|
The Daily
Utah jury hits trucking with $81 million nuclear verdict
An $81 million award out of Utah’s Fourth District Court is the largest civil verdict in the state’s history and a rare nuclear trucking verdict to land on a publicly traded buyer with the means to pay it.
The case stems from a December 2018 collision in which an Allied Building Products day cab pulling a flatbed killed 12-year-old Michael Madsen in a crosswalk where he had the walk signal. The first jury cleared the driver. A motion for judgment as a matter of law, granted by the trial judge and upheld by the Utah Court of Appeals, sent the case back for damages. The retrial jury delivered $81 million, including $7.5 million each to Madsen’s two friends. The two sides have since reached a confidential settlement that supersedes the verdict, according to FreightWaves’ John Kingston.
The corporate defendant is Beacon Roofing Supply, the first acquisition of Brad Jacobs’ QXO (NYSE: QXO). QXO inherited the case and confirmed the payment was fully covered by insurance. That detail matters. Most of the largest trucking nuclear verdicts in recent history landed on defunct or single-truck carriers with no ability to pay. The Madsen verdict is different. It hit an active operating company with an insurance tower deep enough to absorb it. Marathon Strategies counted eight nuclear verdicts against trucking in 2024 totaling roughly $790.5 million.
So What? Excess liability towers built around $50 million catastrophic-loss assumptions are no longer adequate. Self-insured fleets need to retest those assumptions against verdicts that now routinely clear nine figures. Risk managers should pressure-test telematics retention, driver training documentation, and post-incident response before the next deposition cycle.
Read the full story →
|
|
Top Stories
TFI raises Q2 outlook even as U.S. LTL drag persists
TFI International (NYSE: TFII) topped Wall Street on Q2 guidance Monday, projecting EPS of $1.50 to $1.60 against a $1.31 consensus. Bank of America upgraded the stock to Buy. The North American LTL adjusted operating ratio slipped to 95.3% from 93.1%, and CEO Alain Bedard called the U.S. operation "a discounted carrier compared to some of my peers, and the reason is because our service is not where it should be." Volume in March and April was up about 8% year over year, the strongest organic LTL growth Bedard has cited in years.
So What? If service quality keeps improving, the discount-to-peers trade is the thesis that pays. Watch the second-quarter operating ratio for confirmation that the volume gains are flowing through to margin.
Read the full story →
Montgomery v. C.H. Robinson exposes the brokerage vetting gap
As the Supreme Court weighs whether federal preemption shields brokers from negligent-hiring suits in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, FreightWaves’ Rob Carpenter argues the legal question is a sideshow to the operational one. Roughly 19,000 of 750,000 active U.S. carriers hold a satisfactory safety rating, according to former FMCSA chief safety officer Jack Van Steenburg. That is about 3%. The other 97% have never been rated. Brokers who require a satisfactory rating before tendering a load are filtering out less than 1% of the carrier pool. A decision is expected by end of June.
So What? Whichever way the court rules, the rate email going out tomorrow afternoon will still ask for the cheapest truck on the load board. Brokers serious about safety need documented carrier selection criteria that go past authority verification, like out-of-service rates, crash history, insurance cycling, address sharing.
Read the full story →
Landstar yields outrun seasonality as upcycle takes hold
Landstar System (NASDAQ: LSTR) beat Q1 estimates with $1.16 EPS on $1.17 billion in revenue. Truck revenue per load rose 6% year over year while load count slipped 2%. Flatbed yield jumped 11%, with heavy-haul demand from data centers, energy and aerospace pushing that segment’s revenue up 18%. April truck loads are flat year over year, but revenue per load is running 13% higher, what Landstar called "significantly above" typical seasonal patterns.
So What? Yield growth that outpaces seasonality is the cleanest signal yet that truckload pricing has turned. Shippers locking in 2025 rates on this year’s bid cycle will look long on price by Q3. For carriers, the floor is rising and heavy-haul is where the margin is.
Read the full story →
Sponsored By Trimble
Beyond Tracking: How Real-Time Visibility Fuels Fleet Profitability
Trimble’s latest ebook turns real-time visibility from a compliance checkbox into a profitability lever. The guide shows how high-fidelity data integration closes communication gaps, compresses dwell, and strengthens shipper relationships across thousands of loads.
Download the ebook → |
Ryder’s Goodale calls AI freight’s fourth tech wave
Ryder Technology CPTO Grant Goodale, who co-founded Convoy in 2015, told FreightWaves that AI is freight’s fourth major technology wave, after dashboards in the early 2010s, smartphones in 2015 and the blockchain push of 2018. Large language models, Goodale said, can finally turn unstructured input into deterministic output without EDI middleware. "I don’t need an API. I don’t need EDI," Goodale said. "What I need is something that can handle whatever you send to me in any format, understand it, comprehend it, and go take action based on it."
So What? Goodale’s bottom line on implementation is unforgiving — clean your data first, or any AI rollout will deliver worse results than the system it replaced. For freight executives sequencing AI investments, the prep work is the rollout.
Read the full story →
|
|
What We’re Watching
▸ A decision is expected by end of June. Whether or not C.H. Robinson wins preemption, the operational gap in carrier vetting persists. Brokers should tighten selection criteria now.
▸ The $1.50–$1.60 EPS guide is well above consensus, and 8% LTL volume growth in March and April is the strongest organic trend in years. A move back below 95% would validate the BoA upgrade.
▸ Landstar’s heavy-haul revenue jumped 18% in Q1. If FOTRI keeps tightening, specialty flatbed is where rate inflation lands first.
|
