Key Points

  • The Arkansas Supreme Court, over a three-justice dissent, affirmed a $75 million compensatory verdict against Old Dominion Freight Line for six first responders exposed to formic acid after a 2018 crash and vacated the Court of Appeals' opinion ordering a new trial.
  • The majority held that an isolated-exposure toxic-tort case does not require the heightened general- and specific-causation proof applied in long-term exposure cases, and that a treating-style medical expert's testimony plus temporal and spatial evidence sufficed.
  • The court held the negligence claims were not preempted by the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act because the disclosure duty asserted was substantively the same as federal law and no placarding beyond federal requirements was sought.
  • The professional-rescuer doctrine did not bar the claims because the responders were not trained, equipped, or paid to assume hazardous-materials risks, and the carrier failed to disclose the hidden hazard.
  • Justice Hiland, joined by Justices Wood and Bronni, dissented, arguing the expert's causation testimony was speculative and that the awards, against less than $15,200 in medical expenses, shocked the conscience and warranted remittitur.

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a $75 million jury verdict against Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. in favor of six first responders who said fumes from a barrel of formic acid permanently damaged their airways at a 2018 highway crash. The ruling vacated an intermediate appellate decision that had found the damages unsupported by the evidence and ordered a new trial.

Justice Courtney Rae Hudson wrote for a majority that rejected all 12 of the trucking company's grounds for appeal. Justice Cody Hiland dissented, joined by Justices Rhonda Wood and Bronni, accusing the majority of abandoning both causation standards and judicial review of verdict size.

The decision leaves intact awards of $5 million to $25 million to two law enforcement officers and four tow-truck workers. It also holds that plaintiffs hurt by a single, isolated exposure to a toxic chemical need not meet the heightened causation proof Arkansas courts have required in long-term exposure cases such as asbestos suits. And it held that a carrier's failure to disclose hazardous cargo barred the professional-rescuer doctrine, which ordinarily prevents paid responders from suing over the hazards they are employed to confront.

The crash occurred on April 20, 2018, on Highway 70 in St. Francis County, when a pickup truck crossed the center line and struck an Old Dominion semitruck driven by Aaron Marvell Foster, which overturned and caught fire. The parties stipulated that the pickup's driver, Charles Henley, who was killed, was the sole cause of the collision. One trailer carried a 565-pound barrel of formic acid. Because the barrel weighed less than 1,001 pounds, federal law did not require a hazardous-materials placard on the trailer.

Two officers testified that Foster told them no hazardous materials were aboard; Foster denied that one of them had asked. The responders described an odor unlike other fiery wrecks and said they could not breathe. Old Dominion did not notify law enforcement of the formic acid until 8:51 p.m., more than five hours after the crash.

After a December 2021 trial, a St. Francis County jury found Old Dominion negligent for failing to disclose the hazardous material. It awarded $25 million to Arkansas State Trooper Frank McMillion, $20 million to tow-company co-owner Bengi Bokker, $15 million to Corporal Allen Jones and $5 million each to Hunter Bokker, Zack Billingsley and Carlton Pettus. The jury declined to award punitive damages.

On appeal, Old Dominion argued that toxic-tort plaintiffs must prove both general causation, whether a substance can cause an illness, and specific causation, whether it caused a particular plaintiff's illness. Hudson wrote that "there is a significant difference between a case in which the plaintiff's injuries are the result of long-term exposure to a toxic substance and a case involving isolated exposure."

The majority found sufficient the testimony of Dr. Scott Manaker, a pulmonologist who examined the six men and drew on 40 years of treating inhalation injuries from similar acids, although he had seen no studies linking formic acid to their conditions. Combined with the responders' accounts and the "close temporal and spatial connection" between exposure and symptoms, the court held, that evidence created a question for the jury.

The court also rejected Old Dominion's argument that the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, which bars states from imposing requirements that are not "substantively the same" as federal hazardous-materials rules, preempted the claims. Federal law requires carriers to disclose cargo information to emergency authorities upon request, and the court found that the negligence theory tracked that duty. "Appellees' claim that appellants were negligent in failing to provide this information is substantively the same as the HMTA's requirements," Hudson wrote.

On the professional-rescuer doctrine, Hudson wrote that "it is clear from appellees' testimony that they were not trained, equipped, or paid to assume the risk of exposure to hazardous materials." The majority also upheld the exclusion of misconduct allegations against a state trooper, the denial of a mistrial over the plaintiffs' use of a paid shadow jury and the trial court's handling of so-called Reptile Theory arguments.

The Arkansas Court of Appeals had held that the awards were not supported by substantial evidence. The Supreme Court pointed instead to testimony about limits on the men's work, sleep, marriages and family life. "We decline to second-guess that discretion or to substitute our judgment for the jurors who sat through the trial and heard the live testimony of each witness," Hudson wrote.

In a footnote answering the dissent, the majority wrote that its critique "sounds in policy, not law." It added: "Courts do not sit to recalibrate verdicts to align with their own sense of economic fairness, nor do they function as ad hoc tort-reform bodies." Dismissing the dissent's focus on medical bills, the majority wrote that "pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life do not come with receipts."

Hiland opened his dissent by writing that "the law does not permit juries to convert transitory or moderate injuries into generational wealth." He noted that the plaintiffs had less than $15,200 in total medical expenses, and that the three men whose bills were kept from the jury received the largest awards. If the majority's standard holds, he wrote, "our remittitur jurisprudence is not merely weakened, it is effectively abolished without acknowledgment." Remittitur is a court's reduction of a jury award it finds excessive.

Hiland also wrote that Manaker, who is not a toxicologist, testified that he had looked up formic acid's safety data sheet on the internet. "That is not expert testimony; it is a Google search with a medical degree," Hiland wrote. He concluded that the decision leaves "a system in which liability is imposed without proof, damages are awarded without measure, and appellate review exists in name only."

Lawyers for Old Dominion and Foster included Zachary Hill of Munson, Rowlett, Moore and Boone, P.A. The responders were represented by Sach D. Oliver of Bailey & Oliver Law Firm, among others.

The case was argued March 5, 2026, then pulled from submission in October, when Special Justice Cory Cox was appointed to replace Justice Barbara Webb, who did not participate. Cox joined Hudson's opinion. The ruling affirms the St. Francis County Circuit Court judgment, entered Dec. 17, 2021, and vacates the Court of Appeals' order for a new trial.