An Illinois-based trucking company has filed for chapter 11 protection, citing a jury award of $10 million in December after a 2019 fatal truck crash involving one of its drivers, Freight Waves reported. Joseph Keller, president of Marvin Keller Trucking, headquartered in Sullivan, Ill., filed the first of several emergency motions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of Illinois on Friday, stating the bankruptcy filing is necessary to “avoid irreparable and immediate harm” to the carrier’s operations. In the filing, Keller wrote that the “substantial money judgment” against the trucking company, stemming from the jury verdict is the “main event” for the family-owned trucking company, founded by his father, Marvin Keller in 1965, to file chapter 11. “With an agreed forbearance on collection of the judgment about to expire, and the debtor [MKT] unable to pay the judgment amount, the debtor filed a voluntary petition under chapter 11 to maximize the potential recovery to its creditors and for the benefit of the other parties in interest including its employees,” according to the trucking company’s emergency motion. A hearing on Marvin Keller’s emergency motions is set for Wednesday.
