Holt v. Qualified Trucking Serv., Inc.
| Decision Date | 06 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 4:19 CV 102 RWS |
| Parties | TABITHA HOLT and CLYDE SUTHERLAND, Plaintiffs, v. QUALIFIED TRUCKING SERVICE, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Plaintiffs Tabitha Holt and Clyde Sutherland's son was killed in a motor vehicle accident involving a commercial motor vehicle owned by Defendant Qualified Trucking Service Trucking, Inc. Plaintiffs brought this suit alleging negligence claims against Qualified. Qualified moved for summary judgment on the grounds that Plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence to support a finding of proximate cause as to Qualified's liability for the accident. Plaintiffs oppose the motion. Because Plaintiffs have presented sufficient evidence to support their negligence claims I will deny Qualified's motion.
On the evening of January 31, 2016, Qualified's employee Lei Liu1 was operating Qualified's tractor-trailer eastbound on Interstate 44 in Franklin County,Missouri. Liu pulled into a rest stop that exited and entered the highway from the left-hand passing lane. After approximately five minutes Liu exited the rest area using the merge ramp. That ramp was designed to have traffic leaving the rest stop merge onto the highway in the left-hand passing lane of Interstate 44. As he entered the ramp Liu turned on his right-hand turn signal. Liu checked his side mirror and saw a lot of cars in the left lane in which he was to merge and saw no clear opportunity to merge safely. In response Liu brought his tractor-trailer to a complete stop almost at the end of the merge ramp. Liu turned on his four-way emergency flashers and remained stopped in the at the end of the merge lane for approximately five seconds. Then Liu turned on his right-hand turn signal again which deactivated his four-way emergency flashers. When traffic in the left lane cleared Liu merged into the left lane. Once his tractor-trailer was completely in the left lane Liu reactivated his emergency flashers. Liu remained in the left lane for one or two seconds then turned on his right-hand turn signal to merge into the right lane. Liu looked in his right-hand mirror and saw that there were no other vehicles approaching his rear in that lane. Liu merged into the right-hand lane and straightened his truck out in the lane. Liu was travelling at approximately 20 miles per hour on the highway at the time he merged into the right lane. Liu proceeded eastbound with his four-way flashers activated. He traveled eastbound for approximately 30 seconds before he felt an impact in the rear of his vehicle. Liu's vehicle had been struck from behind by 2009 Ford Focus driven by WilliamWeekley. Plaintiffs' son Brandon Sutherland was a passenger in Weekley's vehicle. Tragically, both Weekley and Sutherland suffered fatal injuries in the crash. Liu's tractor-trailer was travelling at approximately 30 miles per hour at the time of the collision. Weekley's vehicle was allegedly traveling at highway speeds.
Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in state court alleging claims for negligence, negligence per se, and wrongful death. Plaintiffs claim that the manner Liu entered the highway from the rest stop and his slow speed in the driving lanes of the highway was the proximate cause of the accident.2 Qualified removed the case to this Court. Qualified filed a motion for summary judgment asserting that Plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence to support the proximate cause element of their negligence claims. Plaintiffs oppose the motion asserting that their evidence meets the proximate cause requirement entitling them to a jury trial.
Summary judgment is appropriate if the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, demonstrates that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Lynn v. Deaconess Medical Center, 160 F.3d 484, 486 (8th Cir. 1998)(citingFed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)). The party seeking summary judgment bears the initial responsibility of informing the court of the basis of its motion and identifying those portions of the affidavits, pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file which it believes demonstrates the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). When such a motion is made and supported by the movant, the nonmoving party may not rest on his pleadings but must produce sufficient evidence to support the existence of the essential elements of his case on which he bears the burden of proof. Id. at 324. In resisting a properly supported motion for summary judgment, the plaintiff has an affirmative burden to designate specific facts creating a triable controversy. Crossley v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 355 F.3d 1112, 1113 (8th Cir. 2004).
Qualified's summary judgment motion challenges the legal sufficiency of Plaintiffs' evidence to establish Liu's actions were the proximate cause of the accident. "In a negligence action, the plaintiff must demonstrate (1) the defendant had a duty to protect the plaintiff from injury; (2) the defendant breached that duty; and (3) the defendant's breach was the cause-in-fact and proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury." Savage v. Dittrich, 589 S.W.3d 628, 632 (Mo. Ct. App. 2019). Id. (cleaned up).
"To establish a claim of negligence per se, the plaintiff must plead the following four elements: (1) the defendant violated a statute or regulation; (2) the injured plaintiff was a member of the class of persons intended to be protected by the statute or regulation; (3) the injury complained of was of the kind the statute or regulation was designed to prevent; and (4) the violation of the statute or regulation was the proximate cause of the injury." Dibrill v. Normandy Assocs., Inc., 383 S.W.3d 77, 84-85 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012).
Qualified challenges the proximate cause element of these negligence claims. "Whether proximate cause exists is usually a jury question; however, a court properly interposes its judgment in this determination when the evidence reveals the existence of an intervening cause that eclipses the role the defendant's conduct played in the plaintiff's injury.'" Rayman v. Abbott Ambulance, Inc., 546 S.W.3d 12, 18 (Mo. Ct. App. 2018) (quoting Heffernan v. Reinhold, 73 S.W.3d 659, 664 (Mo. Ct. App. 2002). See also Wilmes v. Consumers Oil Co. of Maryville, 473 S.W.3d 705, 724 (Mo. App. W.D. 2015) (). Morover, if the evidence connecting an injury to defendant's negligence is only based on mere conjecture and speculation the question ofproximate cause becomes a question of law for the trial court. Meyer v. City of Walnut Grove, 505 S.W.3d 331, 336 (Mo. Ct. App. 2016).
"The general test for proximate cause is whether the claimed injury is the natural and probable consequence of the defendant's alleged negligence." Nail v. Husch Blackwell Sanders, LLP, 436 S.W.3d 556, 563 (Mo. banc 2014). The...
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