Illinois-based trucking company wins ruling to return to road

April 18, 2014
A Naperville, Ill. trucking company involved in a January wreck that killed a Tollway worker and injured a state trooper will be allowed back on the road, a judge ruled earlier this week.

A Naperville, Ill. trucking company involved in a January wreck that killed a Tollway worker and injured a state trooper will be allowed back on the road, a judge ruled earlier this week.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration earlier this month ordered the company, DND International, off the road, calling it an "imminent hazard to public safety" after conducting an investigation of the company's safety practices and compliance record.

DND challenged the agency's findings in a four-day hearing before Washington-based Administrative Law Judge Richard C. Goodwin, who flew to Chicago to hear the case. Goodwin declared that the government had "failed to establish by a preponderance of the testimony and evidence that DND's actions pose an imminent hazard."

The out-of-service order "amounted to the 'death penalty' for DND," Goodwin said in his 65-page ruling.

An out-of-service order is "an extreme remedy, which needs to be utilized only when the immediate discontinuation of an entire business is necessary to prevent serious injury or death," the judge wrote.

An FMCSA official was unable to say Wednesday evening whether the company can resume operations immediately. The ruling states that the out-of-service order is rescinded "immediately." As of 4:45 p.m., DND was still listed as "out-of-service" on the FMCSA's online database.

DND attorney David LaPorte said he believes the company is entitled to resume business right away, though he said it was unlikely DND trucks would be on the highways Thursday morning.

"We basically lost all our drivers," he said. "We have to see who's interested in coming back to us, and see how that's going to go. We have to see what customers of ours are going to come back to us. There is a lot of work to be done before DND trucks hit the road again."

During the hearing, LaPorte challenged the government's findings and said DND had "a safety record to be proud of."

LaPorte said the company remains committed to installing electronic onboard recorders, or e-logs, in its vehicles, which he said should address government concerns about logbook falsification. LaPorte said the company has ordered 35 of the devices and has installed at least seven.

Goodwin, in his ruling, noted that the FMCSA had failed to account for the company's plans to install e-logs when it issued the out-of-service order.

Goodwin's ruling does not affect the probationary status that was assigned to the company as a result of FMCSA's investigation. DND now has a "conditional" rating, which does not prevent carriers from operating but requires that they address safety shortfalls in order to gain "satisfactory" status.

LaPorte said DND would eventually submit a new safety management plan incorporating the e-logs in petitioning to again be rated "satisfactory."

Federal officials began an investigation of DND after a Jan. 27 accident in which a driver for the company, Renato Velasquez, plowed into parked cars on Interstate 88 in a wreck that killed Tollway worker Vincent Petrella and injured Trooper Douglas Balder. DuPage County prosecutors say Velasquez, who was near the end of a marathon run from the Chicago area to Omaha, Neb., and back, had spent too many hours on the road and falsified his logbooks.

Copyright 2014 - Chicago Tribune

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