Court upholds $165M in FedEx crash

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday upheld $165 million in jury awards against FedEx in a wrongful-death lawsuit stemming from a deadly crash involving a Texas family and a contract driver for the delivery company.

The 2011 crash on Interstate 10 west of Las Cruces killed Marialy Venegas Morga and her 4-year-old daughter and critically injured the El Paso woman’s 19-month-old son when the family’s small pickup was rear-ended.

According to testimony, the big rig didn’t brake before the crash.

A jury in Santa Fe awarded $93 million in compensatory damages to the estates of those family members killed and $72 million to other family members.

FedEx’s appeal argued that the awards were excessive and that a state district judge should have granted the company’s request for a new trial.

The Supreme Court declined to order a new trial in the case, concluding that “substantial evidence supported the verdict and that the jury’s award was not the result of passion or prejudice.”