Four out of the five families who lost a daughter in the crash that took the lives of five GSU nursing students have reached a settlement with Total Transportation and its parent company U.S. Xpress. Only one family chose to disclose the settlement amount that family will receive: $14 million.

Tomorrow marks the 1-year anniversary of the crash that killed Caitlyn Nicole Baggett, Emily Elizabeth Clark, Abbie Lorene DeLoach, Morgan Bass and Catherine “McKay” Pittman. The young women, all between 20 and 21 years old, were in two vehicles on Interstate 16 in Bryan County. They were headed to their last clinical of the year in Savannah when they found themselves in stop-and-go traffic caused by an earlier accident. It was while they were in traffic that a tractor trailer crashed into them at 68 miles per hour, causing a chain reaction that killed five students and severely injured two others.





The truck, owned by Total Transportation, did not slow down at all before the impact. The driver stated during his deposition that he could not explain why he did not see the stopped cars or the long line of traffic ahead of him, but claims that he was not asleep at the wheel. Though it appears he was texting before the crash, investigators claim that he was not texting at the time the crash happened.

According to attorneys for the families of the victims, this was not the first time the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. In fact, he had been fired from his previous job after falling asleep and totaling his vehilce.

The lawsuits against Total Transportation alleged that they were negligent in hiring the driver since he failed to meet their own hiring standards having previously totaled a different rig in an accident. Both the President of Total Transportation and the Vice President of Safety and Recruiting admitted that the driver “did not meet Total Transportation hiring criteria due to previously rolling a tractor-trailer while employed by another company, asleep at the wheel, should have never been hired and allowed behind the wheel of a Total Transportation tractor-trailer.”

It wasn’t just hiring him that was the mistake, claimed the families’ lawyers. The company was also negligent because they had held the driver at the terminal, forcing him to wait 10 hours before starting his trip. They also claim the truck should have been outfitted with autonomous braking safety systems and driver-facing cameras.

In addition to Total Transportation, the suits also named the driver; parent company U.S. Xpress Enterprises; U.S. Xpress Inc.; U.S. Express Leasing Inc.; the holding company, New Mountain Lake Holdings LLC; and Mountain Lake Risk Retention Group LLC, an insurer of U.S. Xpress.

Total Transportation, U.S. Xpress and the other companies will be responsible for paying $14 million to just one of the families, but it is not known how much the other 3 families who settled will be receiving. The family of Morgan Bass is still negotiating a settlement.

“By these large settlements, it is our sincere hope that Total Transportation and U.S. Xpress will never again jeopardize the lives of the motoring public by hiring drivers who have been fired by other companies for unsafe driving practices,” said one attorney representing the families.

“It’s an extraordinary amount of money,” said another attorney. “But these were extraordinary young women.”

The families are also suing the driver and the carrier who were involved in the crash which caused the traffic the young women were stuck in, claiming that they were negligent in having caused that crash.

Source: wbtw, dailyreportonline, cbs, jacksonville, statesboroherald, wjcl, wtvm, timesfreepress