You may wonder how a truck accident lawyer can help if you sustained injuries in a big rig collision. First, these cases involve multiple complexities and are challenging to navigate without the help of an attorney. Second, insurance companies are not focused on the best interests of claimants. They aim to undervalue and deny as many claims as possible to maximize profits. Schedule a free consultation with an experienced truck accident lawyer to gain legal clarity and advice on proper proceedings for your case. You’ll want to find a strategy for obtaining financial justice for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering.
How Truck Accidents Differ From Standard Motor Vehicle Collisions
Truck accidents are also known as 18-wheeler accidents, tractor-trailer collisions, and commercial truck accidents. Due to the substantial differences in size and weight, the magnitude of these crashes can be vast, causing severe injuries and damages. On top of following standard traffic laws, the trucking industry is heavily regulated. Other ways that truck accidents differ from standard motor vehicle collisions include the following:
- Complex Evidence: Truck accident evidence is often substantial and complex, requiring the help of a professional for collection, preservation, analysis, and presentation. In addition to the standard evidence in a motor vehicle collision, truck accidents involve event data recorders (EDR), truck inspection and maintenance records, hours of service driver logs, and cargo manifests. Your attorney may also obtain the driver’s employment history, toxicology reports, GPS recordings, and cell phone records.
- Multiple Victims: Truck accidents frequently involve multiple vehicles and accident victims. Multiple accident victims equals multiple at-fault (liable) parties for injuries and damages.
- Multiple Liability: This can complicate cases because liable insurance companies attempt to blame each other to negate their responsibility. An experienced truck accident attorney is vital for investigating and establishing liability in these cases.
- Corporate Insurance Structures: Trucking companies generally have corporate structures that layer insurance coverage, making it challenging to identify which insurance company is responsible for which damages.
Insurers for trucking companies hire experienced insurance defense attorneys to protect their legal interests in claims disputes and litigation. Navigating these claims without the assistance of a truck accident lawyer can significantly harm a claimant’s chances of obtaining financial compensation. Injured parties should consult an attorney who regularly handles truck accident claims and is familiar with federal trucking regulations, complex evidence, and other potential challenges these cases may involve.
How Can a Truck Accident Lawyer Help Establish Liability?
Proving liability in a truck accident involves establishing negligence in the collision. Truck accident lawyers must demonstrate that the at-fault party owed you a duty of care (obeying traffic laws), breached that duty, caused injuries, and created actual damages, like medical bills and income losses. Depending on the nature of your truck accident, potential liable parties include:
- Truck Drivers: Truck driver distraction is a leading cause of driver error. Distracted driving regularly involves using cell phones, adjusting climate or radio controls, eating or drinking, or reaching for items within the cab. In addition to standard traffic laws, truck drivers are regulated by additional distracted driving regulations when transporting placardable quantities of hazardous materials.
- Trucking Companies: Negligent hiring practices, failure to inspect trucks, and failure to maintain trucks are all examples of trucking company negligence. Trucking companies may be vicariously liable for claims when a truck driver’s actions cause a collision. Vicarious liability holds employers accountable when their employees’ negligent actions cause an injury-inducing accident.
- Manufacturing Companies: When a defective truck or part causes a collision, manufacturing companies may be responsible for injuries and damages. A truck accident lawyer helps investigate these circumstances by analyzing the truck and potential defective parts with experts who advise on and provide witness testimony confirming negligence.
- Loading Companies: Cargo loading companies that fail to inspect, load, and secure the cargo are liable when causing truck accidents. Improper loading can result in hazardous shifts in the cargo and frequently contributes to rollover collisions.
- Safety Inspectors: Truck safety inspectors who fail to inspect and document defective issues and vehicle maintenance are at fault for truck accidents caused by improper truck maintenance.
There are circumstances when other liable parties may exist. For example, a company may lease its trucks to an unlicensed or negligent driver, or a mechanic or truck repair shop may perform faulty repairs. A thorough investigation into liability is necessary for identifying and holding all liable parties accountable for maximizing compensation, especially considering the extent of injuries and their impact on daily life.
How Can a Truck Accident Lawyer Help Value Damages?
A truck accident lawyer helps value damages by obtaining all documentation demonstrating monetary losses before determining intangible ones. Their process involves reviewing pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages. When truck accidents go to trial, a jury may award a plaintiff punitive damages when the cases are particularly reprehensible. However, punitive damages aren’t typical of truck accident cases.
Pecuniary Damages
The pecuniary damages in your truck accident claim are the economic losses incurred due to the collision. Healthcare expenses generally make up a substantial percentage of these damages. These frequently encompass emergency, surgical, primary, and rehabilitation treatments and procedures. Prescription medication, medical equipment, insurance copays, and deductibles are also covered. Other pecuniary damages a truck accident lawyer assesses include the following:
- Property Damages: All property loss is recoverable economic damage in a truck accident claim. These usually involve vehicle repairs or replacement. They extend to valuables within your car and on your person at the time of the collision, like cell phones and eyeglasses. Structural damage to residential and commercial buildings also constitutes property damage.
- Transportation Costs: The transportation expenses while your vehicle is being repaired or to get you to and from medical appointments when injuries prohibit you from driving yourself are calculable costs—for example, rental cars, taxis, and rideshare services, like Uber and Lyft.
