Jury returns $1.85M verdict favoring Central Freight Lines

Jury returns $1.85M verdict favoring Central Freight Lines

ROCKWALL, Texas — A Texas state court jury in Rockwall County has returned a $1.85 million verdict in favor of Waco-based Central Freight Lines, finding that a local company breached its contract to provide Central Freight with workers’ compensation insurance and claims administration services.
Jurors found that Rockwall-based Trendsetter HR and its owner, D.W. Bobst, failed to honor the terms of the contract and wrongfully billed Central Freight for services and coverage that were never provided. Central Freight is requesting that interest be added to the verdict amount, which could push the final award to more than $2 million.

“It’s rare to receive a verdict of this magnitude in a counterclaim, but Trendsetter’s failures and wrongs were particularly egregious,” says attorney William Chamblee of Dallas’ Chamblee Ryan Kershaw & Anderson, who represented Central Freight at trial. “Trendsetter, its affiliates and its owner made numerous misstatements to my client in an effort to hide the facts and justify their wrongdoing.”
Chamblee said Trendsetter signed the contract with Central Freight in 2008 before adding several amendments to broaden the administrative services provided to the company and its employees. For more than three years, Trendsetter accepted payments from Central Freight but failed to properly deposit the funds for workers’ compensation coverage. As Central Freight’s lawsuit alleged, Trendsetter made “every effort to protect itself in anticipation of the looming regulatory and coverage problems it had created for Central, as well as the likelihood for litigation.”
Trendsetter originally sued for breach of contract in 2013 after Central Freight stopped its payments following a series of audits and documentation demands that Trendsetter did not meet, Chamblee said.
The Trucker News Services