Transportation Lawsuits: Nuclear Verdicts and the FAIR Trucking Act

Jury awards in trucking crash cases have climbed from an average of about $2.3 million in 2010 to roughly $27.5 million between 2020 and 2023, and that surge in trucking nuclear verdicts has triggered a coordinated tort reform push in state legislatures and in Congress aimed at capping damages, restricting trial tactics, and moving large cases out of plaintiff-friendly state courts.

How Large Trucking Verdicts Have Become

A December 2025 report from the American Transportation Research Institute found that the median “nuclear verdict,” defined as an award exceeding $10 million, reached $36 million in 2022, up 50% from 2013. The share of verdicts topping $50 million rose by 6.4 percentage points over the same period.¹

Case volume is rising alongside the dollar figures. Tractor-trailer tort filings grew at an average rate of 3.7% per year between 2014 and 2023.¹ ATRI counted roughly 12,817 tractor-trailer tort cases initiated in state courts in 2022, though only 487 reached a trial verdict.² For cases exceeding $1 million, median awards in state court were $3.6 million, compared to $2.5 million in federal court. That venue gap is central to the reform debate.

What’s Driving the Awards

Non-economic damages do most of the work. In over 80% of verdicts above $1 million, pain-and-suffering and similar non-medical damages ran up to ten times higher than the actual medical costs in the case.¹ A fatality in the case increases the average award by more than 380%. Driver substance abuse is associated with a 340% increase.

Trial strategy matters too. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have widely adopted the “reptile theory,” which steers jurors away from the specific facts of a crash and toward a trucking company’s broader safety record. Third-party litigation funding, where outside investors pay for a case in exchange for a cut of any recovery, has lengthened trials and raised their expense. And the preference for state court is explicit: the median award is roughly $1.1 million higher there on large cases, which is why plaintiffs file where they can and why the industry wants a federal path.

Recent High-Dollar Verdicts

A handful of recent cases show the scale.

In September 2024, a St. Louis jury awarded $450 million in punitive damages and $12 million in compensatory damages against trailer manufacturer Wabash National after a fatal rear-end collision in which a car slid under a trailer. The plaintiffs argued the rear impact guard was inadequately designed. In March 2025, Circuit Court Judge Christopher McGraugh cut the punitive award to $108 million, calling the original amount “grossly excessive,” and left the $11.5 million compensatory award intact. The judge denied Wabash’s motions for a new trial and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Wabash has said the reduced amount is still “abnormally high” and is weighing further options.³⁴⁵
A Los Angeles County jury awarded $85 million in a 2025 wrongful death case stemming from a semi-truck crash on the 405 Freeway, finding the trucking company negligent for failing to maintain vehicles and for pressuring drivers to violate federal hours-of-service rules.⁶
An Indiana jury found a Tesla truck driver 70% liable for a 2017 motorcycle crash, returning a $60.8 million verdict that was reduced to $42.48 million after accounting for the plaintiff’s share of fault. Tesla had reportedly rejected pre-trial settlement offers of $10 million, $15 million, and $20 million.³
A Georgia jury returned a $16.2 million verdict in a case where an Amazon delivery van struck a child, assigning 85% of liability to Amazon on a negligent training theory and 10% to the individual driver.³

The Insurance Pressure Behind the Reform Push

The verdicts have moved insurance markets. Commercial auto liability premiums rose 36% per mile over the eight years leading up to ATRI’s November 2025 report, even as truck crash rates declined over the most recent four years.⁷ Commercial auto has run at a combined loss ratio above 100% in 12 of the last 13 years, meaning insurers have paid out more than they collected.⁸

The Insurance Information Institute has attributed a $30 billion surge in commercial auto claim costs since 2012 to social inflation and nuclear verdicts.⁹ In ATRI’s 2025 survey of industry priorities, “lawsuit abuse” ranked second and “insurance cost/availability” ranked third.⁷ Carriers have raised deductibles, shifted to self-insurance or captive arrangements, and in some cases pulled back operationally, switching from long-haul to local routes or moving to smaller box trucks to lower their risk profile. Small fleets have been hit hardest, paying over three times more per mile than large fleets.

