Texas Supreme Court to Review Werner Nuclear Verdict

Texas’s high court will soon review a $100 million judgment against Werner Enterprises and one of its drivers.  

The Texas Supreme Court recently announced it was granting a petition for appeal in the fatal crash 10 years ago, court documents show. Oral arguments are scheduled for Dec. 3, 2024.  

The case, Werner Enters., Inc. v. Blake, concerned the actions of a novice driver, Shiraz Ali, who was driving a truck in December 2014 for Werner Enterprises on I-20 in Odessa, Texas. Court documents state that Ali was driving westbound when a car in the opposite lane hit black ice, crossed a grassy median and collided with Ali’s vehicle. 

The collision killed a child passenger in the car — Zachery Blake — and injured his mother, his siblings and the driver. The Blake family sued Ali and Werner for wrongful death and personal injuries, was awarded more than $100 million in damages in July 2018.  

In their petition, Ali and Wener argue a few points, including that “Ali did not owe a duty to reasonably foresee that the Blakes’ vehicle would cross the median into his path; that no evidence supports a finding that Ali’s conduct proximately caused the crash; that Werner cannot be held liable for derivative theories of negligent hiring, training and supervision when it accepted vicarious liability for Ali’s conduct; that the court of appeals erred by rejecting petitioners’ claims of charge error on grounds of waiver; and that the jury’s comparative-responsibility findings are not supported by legally sufficient evidence.”