- Lost Earnings: Income losses due to missing work may be claimed. These encompass lost earnings, bonuses, healthcare benefits, retirement, and pension plans. Lost earnings can also cover overtime, tips, sick leave, paid time off, lost promotion opportunities, and other benefits connected to your employment. Pay stubs, W-2s, bank statements, and lost-wage statements help establish these losses.
- Diminished Earning Capacity: When injuries prevent you from returning to the job you were employed in before the truck accident, it’s essential to determine your diminished earning capacity or future lost earnings. Attorneys collaborate with vocational experts who consider age, current job, education, transferrable skills, and other factors when determining the value of diminished or lost earning capacity.
- Long-Term Needs: When injuries require long-term medical care, a life care planner will collaborate with treating medical providers to gauge potential future needs and associated costs.
- Domestic Services: The costs of hiring assistance to run errands, such as grocery shopping, and maintain household services, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and lawn care, are viable economic losses.
Truck accident victims must provide documentation of pecuniary damages to their truck accident lawyer to ensure comprehensive calculations. Evidence of economic loss includes billing statements, vehicle repair invoices or estimates, invoices or estimates for home modifications, and receipts for all injury-related costs.
Non-Pecuniary Damages
Non-pecuniary damages are the intangible losses resulting from a truck accident. These are non-monetary damages that are much more challenging to quantify, especially without the help of an experienced truck accident lawyer. Depending on the severity of your injuries and their daily impact, non-pecuniary damages an attorney may pursue compensation for are as follows:
- Pain and Suffering: The physical pain and suffering and mental anguish accompanying injuries and recovery may be valued when reviewing non-pecuniary losses. These damages include mood changes and swings, sleep disturbances, and other discomforts. They also entail the psychological impact of a truck accident, including the development of semiochophobia (fear of semi-trucks), anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- A Decreased Quality of Life: When injuries dramatically influence the quality of life, you may be compensated for that impact. For example, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and other impairments create a need for permanent assistance with daily tasks such as bathing, eating, dressing, and toileting.
- Loss of Consortium: A loss of consortium compensates for the intangible losses sustained in relationships. Depending on the claimant’s relationship, it may compensate for a loss of companionship, love, intimacy, affection, support, guidance, and spousal relations.
Non-pecuniary damages are also known as pain and suffering. Truck accident victims must keep a post-accident journal documenting these damages to demonstrate a need to compensate for them. Your truck accident lawyer may also secure testimony from medical experts validating the extent of your injuries and your pain and suffering. Sometimes, video footage demonstrating the impact of injuries or disability can help establish their severity and associated non-pecuniary damages.
Wrongful Death Benefits
When families suffer the tragic loss of a loved one in a truck accident, they may be eligible to file for wrongful death benefits. These typically include compensation for funeral and burial costs. Depending on the nature of the claimant’s relationship, additional benefits may include a loss of companionship, financial support, household services, guidance, and support. A loss of inheritance may also be pursued for surviving children.
How Can a Truck Accident Lawyer Help Secure Compensation?
A truck accident lawyer helps secure compensation by comprehensively investigating accidents. The process can involve accident reconstruction and consultation with experts from various fields. Attorneys are also skilled negotiators who will fight for your right to recover fair compensation. Truck accident cases are usually settled outside court. However, when lawyers and insurers can’t agree, they can help file a civil lawsuit and litigate your case for compensation.
Comprehensive Case Investigation
Investigating truck accidents involves visiting collision scenes. A truck accident attorney may document the scene, searching for vital evidence establishing negligence. Details they may take photos of include skid marks and hazardous road conditions that may have contributed to a collision, such as large potholes, missing road signs, faded road markings, poor drainage, and insufficient lighting. Interviewing witnesses for statements and testimonies confirming negligence is also part of investigating a truck accident.
Accident Reconstruction
Accident reconstruction can be invaluable for how a truck accident attorney can help secure compensation for your claim. The process applies scientific methods to determine circumstances, mechanics, and the contributing factors to a commercial truck collision. Accident reconstruction can answer the angle of impact, speed of the truck and vehicles involved, how much they braked before impact, the position of vehicles before and after a crash, and the sequence of events leading up to the collision.
Expert Consultation
Several aspects of the truck accident investigation and insurance claims process benefit from expert consultation. Depending on the nature of the collision, the severity of your injuries, and various other factors, a truck accident lawyer may collaborate with the following expert witnesses:
- Medical experts
- Pain management specialists
- Mental health specialists
- Rehabilitation specialists
- Commercial truck safety experts
- Highway safety experts
- Forensic toxicologists
- Engineering experts
- Economists and vocational experts
- Life care planners
Healthcare experts help attorneys review medical records to ensure proper documentation and no unexplained treatment gaps. Economists and vocational experts help truck accident lawyers assess damages to ensure maximum compensation for truck accident claims.
Negotiations of Fair Settlements
Insurance companies take advantage of claimants without attorneys because they know they usually accept the first offer without negotiating for a reasonable counter. It’s commonplace for insurers to start low to minimize losses. Experienced truck accident lawyers help by providing their excellent negotiating skills to maximize your claim. They won’t back down from demanding the compensation that you deserve after sustaining injuries in a truck accident. They understand the financial devastation a truck accident can impose.
Get Help From an Experienced Truck Accident Lawyer
It’s important to consult an experienced truck accident lawyer immediately following a collision. States impose a statute of limitations on how long you have to file a claim after a truck accident. You’ll want to move quickly to gather evidence before it’s lost so your attorney can build a solid case for compensation. Schedule your free case evaluation to get started today.