What States Changed in 2025

The reform wave produced three notable state laws in 2025.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed SB 68 and SB 69 on April 21, 2025. The package lets defendants put in evidence of the amount actually paid for medical care rather than only the billed amount, ends the longstanding ban on seatbelt evidence in civil trials, requires third-party litigation funders to register with the state and disclose their agreements, bars litigation funding from foreign adversaries, restricts “anchoring” damages to unrelated benchmarks such as celebrity salaries, and permits bifurcated trials that separate liability from damages.¹⁰¹¹

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed HB 1204 on February 11, 2025, limiting “phantom damages” by allowing evidence of amounts actually paid by insurers for medical care rather than only the higher billed figures. The law took effect August 3, 2025.¹²

Indiana legislators introduced SB 37, which would require bifurcated trials where a truck driver must first be found at fault before a trucking company’s broader safety record can be examined, and SB 490, which proposed a $1 million cap on noneconomic damages in commercial vehicle lawsuits that would not apply in cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct.¹³

Earlier state laws continue to shape the landscape. Iowa’s 2023 statute set a $5 million cap on noneconomic damages in trucking cases, the most aggressive cap in the country. Texas’s HB 19, enacted in 2021, introduced bifurcated trials that limit the use of a company’s general safety history at the liability phase. West Virginia capped noneconomic damages at $5 million for commercial motor vehicle cases in 2024. Louisiana’s governor vetoed a similar package, and Wisconsin’s governor vetoed a proposed $1 million noneconomic damages cap for commercial carriers.⁸

New Rules on Third-Party Litigation Funding

A distinct line of 2025 reform targeted the money behind the lawsuits. Beyond Georgia’s registration and disclosure rules, Arizona and Montana prohibited litigation financing from foreign entities of concern, Colorado began requiring foreign financiers to report certain information to the attorney general, and both Oklahoma and Kansas required disclosure of funding agreements in pending cases.¹⁴ These laws are not trucking-specific, but the trucking industry has been the loudest voice behind them, arguing that outside investors extend cases and inflate settlement demands.

The Federal Bill: FAIR Trucking Act

Representatives Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Tom Barrett of Michigan introduced the FAIR Trucking Act (H.R. 5268) on September 10, 2025. The bill would give federal courts jurisdiction over highway accident lawsuits involving commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce when the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million and the parties are from different states.¹⁵ American Trucking Associations president and CEO Chris Spear said the bill would address nuclear verdicts, insurance rates, and the exploitation of jurisdictional loopholes.

As of mid-2026, the bill has five Republican cosponsors and sits in the House Judiciary Committee with no hearings or markups scheduled. No Senate companion has been introduced.¹⁶¹⁷ The design, moving large cases from state courts into federal ones where median awards for high-value cases run roughly $1.1 million lower, reflects the industry’s view that venue selection is a primary driver of excessive verdicts. Whether the bill advances is likely to depend on how quickly the state reforms show measurable results in insurance costs and verdict sizes.

1
CCJ Digital. ATRI Report: Trucking Nuclear Verdicts, Litigation Costs Surge
2
Trucking Dive. ATRI Trucking Litigation Report
3
Courtroom View Network. CVN’s Top 10 Most Impressive Plaintiff Verdicts of 2024
4
The Indiana Lawyer. Judge Slashes Punitive Damages Awarded by Jury in Case Against Wabash
5
Wabash (Investor Relations). Court Orders Reduction in Damages in Case Against Wabash
6
Expert Institute. Top Personal Injury Payouts
7
ATRI. New ATRI Research to Study Rising Commercial Auto Insurance Costs
8
RPS Insurance. 2025 Q1 Transportation Update: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities
9
Dom Risk. 2025 Market Outlook: Commercial Auto Insurance
10
State of Georgia (Governor’s Office). Gov. Kemp Signs Historic Legislation Delivering Commonsense, Meaningful Tort Reform
11
Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Governor Kemp Signs Tort Reform Into Law
12
Arkansas Legislature. HB1204 Bill Detail
13
Landline Media. Tort Reform Efforts for Truck Drivers Considered in Multiple States
14
Tort Reform Record. Two More States Adopt Third-Party Litigation Reform
15
U.S. House of Representatives (Barrett). Barrett, Hinson Introduce Bill to Protect Truckers From Weaponized Litigation
16
Congress.gov. H.R. 5268 Cosponsors
17
Congress.gov. H.R. 5268 Legislative History