Hunter Loggins, who directs the Georgia chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, says the state’s lack of tort reform laws hurts all professions, although one occupation in particular suffers more than others.
“By that I mean any industry or business [in Georgia] that has vehicles [for transporting goods],” said Loggins.
“[In that category], Georgia’s trucking industry is a huge one. Folks [in Georgia] are purposefully targeting trucking companies or anyone who has a name [of their business] on the side of their vehicle.”
Charles Tarbutton is president of the Sandersville-based B-H Transfer Co.
B-H Transfer is a truckload motor carrier.
“In the trucking business, truck drivers are a target of litigation. Not all of it is frivolous, but much of it is,” Tarbutton said.
“There are people who are legitimately hurt by the liability of truckers and trucking companies, but those are the minority of cases.”
Georgians who work in these industries tell one story after another about the legal system forcing them to settle with other parties. The terms and conditions, business owners say, are outrageous. Trucking company owners say they settle under a rigged system that consistently tilts in favor of plaintiffs…no matter how frivolous the plaintiff’s claims.
As a consequence, the costs to do business rise. People who work within the state’s trucking and transportation industries say this form of arm-twisting affects all Georgians for the worse, especially in their bank accounts.
DAMAGES, SETTLEMENTS, AND FOLKS WHO ARE A BIT TOO LITIGIOUS
Tarbutton recalls the last 20 lawsuits that people have filed against his company.
“Of those, there were maybe two plaintiffs who were legitimately hurt,” Tarbutton said, adding that the plaintiffs in the remaining 18 cases sustained extremely minor damages.
In many of those instances, the plaintiff’s vehicles got hit, but they sustained less than $1,000 worth of damages, Tarbutton said.
“Yet the demands would be for $500,000 to $700,000 for what was never more than a claim for a soft tissue injury, which was never confirmed by any medical diagnosis,” Tarbutton said.
John Sambdman is CEO of Samson Tours, an Atlanta-based charter bus services company. Samson Tours also provides school bus and shuttle buses. Sambdman does not run a trucking company, but he and his employees still make their living from transportation.
In 2018, Sambdman’s business was involved in a tragedy, albeit indirectly.
“A little girl and her mother were run over by a car as they tried to cross the street in an attempt to get to a school route [that my services were] operating,” Sambdman said.
“The school bus at the time was stopped. The lights were flashing and actively loading kids. The driver wasn’t even looking in their direction. They [the mother and daughter] were running late. They ran across the street without checking traffic and got hit by a car, which killed the little 8-year-old girl. It is tragic. We didn’t do it, but we got sued.”
The plaintiffs originally wanted $10 million. Instead, they got $5 million. The matter did not go to trial, Sambdman said.
Tarbutton, meanwhile, spoke of an incident that one of his drivers had in Macon.
“There was a red light, and there was this Lincoln Sedan with two guys in it. We bumped that car at that red light. Our driver took his foot off the brake and slowly rolled into the back of it at probably 2 miles per hour. We put a small little crease in the paint on the bumper of that car,” Tarbutton said.
“Those guys reeked of marijuana and called 911. They were transported to the hospital in ambulances to get away from the police before they got to the scene. This resulted in separate lawsuits with demands in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. After lots of treatment for unknown alleged soft tissue injuries, we have settled one and are trying to settle the other. Both of those lawsuits were absolutely frivolous.”
Tarbutton said that the litigation costs and settlements between the two men will likely cost in excess of $100,000. This, even though the other vehicle — like the others that Tarbutton referenced — sustained damages of less than $1,000.
THE CONSEQUENCES TO BUSINESS OWNERS
These frivolous lawsuits, Sambdman said, have forced his businesses’ insurance rates to soar, by as much as 400%.
Tarbutton, meanwhile, warned that Georgia’s truckers face another legal threat, one for which other types of businesses are exempt. The state has a direct action statute that permits someone to sue an insurer of a trucking company for the alleged actions of the insured.
“Georgia’s direct action statute applies only to one specific industry, and it is for-hire trucking companies,” Tarbutton said.
“But companies that run trucks for their own private use are not subject to direct action statutes. Coca-Cola runs their own fleet…as do Publix and Walmart. Those are private carriers who operate solely for one business.”
When a plaintiff can sue the insurer of a trucking company prior to the determination of any liability for the insured, then the case becomes more complex, Tarbutton said.
“There is another litigant, another defendant, which then engages more defense attorneys and takes longer to settle. The net effect is that it drives up the cost of that case,” Tarbutton said.
“There are many plaintiffs’ lawyers in Georgia that market their use of direct action statutes to increase the awards for their clients. It has a very inflationary effect on the amount of the settlement.”
HERE’S HOW GEORGIA’S CONSUMERS SUFFER
Sambdman warns that Georgia’s consumers— almost everybody living in the state — will also suffer long-term consequences.
“Trucking is where you really have the biggest problem. Everything that you see, everything that everybody uses, all of it came on a truck from somewhere else,” Sambdman said.
If trucking industry owners must pay higher costs to do business, then they have no alternative but to pass those higher costs down to consumers.
“All of that will affect the prices you see on the shelves,” Sambdman said.
“Or it will also affect whether you see anything on the shelves at all.”
For business owners who face frivolous lawsuits, Tarbutton said that “the balance between the plaintiff and the defendant is no longer in balance.”
The trucking industry, Sambdman said, is super-competitive. Truckers must travel day and night. They must abide by strenuous government regulations. No one or no system, Sambdman said, should make their lives even more difficult.
“The justice system is supposed to make a person who was injured whole,” Sambdman said.
“No one is saying that shouldn’t happen, but ‘whole’ only goes up to a point. At some point you are not making them whole. You are just making them wealthy at the expense of the rest of society.”