How Cameron Kennedy's Opening Helped Lead to Settlement With UPS in Trucking Crash Trial

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The best opening statements often give jurors a crystal-clear mental snapshot of the event at the heart of a case, while laying strong groundwork for the evidence that will key the trial. At trial against UPS over a fatal truck crash, Cameron Kennedy’s vivid opening preceded an early-trial settlement. 

James Hope, Jr., 65, was killed when a UPS tractor-trailer driven by Daniel Irish struck and flipped the dump truck in which Hope was a passenger. The late-night, 2011 crash also killed the dump truck’s driver, Norman White.

During openings, Searcy Denney’s Kennedy, representing Hope’s family, told jurors the UPS trucker, Daniel Irish, was tired, inattentive, and had “floored” the gas pedal of his tandem tractor-trailer just before the accident occurred. “He was driving the UPS tractor-trailer as fast as it could go,” Kennedy said, noting the truck’s black box recorder showed it traveling more than 60 miles per hour just before the collision.

During his opening, Kennedy walked jurors through the events surrounding the crash, complete with photos of the highway’s configuration and the crash scene itself. “As the UPS driver approaches the dump truck, the gas pedal is floored,” Kennedy said reminding jurors that Irish had been driving more than 8 hours at the time of the crash. 

Kennedy then showed jurors a model of the dump truck. “The UPS truck comes up from behind and hits the dump truck in the back,” Kennedy said, punching the dump truck model with his fist. The strike caused a ringing sound that could be echoed through the courtroom.  Indeed, Kennedy repeated the fist-strike multiple times as he referred back to the moment of the collision, emphasizing the violence of the wreck.

Kennedy noted the 60,000-pound UPS truck continued 730 more feet down the road after the impact, before Irish stopped and called 911. Kennedy added that Irish admitted the dump truck was in front of his big rig before the crash, anticipating defense contentions that he couldn’t see the dump truck because the vehicle lacked appropriate safety equipment. 

“Before the UPS driver ever got back to the dump truck the evidence will prove in this case from the very beginning that the UPS driver knew what he did.”

The parties settled the case within days of the opening statement.

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