s. R. Brent Wisner served as co-lead trial attorney for the Pilliods, delivering the opening and closing statements and cross-examining several of Monsanto’s experts. Wisner Baum managing shareholder, Michael Baum and attorney Pedram Esfandiary also served on the trial team in the Pilliod case.
The judge later reduced their award to $87M. Monsanto appealed the Pilliod’s verdict which the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District denied on August 9, 2021. Monsanto then requested the California Supreme Court review the appeal’s court decision, which the court denied on Nov. 17, 2021. Monsanto (Bayer) then submitted a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court which SCOTUS denied on June 27, 2022, allowing the final judgment of $87M to remain intact.
$289.2 million jury verdict in Monsanto Roundup trial
Wisner Baum co-represented Dewayne “Lee” Johnson in the first Roundup cancer lawsuit to proceed to trial. On Aug. 10, 2018, a San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay $39.25 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages to Mr. Johnson, a former groundskeeper who alleged exposure to Monsanto’s herbicides caused him to develop terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Months after the jury verdict, the judge overseeing the trial reduced the punitive damages to $39.25 million. Mr. Johnson decided to accept the remittitur, bringing the adjusted amount awarded to Mr. Johnson $78.5 million.
Monsanto (Bayer) appealed the verdict and Johnson cross appealed. On July 20, 2020, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict against Monsanto but reduced Mr. Johnson’s award to $20.5 million. The company chose not to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, ending the litigation.
In 2016, Wisner Baum attorney Timothy A. Loranger and six other attorneys in the Plaintiffs’ Management Committee were able to secure a $265 million settlement for victims of the 2015 Amtrak 188 derailment in Philadelphia, one of the largest in the U.S. for 2016.
