Mann v. C. H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.
| Decision Date | 27 July 2017 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 7:16-cv-00104,Civil Action No. 7:16-cv-00140,Civil Action No. 7:16-cv-00102 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
| Parties | ROGER A. MANN, Administrator of the Estate of Tanya Diane Mann, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. C. H. ROBINSON WORLDWIDE, INC., Defendant. CHARLES DONALD MEEKS, Administrator of the Estate of James Richard Anderson, et al, Plaintiffs, v. C. H. ROBINSON WORLDWIDE, INC., Defendant. JEREMY W. JOHNSON, Plaintiff, v. C.H. ROBINSON WORLDWIDE, INC., Defendant. |
MEMORANDUM OPINION
These three cases are related and have been consolidated for pre-trial proceedings and for the liability phase of trial. Pending before the court are three motions, all of which have been filed in each of the three cases: (1) defendant C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.'s (Robinson's) motion for summary judgment; (2) Robinson's motion to exclude the expert testimony of Thomas Corsi, one of plaintiffs' experts; and (3) plaintiffs' motion to exclude the testimony of Robinson's expert, David Griffin. All three motions have been fully briefed and argued before the court, and they are now ripe for disposition. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, the motion for summary judgment will be denied, the motion to exclude the testimony of David Griffin will be granted in part, denied in part, and taken under advisement in part, and the motion to exclude the testimony of Thomas M. Corsi will be denied in part, and taken under advisement in part.
These three cases are brought by (or on behalf of) three people who were injured or killed in related accidents that occurred on April 1, 2014. On that date, Philip Emiabata was driving a tractor trailer northbound on U.S. Interstate 81 (I-81) in Wythe County. At the time, he was hauling a load of laundry detergent from Laredo, Texas and was supposed to deliver it to a location in New York City. Robinson had hired him (through his business, known as "Phil Emia and Sylvia Emia d/b/a/ Nova Express" (Nova))2 to haul the load several days prior, on March 28, 2014. At about 3:00 a.m. on April 1, Emiabata either fell asleep or became distracted and ran his truck off the road. He was unable to regain control of the truck and crashed through the north and southbound median guardrails. His truck came to a stop on its side blocking the southbound lane of I-81, with its lights off.
A few minutes later, a vehicle driven by Tanya Mann crashed into the overturned truck, and Ms. Mann was killed. About ten minutes after that, a tractor trailer driven by James Anderson in the northbound lanes ran over the guardrail debris. Mr. Anderson's truck plunged over an overpass and caught fire. Mr. Anderson burned to death in the truck; his passenger, Mr. Johnson, was seriously injured.
After investigating, the Virginia State Police concluded that the crashes were caused by a combination of Emiabata's fatigued driving and problems with his truck: bad brakes, improper tires, and faulty suspension.
The three plaintiffs filed suit against the Emiabatas and Nova and ultimately obtained a settlement from their insurance company. They now seek to recover from Robinson, who plaintiffs describe as "the freight broker that put the Emiabatas on the road and was making money from them at the time of the crash." (Pls.' Opp'n to Mot. Summ. J. 3, Dkt. No. 31.)3 Plaintiffs assert that Robinson was negligent in its decision to hire Nova and the Emiabatas to haul the load of laundry detergent and that a reasonably prudent broker would not have done so. They seek both compensatory and punitive damages.
Plaintiffs allege that Robinson knew or should have known a number of facts about Nova and the Emiabatas—facts that were either in Robinson's own files or readily available to it. They claim that Robinson's decision to hire Nova in the face of these facts was negligent. For example, plaintiffs point to Robinson's internal notes, which show a number of complaints about the Emiabatas in the years preceding the crash here. Approximately sixteen times, either shippers or Robinson employees requested in writing that Nova be put on its "Do Not Use" list,either because of dishonest or violent behavior by Philip Emiabata or because of canceled pick-ups and late deliveries, some of which were caused by equipment break-downs. (Pls.' Opp'n to Mot. Exclude Corsi, Ex. H, Dkt. No. 33-8.)
