Litigation Center Takes New Tack

October 7, 1999 9:07 AM, EDT

Reflecting a changing business and legal environment, the ATA Litigation Center is taking a new direction and focus, the American Trucking Associations president told 150 lawyers attending a conference on highway accident litigation in Beaver Creek, Colo., last week.

Founded in 1985 to fight for tax refunds and assist trucking in coping with deregulation, the center is being refocused to address new legal issues threatening trucking.

The agency’s mission is three-fold, ATA General Counsel David S. Addington explained in an interview. In addition to serving the collective interests of ATA’s members, the center will serve as a source of information for trucking company attorneys as well as continuing to provide legal advocacy.

Trucking is facing a very real threat of being a target of mass tort lawsuits in which a large number of companies in an industry are sued based on alleged injuries to large numbers of people, President Walter B. McCormick Jr. said in his Sept. 27 speech at the conference, which was organized by the center.

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