Holding Families Together Has Nothing to Do With “Nuclear Verdicts”
The American Transportation Research Institute’s new report, Trucking Litigation: A Forensic Analysis, raises an important question: Why are lawsuit outcomes in truck-related crashes getting bigger and more volatile? The paper points to multiple forces, venue selection, injury severity, negligence patterns, litigation strategies, and rising medical costs, all contributing to rising award sizes and plaintiff victories.
But one thing is not driving these outcomes: Consumer Legal Funding.
Consumer Legal Funding (CLF) is routinely mistaken for the type of financial investment that is designed to shift litigation strategy or chase oversized verdicts. In reality, CLF is used for one simple reason, to help injured consumers keep the lights on and pay rent while their case makes its slow way through the civil justice system.
The ATRI report confirms that the dynamics escalating trucking litigation have nothing to do with how a consumer pays for groceries while they’re out of work after a crash. Instead, the data clearly shows that the true drivers lie elsewhere.
What the ATRI Report Actually Shows
The report identifies several structural and legal factors behind rising litigation
cost exposure for the trucking industry:
- State vs. Federal Venue
- State courts drive larger verdicts, median awards exceed comparable federal awards by over $1 million. Plaintiffs use procedural tactics to keep cases in plaintiff-friendly state venues, costing carriers an estimated $102 million in one year alone.
- Injury Severity and Negligence
- Awards scale sharply based on severe injuries such as traumatic brain injuries or spinal damage. Certain negligence types, hours-of-service violations, cell phone use, substance abuse, strongly correlate with awards above $10 million.
- Litigation Tactics
- Anchoring strategies, “reptile theory,” and procedural barriers to federal removal influence jury perception.
- Social inflation and jury sentiment
- The report cites growing distrust of corporations and litigation norms that make settlement harder and trials riskier.
Nothing in the dataset signals any causal influence from a consumer receiving $3,000–$5,000 to pay a mortgage bill while waiting for their attorney to negotiate with an insurer.
Consumer Legal Funding Has No Role in Case Strategy or Verdict Inflation
Consumer Legal Funding:
✔ does not pay legal fees
✔ does not pay case costs
✔ does not influence litigation decisions
✔ does not control settlement timing
✔ does not give funders any voice over whether a consumer accepts an offer
This is codified in multiple state statutes: funders cannot participate in litigation strategy, cannot communicate with counsel about the legal case, and cannot interfere with attorney-client representation.
These are the exact safeguards that separate CLF from Third-Party Litigation Financing (TPLF).
TPLF, referenced in the ATRI report, involves multi-million-dollar capital investment in lawsuits, commonly in commercial litigation.
CLF funds survival, not strategy.
The consumer uses the money to:
- keeps a roof over the consumer’s head
- pays utilities
- buys food
- support their kids
- avoid eviction while they’re out of work
The outcome of the case?
CLF has no influence over it, by design.
ATRI’s Own Evidence Proves the Drivers Are Legal and Procedural, Not Financial Support
Let’s review the report’s key findings:
- Venue is destiny
- The largest cost differential comes from state-court litigation. The median verdict in state courts is $1,082,500 larger than federal courts.
- That has nothing to do with whether the plaintiff received a few thousand dollars for living expenses.
- Severe injuries drive severe awards
- Cases involving traumatic brain injuries, spinal injuries, or multiple injured plaintiffs consistently lead to high payouts.
- Medical facts, not personal finances, shape outcomes.
- Certain negligence types trigger nuclear verdicts
- The top award-generating behaviors: HOS violations, cell phone use, substance abuse, improper onboarding, employer negligence.
- These are safety-and-conduct failures, not wage-gap problems.
- Awards are rising even where settlements are common
- Most cases settle — 96.2% in state courts.
A consumer food bill has zero bearing on settlement calculus between attorneys and carriers.
The ATRI numbers stack up to one conclusion: the litigation environment and the underlying crash conditions, not personal financial stress, drive outcomes.
Why CLF Actually Maintains Fairness
Without CLF, a plaintiff with urgent financial needs faces a coercive choice:
Settle cheap…or risk foreclosure, eviction, utility shutoffs, or debt spirals while waiting for fair compensation.
That dynamic benefits insurers and defendants, not consumers.
By giving families breathing room, CLF allows cases to reach an outcome that reflects the true merits, not the size of the plaintiff’s bank account.
Consumer Legal Funding:
- reduces pressure to accept lowball offers
- does not increase the economic damages owed
- does not create new liabilities or shift fault
- does not inflate pain-and-suffering awards
- simply guarantees the courthouse doors stay open for injured consumers
If anything, CLF ensures that an outcome, settlement or verdict, reflects the injury and negligence evidence that the ATRI report spends hundreds of pages analyzing.
The ATRI Report Shouldn’t Be Used to Conflate CLF and TPLF
Because the report mentions Third-Party Litigation Funding within a section on legal concerns, it is easy for policymakers to mistakenly assume CLF is part of the trucking litigation problem.
It is not.
CLF does not:
- enter commercial cases
- finance case expenses
- fund attorneys
- influence crash-related negligence
- affect federal venue eligibility
- alter juror psychology
- create “phantom damages”
- expand award categories
It is simply a consumer financial tool, used for household survival.
All of the trends the ATRI report identifies would continue exactly the same if Consumer Legal Funding disappeared tomorrow.
Blaming CLF Won’t Fix the Problems ATRI Identifies
A System Should Not Punish the Injured for Being Broke
Trucking plays a vital role in the American economy. So does justice.
A person who is hit by a vehicle weighing 80,000 pounds should not be forced into bankruptcy or homelessness while waiting for the legal system, which often takes four years to resolve a case, to function.
Consumer Legal Funding helps families survive through that process.
- It does not change the judge.
- It does not change the jury.
- It does not change the evidence.
- It does not change the verdict.
It only changes whether a family has heat in January.
Conclusion
The ATRI report provides valuable insight into trucking litigation trends.
Policymakers should take it seriously. But using its findings to target Consumer Legal Funding would be a profound misapplication of the data.
The report shows that:
- Awards are tied to negligence and injury severity — not plaintiff personal finance
- Venue manipulation inflates cost — not rent payments
- Social inflation, not survival assistance, drives volatility
CLF participants don’t ask for nuclear verdicts — they ask for groceries.
And no one should be forced to trade their home for their day in court.