My friend Tommy Malone of Atlanta and Randy Scarlett of San Francisco represented Drew Bianche, a young man who had just graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA and had been accepted to medical school. Drew suffered a severe traumatic brain injury when two tractor trailers approaching from opposite directions on an unreasonably dangerous and narrow roadway sideswiped each other causing one of the trucks to the hit car Drew was riding in as a passenger.

The verdict was all compensatory damages, no punitive damages. Five percent of fault was allocated to the state, and 95% to the truckers.

Ken Shigley is a trucking safety trial attorney representing seriously injured people in tractor trailer, big rig, intermodal container freight, cement truck, dump truck and bus accidents statewide in Georgia. He served as chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute in 2005, is a national board member of the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice, and is on the National Advisory Board for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America.

He has extensive experience representing parties in interstate trucking collision cases, and in the past two years has spoken at national interstate trucking litigation seminars in Chicago (trucking insurance), New Orleans (trial tactics and side underride issues), St. Louis (punitive damages), San Francisco (dealing with insolvent trucking companies), Atlanta (trucking insurance, closing argument), Nashville (use of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations), and Amelia Island (overview of trucking litigation).

A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale). In addition to trucking litigation, he has broad experience in products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, spinal cord injury, brain injury and burn injury cases. Currently he is Treasurer and a candidate for President-Elect of the 41,000 member State Bar of Georgia.This post is subject to our ethical disclaimer.

A Swift Transportation truck driver was backing up from a rest stop onto the highway when she hit a Yellow Freight truck. The driver of the Swift Transportation truck tested positive for methamphetamine but claimed she was rear-ended. Accident reconstruction proved that story to be false.

The driver of the Yellow Freight truck was killed and the passenger / co-driver had a severe spinal cord injury. This verdict was for the spinal cord injury victim. The wrongful death case is set for trail next spring.

This was not the biggest verdict against Swift Transportation. Last year an Arizona jury awarded $36.5 million to the family of a man killed in a collision with Swift trucks.

At this firm we frequently represent truck drivers who are injured by the negligence of other truckers.

Ken Shigley is an experienced Georgia trucking trial lawyer who has served as chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute. He is on the Advisory Board for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America, and frequently speaks at national continuing legal education seminars for the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice. He has recently spoken on trucking litigation topics at continuing legal education programs both at home in Georgia and in Nashville, New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago, and is scheduled to do so in San Diego in 2009. A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he was a faculty member for ten years at the Emory University Law School Trial Techniques Program. Currently he serves as Secretary of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia.

– $87 million in Dallas, Texas, for a man paralyzed in a wreck in a U-Haul truck had faulty emergency break and worn down gears.

– $36.3 million ($23.1 million compensatory damages, $13.5 million in punitive damages) in Phoenix, Arizona, for death of father of 8 who was killed when a tractor trailer drove 65 mph across three sets of rumble strips designed to warn of an approaching stop sign, ran the stop sign, and crashed into his SUV. The truck driver’s logs, which are required by federal regulations to document compliance with hours of service rules, were “lost.” The truck driver had no explanation why he failed to slow down. The jury apparently figured out that the trucking company “lost” the driver logs to conceal a pattern of violating fatigue prevention regulations, as it awarded $13.5 million in punitive damages on top of the $23.1 million in compensatory damages.

– $29.4 million for wrongful death and personal injury in Orange County, NY. The crash occurred on Jan. 25, 2002, when a freight container on a northbound flatbed trailer smashed into the bottom of the Pleasant Hill Road overpass. A family SUV en route to a ski vacation swerved to avoid the wreckage of the exploding container and was broadsided by another tractor-trailer. The father in the SUV suffered fatal internal injuries and the teenage daughter was also injured.

– $20.1 Million verdict in Clayton County, Georgia, for wrongful death of a 62 year old school teacher who suffered broken ribs when he was rear-ended by an electrical supply truck while stopped at a red light. While hospitalized he developed complications, aspirated and died.

– $11.23 million verdict in Nebraska for man struck by tractor trailer in dense fog on icy interstate highway, reduced by 20% for comparative negligence.

– $5.64 million verdict in El Centro, California in case where farm truck ran stop sign and struck family minivan. A 15 year old girl in the van suffered facial avulsion degloving (that is, the flesh of her face was torn off), and several fractures to her face and skull.

Ken Shigley in Atlanta is a former chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute. He is a seminar speaker for the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice, and is on the National Advisory Board and serves as a seminar speaker for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America. A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he is also a Master of the Lamar Inn of Court at Emory Law School, and Secretary of the State Bar of Georgia. He represents plaintiffs in big rig crash cases all over Georgia, from Menlo to Midway, and from Tallulah Falls to Doerun.