$730 million verdict awarded to survivors of submarine propeller crash [NSFWish]

On November 22, 2021, a jury in Titus County, Texas, awarded the survivors of 73 year old Toni Combest $480 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages.

The $730 million award was issued following a civil suit filed against Landstar Ranger, Inc. and pilot car companies.

On February 21, 2016, a truck driver attempted to haul a 197,000-pound Navy nuclear submarine propeller over a narrow bridge on U.S. Highway 271 in Titus County, Texas.

A news release from the legal team representing Combest describes the crash:

… Mrs. Toni Combest was killed on the White Oak bridge in Titus County, Texas near Mount Pleasant by a nearly 200,000-pound “Super-Load” that was being escorted by a front and back pilot escort vehicle. The lead pilot escort vehicle ran Mrs. Combest off of the roadway just as Mrs. Combest was rounding the blind curve that would take her onto the skinny bridge.

Upon entering the bridge, Mrs. Combest was faced with a tractor and load that was almost completely within her lane. The driver of the tractor was able to swerve his vehicle out of her lane, but he was not able to remove the 16’ wide load from her path before the load struck her vehicle and caused a violent explosion of debris. The entire event was captured by the dash camera located in the rear escort vehicle.

Combest was reportedly traveling at speeds of 65 m.p.h. at the time of the crash as she was traveling from one church service to another. She passed away at the scene.

“When trucking companies are negligent, people die,” said Brent Goudarzi, a partner with Goudarzi & Young, LLP and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “The defendants in this case failed to maintain an effective lookout, failed to communicate with each other, and failed to ask for assistance from local and state law enforcement. This part of Texas is full of narrow bridges, and yet they had no plan for navigating them. I hope today’s verdict will stop anything like this from happening again.”