The legal effort to hold shippers liable for accidents involving trucks hauling their goods, even when they did not directly hire the carrier, has suffered another setback in Texas.

At the same time, the dispute surrounding C.H. Robinson in Lipe vs. Lupus Superior continues to add momentum to the broader fight over who, beyond the obvious parties to a crash, can be held liable and required to pay damages. For trucking and logistics companies, the issue matters because the line between a shipper, broker, carrier, and driver can become central to how claims are framed and defended after a fatal crash.

In the Lipe case, the legal world is still waiting for Judge Dianne Jones of Dallas County to affirm the $604 million verdict. Meanwhile, C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) has moved onto the offensive. This week, the company published a question-and-answer document repeating earlier statements and responding to rumors circulating in the industry. The company also reaffirmed that it intends to appeal the verdict, which affects it because it hired the carrier involved in the fatal crash.

The recent Texas decision that favored shippers came from the Court of Appeals for the Eighth District in El Paso last week. That court upheld an earlier ruling in the Texas court system that blocked claims against aircraft manufacturer Atlas Aerospace.

Earlier losses for the plaintiffs

Atlas’s freight was being hauled through Kansas in 2018 by Dorado’s Trucking, which had been booked by a broker, Essen Global Logistics, when the shipment was involved in a fatal collision that killed two people.

Relatives of the deceased men sought to hold Atlas vicariously liable for the crash. They were unsuccessful in the lower courts and have now also lost in a higher Texas court.

The ruling is the second recent Texas decision rejecting vicarious liability claims against a shipper. In May, the Texas Supreme Court rejected an attempt to hold Home Depot negligent over the actions of a Werner (NASDAQ: WERN) truck driver hauling goods for the chain when a fatal crash occurred near Houston in 2024. The Atlas ruling echoes that case.

In the Atlas litigation, Atlas was severed as a defendant from the separate ongoing case involving the carrier and the broker. That separate action has so far gone in favor of the drivers and carriers and is on appeal.

Atlas had already won summary judgment earlier in the case. In the latest ruling, issued on the final day of July, the court again sided with Atlas on several issues.

One of those points was a detailed rejection of the claim that the shipper, which had contracted out the movement of its freight, should be held liable, similar to the argument raised in the Home Depot case.

“Even in the light most favorable to the Mora family (the lead plaintiffs who lost a family member in the crash), we conclude they presented no evidence sufficient to raise a fact issue on whether Atlas exercised any control over which trucking company was hired, which tractors were used to haul the trailers, or which drivers were selected as Atlas’s products were transported from Mexico to Kansas,” Judge Gina Palafox wrote for the three-judge panel. “The Mora Family’s summary judgment evidence of Atlas’s alleged control is so weak as to amount to no more than a scintilla of evidence, and, at most, rises to the level of controlling ‘merely the end sought to be accomplished’—that their products be transported from Mexico to Kansas,” she wrote, quoting an earlier precedent.

Although Atlas took part in some aspects of the shipment, including recommending routes for transporting goods from Mexico, the court said there was no evidence Atlas controlled that decision. That distinction is likely to remain important in other freight cases, because plaintiffs in these disputes often try to connect routine shipping coordination to legal control over the carrier’s day-to-day decisions.

Judge says there was no active role

“We conclude the Mora Family’s argument conflates affirmative acts and passive omissions,” Judge Palafox wrote. “Preventing something requires active conduct—taking steps to stop or obstruct an outcome—while not opting in simply reflects a choice to not participate, which lacks the affirmative quality necessary to constitute prevention absent a legal duty to act.”

The comparison between the Atlas case and Lipe vs. Lupus Superior, which involved C.H. Robinson, centers on vicarious liability for an entity that is two or more degrees removed from the incident giving rise to the lawsuit.

C.H. Robinson hired Lupus Superior in the 2021 crash, when a truck from that company struck a group of cars, killing three people and the driver.

The more than $600 million judgment drew attention not only because it is one of the largest nuclear verdicts in trucking history, but also because it was the first such verdict after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II, where a broker defendant could not rely on the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act as a defense.

It also was a verdict against a company with deep pockets, though a $600 million payout would still be far from immaterial for it.

C.H. Robinson pushes back publicly

Since the Dallas County jury’s decision, C.H. Robinson has been working publicly to defend itself beyond the courtroom.

CEO Dave Bozeman addressed the case during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call. Earlier this week, the company also released a question-and-answer document outlining its position on Lipe vs. Lupus Superior.

Much of what appeared in the document had already been discussed by C.H. Robinson. It repeated that the company is appealing the judgment. It described the crash as “heartbreaking.” It also said that Lupus Superior had a Satisfactory rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration both before and after the 2021 crash in Mississippi.

C.H. Robinson further reiterated that, despite the jury’s finding that it was effectively the driver’s employer, it has never hired a driver. The company also repeated that it had used Lupus Superior for 270 loads without incident.

“We strongly disagree with the jury’s conclusions,” C.H. Robinson said. “We did not employ the driver, choose the driver, contact the driver, operate the truck, or control the actions of the driver involved in the accident.”

The new issue addressed in the Q&A was aimed at rumors circulating in the industry.

“Claims that the driver told C.H. Robinson he was sick, that we allowed him to continue driving, or that we didn’t reschedule the load are also false,” the document said. “What is true is that the driver worked for Lupus Superior, he did not communicate with C.H. Robinson, and we did not supervise, direct, or control his actions. After the carrier told us their driver had stopped, we rescheduled the load for four days later. Unbeknownst to C.H. Robinson, the driver continued driving.”