As reported in an article in the 2025 edition of the Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter, Member Morgan J. Wells, Jr. secured a defense verdict in the trucking liability case, Mouton v. Patriot Transport et al, on the basis that plaintiff did not prove that an accident occurred as alleged.
Mouton v. Patriot Transport et al – Background
Derrick Mouton, then age 40, was stopped on the Evangeline Thruway in Lafayette on 4-2-18 at a red light. He was driving a Mack truck pulling a trailer. It was a big truck and it weighed 30,000 pounds. Ahead of Mouton in traffic was Charles Warner.
Warner was driving a truck tractor that pulled a flatbed trailer for Patriot Transport. Warner was carrying heavy oil pipes. His truck weighed 130,000 pounds. An instant later Warner let off the clutch. His vehicle rolled backwards into Mouton’s truck. The impact was at very low speed. It was enough, though, to jerk Mouton inside his tractor.
Warner for his part didn’t feel the impact and drove off. Mouton was able to flag him down and a police report was created. Mouton did not have an injury at the scene. He did report to the ER later that night.
Mouton has since treated for several injuries in which he linked to the collision. They were a C3-4 disc protrusion and a labral tear in his shoulder. The shoulder was surgically repaired. Mouton has since been limited from his job as a trucker and is now retraining to be a real estate agent.
In the lawsuit Mouton sued Warner, Patriot Transport and their insurer, Northland Insurance. The theory was simple enough. Warner had backed his much heavier truck into Mouton’s Mack truck and the jerking impact led to Mouton’s injuries. Mouton called a team of treating physicians, Dr. Ben Barrone, Pain Management and Dr. Judson Penton, Orthopedics (he performed the shoulder surgery) to confirm his injuries. If Mouton prevailed he sought past and future medicals as well as past and future lost earnings. The jury could also award him non-economic damages.
The Defense Strategy
The heart of the defense went to causation, and this had two parts. The first was that there wasn’t an impact at all. Then if there was an impact, it was too minor to cause an injury. A defense expert in biomechanics, David Gushue, Penns Park, PA, did not believe the forces of this crash were significant enough to have caused an injury. He likened those forces to the same as simply standing up or walking down stairs.
The defense also noted that Mouton had a complex injury history. He was involved in a much more serious 2013 motor vehicle accident (MVA), as well as a subsequent one in 2023. Patriot Transport called Dr. Harold Granger, Orthopedics who had treated Mouton after the 2013 crash. Finally, the defense contested the lost wage damages with a vocational expert, Ronnie Ducote, Life Care Plan.
This case was tried over five days and the deliberations lasted some five hours. The jury resolved the case on the first question. It answered that Mouton had not proven that an accident occurred at all, and thus the jury didn’t reach liability, causation or damages. A defense judgment was entered and that closed the case.