A Texas county jury has handed down a $49 million judgement against a trucking company that may no longer be in business, a figure about halfway between the $10 million minimum size of a verdict considered nuclear and some larger recent cases lost by trucking interests.
The jury verdict came last week in Ector County, Texas, home of the oil-rich city of Odessa. A Texas-based carrier, OPG Logistics, was the company defendant. But the jury also found negligence on the part of the driver, Biorkys Sanchez Fernandez.
According to the summary of the crash from the Houston-based Ammons law firm that represented the family of 29-year-old Steffan Mick who was killed in the crash in January 2025, the truck driven by Fernandez “made an unsafe left turn and caused the crash.” The jury found that both OPG and Sanchez were “grossly negligent,” according to the Ammons firm.
In an email to FreightWaves, a spokeswoman for the Ammons firm, a practice led by Rob Ammons who successfully argued the case for the Mick family, said OPG had at least eight drivers at the time of the crash. But the attorney for OPG, according to the Ammons firm, had said the company was no longer in business even as a defense was mounted.
This verdict highlights the significant consequences of negligence on the road, where human error can have devastating results. The trucking industry must take responsibility for ensuring safe driving practices among its employees.
The jury verdict breaks down as $40.5 million in compensatory damages, with 65% assigned to OPG and 35% to the driver. It also awarded $8.5 million in punitive damages, according to the Ammons firm.
A check of FMCA’s SAFER WEB records of OPG Logistics finds no company by that name. A company with a similar name , based in Nebraska–the company in the nuclear verdict was Texas-based–is listed as having one power unit.
The large verdict underscores the importance of verifying the existence and legitimacy of companies involved in lawsuits, as the defendant's very existence is in doubt. This can have significant implications for the ability to collect on a judgment.
With a verdict that large, and a defendant whose very existence is in doubt, the question can be asked just how much the Mick family and its attorneys will be able to collect.