Robinson's records also showed that, although Nova only owned two tractors and trailers, Nova had approximately 30 breakdowns in the three-year span between April 2011 and April 2014. Id. According to plaintiffs, this should have put Robinson on notice that the two trucks owned by Nova were poorly maintained and thus could present a hazard.
Plaintiffs also assert that Nova was financially unstable, relying on the fact that Nova borrowed against every load it hauled for Robinson through its "Quick Pay program" and also frequently obtained advances from T-Chek, another entity owned by Robinson. Plaintiffs point to evidence showing that the Emiabatas provided incorrect names to Robinson, and that Robinson should have known they were incorrect based on other documentation it possessed. They also point to Emiabata's deposition testimony, in which he admitted to having been fired by other motor carriers for whom he had worked, including one instance in which he was fired for having alcohol onboard a truck.
In addition to this information—most of which Robinson possessed—plaintiffs also criticize Robinson for failing to take into account publicly-available information from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a Department of Transportation (DOT) agency. Plaintiffs contend that the FMCSA data called into question Nova's safety record.
Robinson does not concede many of these facts as to what information it knew and had available to it at the time it selected Nova to carry the load, but asserts that the facts are not material to the issues raised by its summary judgment motion, and so it does not address them in its reply. (Def.'s Reply Supp. Mot. Summ. J. 1-2, Dkt. No. 35.) Robinson instead focuses onthe discrete legal issues raised in its motion, to which the court will turn after discussing FMCSA's ratings and scoring system—information relevant to all of the motions pending before the court.
There are two types of "scores" assigned to carriers by FMCSA. First, FMCSA conducts some formal compliance reviews of motor carriers and then assigns any carrier that has been evaluated a rating of "satisfactory," "unsatisfactory," or "conditional," the latter of which gives a carrier an opportunity to correct deficiencies found during the review. Only a small percentage of motor carriers are actually evaluated through a formal compliance review, though. Most—and especially small ones with only a few trucks, like Nova—never receive an evaluation or rating and thus are listed by the FMCSA as "unrated." Indeed, the parties here agree that 93% of the more than one million motor carriers in the United States had not received a safety rating from FMCSA. Brokers thus routinely use "unrated" carriers.
In 2010, at Congress' direction, the FMCSA implemented a program to determine which carriers should be prioritized for review through the formal compliance review process. The program results in FMCSA assigning scores to unrated carriers. FMCSA bases the scores on the results of roadside inspections, state traffic enforcement, and other data concerning a motor carrier's compliance with regulations, as well as on crash data. The program then uses an algorithm that is designed to take into account the severity and recentness of each violation, rate a carrier in seven different categories, and compare the carrier's raw scores to other carriers of similar size. The resulting scores are called, "Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories" scores or "BASICs." (Def.'s Mem. Supp. Mot. Summ. J. 6-8, Dkt. No. 25; see also Pls.' Opp'n to Mot. Summ. J. 9, Dkt. No. 31.) The carrier receives a BASIC score in a particularcategory only if there are a minimum number of data points for each category, the required number of which varies by category. Using this information, the FMCSA flags carriers for further review and also designates certain carriers as "high risk" in specific categories.
Although not all carriers have BASIC scores and many do not have them in all categories, the FMCSA made most of these scores available to the public on its website from 2010 through 2015, and so they were available at the time that Robinson hired Nova to haul the load at issue. The website cautioned users, though, that they "should not draw conclusions about a carrier's overall safety condition simply based on the data displayed in this system." Alliance for Safe, Efficient & Competitive Truck Transp. v. Fed. Motor Carrier Safety Admin., 755 F.3d 946, 948-49 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (). The disclaimer further noted that unless a carrier had an "unsatisfactory" rating received after a full compliance review or had been "otherwise ordered to discontinue operations by the FMCSA, it is authorized to operate on the nation's roadways." Id. As noted, the purpose of the scores was to allow the FMCSA to target carriers for compliance reviews: the higher a carrier's ratings, the more likely it was to be categorized as "high-risk" under this system and then prioritized for compliance reviews.
Because there was some controversy concerning the utility of the BASICs and their use by the public or brokers in determining the safety of carriers, Congress directed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate whether BASIC scores accurately assessed accident risk. The GAO issued a report in February 2014 that was highly critical of the BASIC scores as a...
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