San Juan Jury Awards $1.2M for Defective Underride Guard

On October 1, 2010, a 28-year-old driver died after her 2004 Jeep Liberty struck the rear passenger's side of a municipal dump truck on Highway #26 (Baldorioty de Casto Avenue) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The dump truck was stopped or nearly stopped in a left lane as municipal employees performed road maintenance. The driver sustained massive head trauma in the collision and died six days later.

The decedent's parents and siblings filed a lawsuit against the truck body manufacturers, Truck Bodies & Equipment International Inc. and Ox Bodies Inc., alleging strict products liability and negligence. They claimed design and manufacturing defects in the dump truck's body and bumper guard, specifically a lack of adequate underride protection, were a proximate cause of the death. The defendants denied negligence, arguing their product met all applicable standards. They contended the accident resulted from the driver's own negligence or the Municipality of San Juan's failure to provide proper road work signage. A separate, similar lawsuit filed by the decedent's husband and son was settled confidentially prior to trial.

Following a trial in federal court, a jury found for the plaintiffs on the strict products liability claim, determining that the design of the truck's bumper guard caused the damages. The jury rejected the defendants' common law negligence claim and found zero percent negligence for the decedent. The jury attributed 80 percent of the negligence to the Municipality of San Juan for its failures regarding road work signage and 20 percent to Ox Bodies.

The jury awarded total damages of $6,000,000. The court subsequently molded the verdict, entering judgment against the truck manufacturers for 20 percent of the total award, proportional to the negligence attributed to Ox Bodies. This resulted in a final judgment of $1,200,000 for the plaintiffs, distributed among the decedent's parents and siblings.