Undefeated Texas 18 Wheeler Truck Accident Lawyers Win Record Settlement in Deadly I-35 Crash
Zehl & Associates is pleased to announce a record-breaking $35 million settlement on behalf of the Longoria family.
On the evening of September 11, 2023, a Ben E. Keith truck crashed into Susana Longoria, killing her at the scene. Susana had pulled over on the left side of Interstate 35 in Fort Worth, Texas after being involved in a small fender-bender. She was only on the road for around 2 minutes before Ben E. Keith driver, Larry Czaplinski, crashed into her and others on the shoulder of the road. She left behind her parents and her young daughter.
Our truck accident attorneys were quick to discovery that portion of Interstate 35 has “No Trucks in Left Lane” signs posed along the route. Despite this, Ben E. Keith’s driver was in the left lane leading up to the crash.
The team at Zehl quickly dispatched experts to photograph and analyze the scene of the crash, as well as experts who performed specialty downloads of the Ben E. Keith 18-wheeler. The results of these inspections uncovered that the Ben E. Keith driver had his throttle maxed out at 100% leading up to the crash. The expert analysis also showed that the driver never applied his brakes before the crash, indicating he was not paying attention to the road ahead of him. This matched up with the body camera footage Zehl obtained from the responding Fort Worth police officers, which showed Ben E. Keith’s driver admitting at the scene of the crash that he “looked up” and was instantly crashing into people.
Ben E. Keith adamantly denied gross negligence leading up to trial. However, during the course of the lawsuit, Zehl & Associates discovered that the safety department at Ben E. Keith, one of the nation’s largest food distributors, removed all dash cameras from their vehicles before this crash occurred. Ben E. Keith in years prior had utilized a full-scale driver monitoring system that used both forward- and rear-facing cameras. At the time of the crash, though, Ben E. Keith did not have any cameras in any of its vehicles.
Zehl took the deposition of Ben E. Keith’s corporate represented and forced him to admit, under oath, that that removing the cameras decreased Ben E. Keith driver safety. He further admitted that having no cameras on a fleet of around 2,000 vehicles was below the industry’s standard of care.
Zehl & Associates attorneys also discovered the driver’s cell phone was active at the time of the crash. Zehl Associates hired one of the best forensic cell phone examiners in the country, who downloaded the contents of the driver’s two cell phones, company tablet, and Apple Watch. The downloads showed the driver had an application open at the time of the crash on his company-issued cell phone. Because of this, Zehl’s distracted driving expert concluded that Ben E. Keith’s driver was distracted at the time of the crash.
Because this crash happened at night, Zehl & Associates investigated whether the driver was fatigued. By sending targeted discovery to certain medical providers, Zehl quickly learned that the defendant driver had untreated sleep apnea. Although he was diagnosed with sleep apnea in the years before the crash, Ben E. Keith’s driver never cleared that diagnosis while driving at night for Ben E. Keith.
Zehl & Associates had experience litigating cases involving fatigue-related crashes and knew that investigating driver fatigue would be central to this case. In essence, Zehl & Associate discovered that Ben E. Keith was dispatching a driver at night with untreated sleep apena. Zehl & Associates hired a world-renowned sleep expert who concluded that the Ben E. Keith driver was suffering from fatigue-related symptoms at the time of the crash. This matches up with the information Zehl obtained from the forensic download of the driver’s phone, which showed that the driver was awake during the day on the weekend before the crash, which is evidence that the driver suffered from an inverted sleep schedule. This compounded his fatigue and fatigue-related symptoms at the time of the crash.