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The Texas Trucking Association and another advocacy group have filed a “friend of the court” brief with the Texas Supreme Court asking that it reject a $100 million lower-court accident verdict against Werner Enterprises.

WASHINGTON — While nuclear verdicts in accident litigation are a major concern in the industry, it’s the nuclear settlements that litigation expert Steve Wood said are more problematic.

Werner Enterprises has filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court of a $100 million jury lower court verdict in a 2014 fatal crash that was upheld by a state appeals court earlier this year.

A Texas state court has denied an appeal by Werner Enterprises Inc. of an $89.7 million jury verdict in a case involving a 2014 fatal crash.

The trucking industry has seen a spike in nuclear verdict judgments across the economy.

In trucking accident lawsuits, the "reptile theory" is a method plaintiff lawyers have deployed in pursuit of so-called “nuclear” jury verdicts.

In the past five years there were nearly 300 court cases resulting in jury verdicts over $1 million against trucking fleets, according to a new American Transportation Research Institute analysis made public on June 23.