Rob Moseley on Trucking Litigation: Nuclear Verdicts, Dashcams & Cybersecurity Risks

Rob, how you doing?

Hey, good, good, good.

Well, hey, appreciate you hopping on here.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, yeah, a couple things I, I get asked quite a bit. I'm kind of curious on your thoughts on the main one. I get asked and I've, I've had one insurance company say absolutely not. Don't do this one. Say the complete opposite. What are your thoughts on the driver facing dash cams? Do those affect the, what just happens in court there?

Yeah, yeah. So when, when you start talking about dash cams and, and I know you asked a very specific question, but I'm going to back up a little bit and, and, and I'm going to talk about dash cam management. So, so I, I look at dash cams, whether they're forward facing or, or, or rear facing, you've got three steps you need to deal with. Number one is somebody's got to watch those videos. And, and I realize that there are a lot of services that, you know, they, some of them watch the videos for you and tell you what you need to be concerned about or, or you do it in house. You're looking at, looking at these videos. So somebody's got to watch them and, and then when there's a coachable event, somebody's got a coach, somebody. So that's the second piece of it. And then the third piece of it is you need to understand how your system saves the data and you need to make sure that the data is only available as long as you need it for actively managing that driver. So I, I tell people all the time that if you just, if you don't, if you don't set this up properly, you wind up, you know, videos for drivers that you've had for five years, you know, they're still, they're still on the system somewhere. So, so make sure that your, your settings in the, you know, in the vendor system are, are, are set correctly to how to, how you need to manage that driver, how that works. Now, now as to forward facing, rear facing, you, I mean, I'm a big fan of the, of the rear facing camera only because the, you know, your trucking companies are guilty until proven innocent. And this is a way to prove yourself innocent. You know, you're, you got the driver going down, you know, as straight down the road, not on a phone. You know, I like that. Now you can, you can actually, I mean a lot of the, a lot of the cameras are set up now where, where I would say that they're kind of a hybrid between forward and rear facing. They, they, they've got, they've got the forward facing, but they've got the, the inward facing comes in from the mirrors and, and gives you a little bit like the, the hands and the steering wheel without actually being on, on the, on the driver. So there's a little bit of, so I've seen some technology like that where there's kind of a, a little bit of a, it's, it's set up so that it's kind of a, a compromise I guess between full onboard, onboard inward facing camera. So I'm, I'm, I'm a big fan of the inward facing cameras because it shows you're not on the phone, it shows you're, you know, you're paying attention, that, that kind of thing. So, and really, I think, you know, one, one, one question that, that people get asked is how are you going to make sure drivers are on their phones? And the answer is you really can't unless you've got the inward facing camera. Now, I mean, I know there's some cell phone blocking technology and stuff like that, but short of something like that, I think, I think that's probably the, the, the best answer. But I, I like the inward camera, but if you tell me you're, you're only going to do outward facing cameras, that's fine. I mean, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna pick a fight with you over that.

Yo. Well, no, I'm glad you said that because the two arguments was, well, if you don't have them, then how are you gonna, how are you gonna prevent stuff like that happening? How you gonna know that your driver's distracted or on the phone? But then the other argument was to not have them was, well, what's going to happen if, if the, when it comes out in court that they're going to go back and look at the last 12 months and find every little nitpick deal on that dash cam there. But then you don't have, but you're saying still 100. Get the inward facing dash cams if you can because there's no, there's no coaching that's going to happen if you don't have them or it's going to be way tougher.

Yeah. You still have some coaching opportunities.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's, it's, I mean, you really, you know, we're a long way from where we were 15 years ago when the, the driver just went out on Monday and you saw him back two weeks later and you had no idea what happened in the two weeks while, while the driver was out. And, and so we're, you know, we, it's, it's, it's gone. It's, it's come a long way in terms of the driver monitoring, in terms, you know, some for good, some for bad. But, but it's, it's, it's. We have a lot more knowledge now than we, than we did then. And so, you know, we're held to, held to that standard of, of dealing with that.

