Logging driver with a record slams into traffic, Florida suit says. Company owes $141M
A logging driver with a “decorated” history of criminal traffic violations was allowed to get behind the wheel with no background check, then one day he slammed into stopped traffic at 67 mph, leaving a 5-year-old girl with a traumatic brain injury, a Florida lawsuit says.
K&N Logging now owes more than $141 million in damages, a Nassau County jury decided Nov. 6.
McClatchy News reached out to the company for comment Nov. 8 but did not immediately receive a response.
The log truck company is accused of “blindly” hiring a driver with “no application, no background check, no driving history check, no criminal history run,” Curry Pajcic of the law firm Pajcic & Pajcic said in a news conference Nov. 7 broadcast by WJXT.
If employers had run a background check, they would have seen that Ellis Trollinger had been accused of battery, DUI causing a crash, driving a commercial motor vehicle with unsafe equipment, causing a crash by running a red light in a commercial motor vehicle and speeding in a commercial motor vehicle at 74 mph in a 55 mph zone, among other charges, Pajcic said.
Most recently, the driver was charged with possession of methamphetamine while driving a vehicle, Pajcic said.
The same day of the accident, March 3, 2020, Trollinger was removed from service for driving a log truck with cut straps, and the company instructed him to keep driving, the attorney said.
Later that afternoon, he was driving the log truck at 67 mph in a 45 mph zone approaching a line of cars waiting at a stoplight, the lawsuit says.
He had ample time to see the cars, Pajcic said, but he didn’t hit his brakes until a split second before he slammed into traffic, creating a five-car pileup, according to the lawsuit.
The car he’s accused of hitting first was driven by a man with his 5-year-old niece in the backseat, the filing says. The girl sustained a traumatic brain injury and injuries to her neck and spine, while her uncle had head, neck and arm injuries, the lawsuit says.
Their car was propelled into the car in front of them, causing the driver, Michael Miller, to break his back and sustain loss of feeling in his legs, according to the filing.
Miller spoke at the news conference, thanking the law firm for “exposing the corruption of the log truck industry” four years after the crash.
“I’m thankful to the jury for sending a loud and clear message to the log truck industry that we’re taking back the streets,” Miller said. “Follow the rules, or you’ll be held accountable.”
The jury decided the company was responsible for $125 million in punitive damages and $16,549,000 in compensatory damages for the negligence claims, records show.
Nassau County is the northeastern most county in Florida, about a 25-mile drive north from Jacksonville.
This story was originally published November 8, 2024 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Logging driver with a record slams into traffic, Florida suit says. Company owes $141M."