Wabash National Knew the Fix Cost $313. They Said No.

A safety fix existed. It had existed for decades. It cost $313 per trailer. Wabash National, one of America's largest trailer manufacturers, decided not to install it - and a jury in St. Louis ultimately decided what that choice was worth.

A Design Left Unchanged Since 1985

Wabash National had been building trailers with the same rear impact guard since 1985 - a simple two-post, one-bar design that engineers and safety advocates had repeatedly flagged as inadequate. By the company's own records, Wabash conducted no safety testing on that guard between 1985 and 1996. In 1998, rather than redesigning it, the company joined a joint defense agreement with competing trailer manufacturers - a legal arrangement to coordinate their defense against underride lawsuits rather than eliminate the risk causing them.

May 19, 2019

Taron Tailor, 30, was driving along Interstate 44 near St. Louis when his Volkswagen struck the rear of a stopped Wabash trailer. The guard - the metal bar legally required to prevent exactly this kind of crash - tore off on impact. Both Tailor and his passenger, Nicholas Perkins, 23, died at the scene. Tailor's wife was pregnant at the time of his death. Perkins left behind a 2-year-old daughter.

$313 Per Trailer

During trial, the families' attorney told jurors the fix was not complicated. A safer guard design was available and had been available for years. The cost to install it: $313 per trailer. The plaintiff's legal team estimated Wabash saved approximately $15 million per year by not making the change - and argued the $450 million in punitive damages the jury initially awarded reflected exactly that: three decades of savings bought at the cost of lives.

What the Jury Said

After a two-week trial in September 2024, a St. Louis jury returned a verdict of $462 million - including $450 million in punitive damages and $6 million to each family. Wabash challenged the size of the award, and a judge reduced the punitive damages to $108 million while leaving the compensatory damages intact. The confirmed total stands at $120 million. Wabash was denied a new trial but continues to evaluate further appeals. The company maintained throughout that its trailer met all federal safety standards in effect at the time of manufacture.

The Broader Problem

Underride crashes - where a passenger vehicle slides beneath the rear of a trailer - are among the most deadly road collisions in the United States. Safety advocates, including Marianne Karth, who lost her own daughters in an underride crash, have pushed for stronger federal standards for decades. The Wabash verdict drew national attention to an industry where compliance with minimum federal standards has repeatedly been used as a defense even when safer alternatives are known and affordable. The families' attorney put it plainly in closing arguments: "For the sake of profit, the families in this case paid the ultimate price."