Yep. Yep. And another thing kind of on that is like, you know, most insurance companies are pushing for cameras and ELD data. Are you seeing ELD data show up in court, too? Is anybody asking for that?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We, Every case has ELD data. And, and they're, you know, the good thing about the, you know, as an old football coach used to tell me that I, the, I don't lie.

Yeah.

And, and so when, when you were watching film on football, you know, after a football game, you know, if you missed a block or, you know, missed a tackle or whatever, you, you were, you know, you, you knew it. And, and, and so the great thing about the ELDs is they're, they're, they're, they're only subject to some very limited manipulation. So generally speaking, you know, what you got and it automatically, I mean, you don't have three ladies in the, in the office auditing logs anymore, because, I mean, we, it is what it is. So, so that, that's, that's good. Now. I, I think a lot of people don't understand how their technology works. And that's, to me, that's the biggest problem is that, is that they, you know, they, they're, the drivers are missing something and nobody's really catching it. But, or the, or the, or the company doesn't really understand what data is being recorded. But, but that's, you know, I, I, you're talking about the courtroom. And, and, you know, I said you're, you're guilty until you prove yourself innocent. I mean, and, and really what we're seeing today is you, you have to be perfect. Is that, is that in order to survive in litigation, you have to be perfect. And, and you, you, you know, you can't have a breakout of adjustment. You can't be seven miles an hour over the speed limit. You know, you, you've got to have. Everything's gotta line up for you to, for you to try these cases.

Yo, yo, am I, am I missing anything? Like, I know the three main points when it comes to the litigation side. They're gonna review dash cams, have way they review ELD data, obviously your CSA scores, all that stuff's going to be drugged through the mud in court. Anything else that they're really going to, you know, typically look at there?

Yeah, I mean, I think at a really high level. You know, the, the best day for the company is if, if you're, if, if your driver just made a mistake, the driver, you know, turned, turned left in front of somebody, the driver, you know, you know, misunderstood us a sign or whatever. And those are the, those are the things that you can defend. But every action by the company is, is going to be looked at more seriously by the jury. When the, when the company makes a, a mistake. That's, that's going to be a, taken as more seriously by, by the jury. But, but the, the things that, that, that are, and it starts from the day the driver steps into the office is, is, you know, filling out that application. Okay, well, you know, the driver fills out on the application, he's a three year driver and says he's driven a million miles. Okay, yeah, that didn't happen. And so going, looking at that application and saying, okay, you say here you have a million miles of experience and, and you know, you, you've got to go through. And, and what I love to see is the, the safety department writes on that application. You know, driver really was, was estimating here. He knows, he doesn't know how many miles he's driven, you know, and you know, correcting things that are, that are on their face are a problem, you know, or like, you know, the driver says, you know, comes in for his annual MVR review and the driver says I don't have any tickets this year. And you run the NVR and he's got a ticket. Okay, well now you go back to the driver and you say, hey, you said you had no tickets, but you have this ticket here. And the driver says that's not me. I don't, I don't understand what that is. Or the driver says yeah, I forgot about that one. I should have told you about that. You know, and you document that. And, and so every, every mistake or every inconsistency in the process needs to be correct. And so those are the, those are the kinds of things that can get you into trouble is when your own documents are inconsistent.

Yeah. I mean, do you think, I mean, I think people are, I mean, I would think people are aware that they get to have somebody in charge that if they're too small to have a dedicated person or team, then they do a third party. But you think there's just lack procedures there or just how. How are people running that trouble or how do you prevent that?

Well, I mean the typical mentality is if, if there's a, a blank that needs to be filled in. If it's filled in, it's okay. I mean it's. My job's done. If all these boxes are checked, regardless of what's in the boxes, I mean we actually have to read the boxes and make sure we understand what those say, you know, and when we get so and again, when you get back the, you send out the request for information from the previous employers and you start getting that back. If that's inconsistent with what the drivers told you, you need to reconcile that. So it's all about, it's all about reconciling everything that. That is inconsistent.

Okay. Okay. No, that's, that's good. And I mean I've been seeing nuclear verdicts are getting more and more. I don't say comment, but they're showing up a lot more. I mean like I just saw something saying Werner had a lawsuit reversed for $100 million on a claim that was not or for an accident was not a fau. I mean are you seeing huge uptick in that in nuclear verdicts? And how do you kind of prevent that stuff?

