We recently started binge-watching Breaking Bad, the award winning show about a chemistry teacher turned drug lord. The character Saul Goodman is the quintes-sential shady lawyer, who advertises "Better Call Saul" on late-nighl TV and says, "You don't need a criminal lawyer; you need a criminal.. .lawyer." We recently watched an episode where he pulls a box full of neck braces out from under his desk to fit clients with to influence juries during lawsuits. The scene was a bit of dark humor, but the practice of getting juries to decide cases based on emotions - rather than the actual facts of the case - is no laughing matter for trucking companies today. Take the 2018 verdict of more than $100 million against FTS, a Texas fleet serving the oil fields. An appeals panel recently ruled that even the $32 million verdict it had been reduced to was excessive - and that the award was "based upon the jury's disapproval of FTS rather than adequate and reasonable compensation for [the plaintiff's] actual injuries." And that's exactly what many plaintiffs' lawyers are trying to achieve. They are "trying to generate fear and anger in the jury pool over the practices of the trucking company as opposed to the facts of the actual case," explained Todd Reiser, a senior VP and transportation insurance professional with Lockton Companies, during a Truckload Carriers Association virtual safety event last summer. "Even if the trucking company wasn't liable in any way, the attorneys are convincing the jury that the motor carrier doesn't care about the public."
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