By Al Muskewitz
 
Everybody laughs at those loud, often obnoxious television ads from lawyers going on about how much money they can win for their clients involved in an accident with an 18-wheeler.
 
Mark Colson isn’t laughing. In fact, they get his hackles up.

Litigation against trucking companies is big business. Monetary judgments against them are on the rise and the rising insurance premiums they create are causing some companies to rethink their operations or forcing them out of business altogether.
 
Colson, the new president and CEO of the Alabama Trucking Association, told Wright Media in an interview this summer his membership has, frankly, grown more than weary of the way they’re portrayed in plaintiff trial attorney advertising.
 
“We’re a safe industry and if you look on TV and listen to plaintiff trial attorneys talk about our companies or go to any of their websites it’s how do you sue a trucking company,” Colson said. “I’m not arguing against justice of what’s fair, but many times the way our industry is being characterized is unfair.
 
“That said, if there are issues that need to be litigated and all that we have a justice system for that, but I think that’s another major issue for our membership. Candidly, they’re sick of it. We’re sick of it, because it’s not how we operate. It’s not who we are as an industry. It’s disrespectful to the men and women who work in our industry to characterize our industry that way.”
 
A completely random view of lawyer ads in one Alabama market recently has shown the volume of the rhetoric being toned down, but the message is the same.
 
According to research compiled by data company CaseMetrix for a piece published this week by FreightWaves, the average verdict in a trucking case in their Southeast reporting area this year has been about $17.5 million. That’s an increase of $600,000 from last year and $10 million just two years ago. It’s more than double the 2015 average and about eight times more than the average in 2012.
 
The average award was impacted by two nine-figure verdicts last year, CaseMetrix CEO Alan Pershing told FreightWaves.
 
While the average was astonishing, the median award was $2.88 million, down from the $3.5 million median last year, the website reported.
 
Tort reform is one of the 10 most critical issues facing the trucking industry among motor carriers, according to a survey conducted by the American Transportation Research Institute released in October.

Al Muskewitz is Editor-in-Chief of Wright Media Corp.