I mean we're seeing, we're seeing appellate courts reverse some of these nuclear verdicts.

Okay.

With, with the exception of New Mexico which seems to. Seems to think 300 million dollar verdicts are, are reasonable. But, but you know, it's, it's a. You know, you're getting some some results back that, you know, I think. I think the trucking companies and insurance companies are, are figuring out which cases they you know, they want to try, which ones they don't want to try. There There are their lawyer. Their are lawyers out there who are. I mean plaintiff lawyers are taking cases to trial and, and losing. But that doesn't make headlines. So I mean I think, I think that just by virtue of of, you know, what what, what. What we talk about is is, is that the, the, the nuclear verdicts are always going to be what I would say. And, and, and verdicts that are, you know, either more in line with. With reason or or their, their defense verdicts, those are, those are going to be generally under underreported.

Yo Yo. I mean how do you even justify a hundred million dollars for, for a one auto accident? I mean do you. You think they're just putting that number up there to get attention over reported? But how's that stuff even getting paid out then?

Well, and a lot of the things that you read about, I mean, like there was a Florida verdict that was huge. I mean, that verdict. My understanding is that there wasn't really anybody defending that case and there was. And none of it was paid, obviously. Okay. So I mean, you get as big a verdict as you want.

Yeah.

And if nobody's on the other side.

Yeah.

And, and you know, a lot of these, you know, sometimes you get somebody that just wants to try a case and they're going to get a big verdict, but they're not going to collect. So, so all of those, all of those things come in to come into play.

Is there much else these guys can do besides, I mean, obviously just doing the basics. Right. Running a well ran trucking company to avoid, you know, some of those multimillion dollar payouts.

You know, the. I, there's certainly things that they can do. And, and you know, it's, it's, it goes, it's. You got compliance, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna get raked over the coals if you have gaps in your compliance. But, but you know, a lot of it is, you know, we, as, as, as an industry, we need to, we need to be stronger in politically because, because we have, you know, we're a very important sector in the, in the, in the economy. And, and, and yet we're, we're almost consistently under attack, whether it's, you know, billboards that, that vilified trucking companies and, or, or what have you. But a lot of the laws that we have to, we have to live under are, are not very fair. And we don't have the political clout. At least we, we don't think we do to, to change those laws. And so I think, I think we need to, you know, if, if you're a trucking company, you need to be very active in your state national trucking association so that you can have a seat at the table when it, when it, when somebody's, you know, in South Carolina, we're the worst. We're a red state and, and we're very conservative in a lot of ways. But I think three quarters of our legislature is plaintiff's lawyers. And you know, we, we can't make changes. We can't, we can't change a bunch of unfair laws that, that penalize traffic cows.

So that's what's kind of wondering. You kind of answer that there too is. I was wondering if it's on the state level. I Know, some of these states are like blue wire calls them judicial hell holes. Where, where the, where just depending on the state or what, what the, you know, legislative looks like there, they, they'll, they'll usually go in favor of, you know, not the trucking side.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of hell holes out there and, but, but there's a lot more than what you just what you read about too, so. Yeah.

Yeah. No. Okay. Yeah, that's good. And, and just when it comes to claims in general, I mean, I know there's a pretty big difference here, but for the people who watch and I mean a quickly reported self reported claim up front, do you know how big of a difference that is or do you have any idea what you're going to see there versus a claim that's third party reported and reported a month after?

You know, it's really, it's really a benefit to me if, if it gets reported quickly. And I mean you've got some insurance companies out there who are not very responsive. They're, they may or may not be familiar with trucking and they, they might write a trucking policy or a business auto policy that covers a truck, but they might not really understand the process. And so, you know, moving very quickly to get vehicles downloaded before they're repaired, before they get back on the road can be, can be a big help figuring out what kind of telematics are on that vehicle before they disappear. That, that can be a help. But the, the less things you have to explain, the better off you are. Because if you're explaining, you're losing. So you, you've gotta, if, if you're wasting some of your explanations on, you know, why didn't you download the truck right after the accident? You know, those are, those are pretty easy ones not to have to explain.

