Everything Your Need To Know About Truck Accident Lawsuits

When personal injury attorneys talk about truck accident lawsuits, we’re talking about large commercial big rigs and the logistics industry. The truck industry has a duty of care to ensure that their drivers are qualified and their vehicles are safe. All too often, they employ drivers with poor records, vehicles that fail mechanically, and contribute to the number of avoidable deaths each year. When that happens, families are left without income, love, and support. While the family can never be made whole, they can get financial compensation for the loss of income, their emotional grief, and funerary costs.

In other cases, someone is severely injured by a negligent truck driver, and now they have medical bills to pay and may never be able to work again. So the stakes for the injured party are incredibly high when it comes to recovering compensation from an accident. In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know as you’re suing a trucking company.

Elements of negligence 

Just being injured in a crash with a truck is not enough to win a lawsuit. You must be able to prove that the driver was at fault or the truck itself was mechanically unsound. In most cases, the truck may have violated a traffic law, failed to look before merging, or didn’t stop in time. Large trucks take longer to stop, obviously, so it’s much easier to rear-end someone in a big rig than it is an economy car.

So, the first question that needs to be answered is: Why was the accident the fault of the truck driver? Did they violate a rule of traffic? Did their vehicle break down? Did they lose a tire? Did they blow a tire? All of this would fall on the trucking company since it’s their truck and their employee who contributed to the negligence.

How is compensation determined? 

There’s no one algorithm you can use to determine the size of a personal injury award. Traditionally, the amount of money you can recover is related to the extent of your injuries. Anything that causes permanent injury will start to get you into the six-figure range. If that injury prevents you from doing your job, then you’re entitled to more since that compensation will no longer be available to you. If you lose the use of a limb or organ, are paralyzed, or need routine medical treatment to survive, that’s when your damages awards go nuclear.

In terms of wrongful death, compensation is determined based on the amount of money the deceased made, the amount of suffering they endured during the accident, funerary costs, and the grief of their families.

Finally, the defense usually argues that you are at least partly responsible for the accident. If their argument succeeds, then it could reduce your award by the percentage of blame assigned to you.

Talk to a Florida Truck Accident Lawyer Today 

The trucking industry continues to contribute an escalating number of preventable deaths each year. If you have been injured or lost a loved one to a negligent truck driver, call our Florida personal injury lawyers at Halpern, Santos & Pinkert today to schedule a free consultation and learn more about how we can help.

Source:

forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/semi-truck-accident-lawsuit-guide/