You may remember that back in June, comedian Tracy Morgan and four of his friends were driving on the New Jersey Turnpike? when a Walmart truck slammed into their limousine. The limo flipped over, killing Morgan’s longtime friend James “Jimmy Mack” McNair and severely injuring Morgan and four others. Morgan was released from a rehab center early on Saturday, and is recovering very well after suffering a broken leg, a broken nose and broken ribs.
The truck driver, Kevin Roper, is currently facing charges of death by auto and assault by auto–principally because he had been awake for 24 hours straight before the crash and had fallen asleep behind the wheel. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that Roper was very close to the federal work limits for drivers. That raised the question–if Roper had gone 24 hours without sleep, what had he been doing for the rest of that time?
That question may have been partially answered late Thursday when Morgan sued Walmart, alleging that the retail giant was responsible for the crash by allowing Roper to go to work without an adequate amount of rest.? Read the complaint here. The suit claims that Walmart knew or should have known that Roper hadn’t had any sleep in 24 hours, but allowed him to go on the road anyway.? Morgan is suing on behalf of himself, his personal assistant Jeffrey Millea, Millea’s wife Krista, and fellow comedian Ardley “Ardie” Fuqua. Jeffrey Millea and Fuqua were passengers in the limo, while the suit charges Krista Millea suffered “loss of consortium,” or loss of some benefits of her relationship with Jeffrey, due to her husband’s injuries.
Potentially the most chilling disclosure in the lawsuit is that Walmart required Roper to drive from his home in Jonesboro, Georgia (south of Atlanta) to its distribution center in Smyrna, Delaware–a distance of some 750 miles over 11 hours–before the start of his shift. The suit contends that such a commute was “unreasonable,” especially considering that there were several other distribution centers within a more reasonable driving distance–including “at least nine” in Georgia. It also contends that Walmart turns a blind eye to violations of federal regulations governing drivers’ work hours. All told, the suit claims, Walmart is responsible for the crash because of what the complaint describes as “a custom and practice of recklessly and intentionally allowing its drivers to drive for prolonged and unreasonable amounts of time,” thus putting both its drivers and the public in danger.
Almost as chilling is the suit’s claim that the collision avoidance system in Roper’s truck wasn’t working properly, and failed to automatically slow the truck down when traffic on the turnpike slowed to 45 miles per hour due to construction. In other words–that truck shouldn’t have even been on the road.
According to the NTSB probe, Roper went on duty at 11:22 am on the morning of June 5 at the Smyrna center. The crash occurred at 1 am on the morning of June 6. At that time, he had been on duty for over 13.5 hours and behind the wheel for over 9.5 hours. Federal regulations limit drivers to 14 consecutive hours on the clock and 11 hours behind the wheel. While Roper may have been within the federal duty limits, he is facing state charges due to “Maggie’s Law,” a 2003 New Jersey law that makes it a crime for a driver to get behind the wheel if he has been awake for 24 hours or more. By my math, if you factor in the 11-hour drive from Jonesboro to Smyrna, Roper may have been awake for at least 25 hours straight, and possibly as long as 30 hours.
The law is named for Maggie McDonnell, who was killed in 1997 when a man who had been awake for over 30 hours crossed the center line and slammed into her car head-on. Maggie’s mother, Carole, pushed for the law’s passage after the man got only a suspended sentence and a $200 fine. When it emerged that Roper had been up for 24 hours, Carole McDonnell told the South Jersey Times that the accident was a textbook example of why Maggie’s Law was enacted–“to take people like that off the roads.” But even without a law, there is no defensible reason to allow someone to drive an 18-wheeler without a decent amount of rest. If I were Roper’s supervisor, I’d have a lawyer on speed dial.
If the allegations here are to be believed, I have to hope that Morgan takes Walmart to the cleaners–that is, if Walmart doesn’t have the decency to settle this out of court. After all, this accident may have been caused because Walmart allowed a driver to get on the road who may have gone as long as 30 hours without sleep, and on a truck that had no business being on the highway. There have been a lot of outrageous stories of late about Walmart’s work practices. But this story has to stand as one of the worst. After all, this suit accuses Walmart of showing gross disregard not only for the welfare of its workers, but for the welfare of the rest of us as well.
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Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