Yeah, yeah. When is this accurate too? I heard that, you know, the later you report, I mean people's stories are going to start changing. They're going to go reach out. They're going to have time to go reach out to a lawyer at that point and you know, like just the evidence starts getting muddied up in the water. The longer you wait.

I mean most, most security cameras at, at businesses overwrite in about seven days.

Oh wow.

And so if you're, if you're trying to get footage of an accident scene, you know, trying to figure out who had the red light, who had the green light, you know, you got to move pretty quick on that. So the faster, the faster you can get Things in motion, the better off you are.

Yeah, that's, that's good to know. Here's the, here's the last question I got here for you, Rob. You seen anything cyber related where, you know, cyber insurance might be coming into play more, where, you know, you got cyber criminals, dumb available brokering and everything on those lines?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. The, and, and I think the, the, the industry hasn't, hasn't caught up with where we are in terms of underwriting. Yep. So our, the underwriting that's out there today is, is, is, you know, 30, 35 years old and it doesn't really reflect what's happening in the market today. So if you're a freight broker and you know, you need to make sure that you're buying some expansive coverage that would include coverage for, for, for these, these, you know, the planned and organized theft issues. And, and you would also have, and you know, they, they call that strategic theft. I mean, if, if somebody busts open your, your trailer at the truck stop, you know, that's been covered. That, that's covered. Okay, but if somebody hacks into your system and sees that you've got some loads and, or they go out and start booking loads in your name, you know, they're, that, that's something that is going to be a problem for you. Insurance companies are the policies, the products that are out there generally don't cover that. Yeah, there's exceptions and there are, there are products that do cover that. But, but cyber is, is, you know, I don't think it's going to be long before cyber is integrated into the, into the cargo claims, into the cargo policies, motor truck cargo and contingent cargo. I think you'll see, I think you'll see those integrated a little bit so that, so that this, the things that are happening, happening on our computers that create that, create these, these, these issues are, are going to eventually be covered now. I think that, I think the industry is going to demand it and, and I think that some enterprising underwriters will come up with a way to, to, to, to recover.

Yeah, because almost nobody's, nobody I talked to has cyber. He's haven't even heard of it. So man, it must be, it must be. You must be saying it quite a bit if you're thinking underwriters even just start putting it in the cargo policy.

Yeah, well, I think it won't be cyber like, you know, a traditional cyber policy, your ransomware and that kind of thing. Yeah, but, but, but, but cyber extending coverage to cyber where somebody hacks into your system and uses that steel freight. I mean, I think that's probably something that could be, that could be covered with, in, in the context of a cargo risk.

Yo. Yeah, and I know what you're talking about because I just saw a story on Guy Fury had like, I don't know what it was, like $12 million in tequila. It was, it was that. It was a cyber criminal hopped in there, stole cargo and, and everything.

Yeah, it's, you know, that 60 Minute story was, was, was pretty good for the industry and putting it out there.

Yeah.

You know, don't, don't wish that anybody has that kind of a loss. But, but, but if it's a somebody famous, then, you know, it gets a little press and maybe, maybe it'll get a little more law enforcement attention as well. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Well, man, that's, that's been a huge help. So I, I appreciate that, Rob.

Yeah, yeah. Good, good talking with you.

Hey, likewise. Yeah. So that was, that was a meeting I just had there with Ron Mosley. Rob Mosley is a buddy of a buddy. So I 100% recommend reaching out to his law firm if you guys ever need anything. When it comes to, you know, getting a lawyer involved, he does have, or the law firm does have news on this. They have webinars on predatory towing, which is going to be a big deal, tort reform, all sorts of stuff. They have these webinars every month or so. You guys can hop on their email list to get updates about this, learn about what's going on, because that really is a huge deal in trucking insurance world right now. It's, it's just these nuclear verdicts and these lawsuits can be so ridiculous that is driving everybody's price up, putting these, putting some of these companies out of business. Rob is involved with every single association, talks at every, every deal involving trucking and supporting the trucking community every chance he gets. So I 100% just recommend reaching out to this crew if you guys ever need anything.