Personal Injury Law – Truck Accident Attorneys

One recent case we were hired for shows the need for a prompt and thorough investigation. In this issue, our firm was retained by the driver of a regular passenger vehicle after he was injured in a late-night accident with a big rig. The trucking company was claiming our client had no headlights in his SUV when the accident took place. Once we were brought on the case, our client’s totaled car had been taken from the accident scene and to a salvage yard nearby. When our attorneys noticed the SUV at the junkyard, they saw it was really missing its headlights. We were immediately worried about the client getting any form of compensation, but our investigators spotted a surveillance camera in the salvage yard and grabbed some video footage. This particular surveillance system was set to record over its memory every 48 hours and we got our hands on the video right before it was erased. The footage revealed an official from the trucking company illegally taking out our client’s headlights and leaving the junkyard with them. In the trial, the trucking companies attempted to argue our client’s car had no headlights, but our physical evidence revealed their deception and got compensation for our client. If our client had made the error of hesitating any longer in hiring us, the video would have been useless, any chance of getting restitution would have ended and the trucking company would have managed to commit felonious evidence tampering.

Our attorneys deal with lies and deception regularly in 18-wheeler accident cases, so you need to hire a lawyer and have a quick, detailed-oriented investigation begin as quickly as you can. Sometimes our investigators are still able to spot the required proof long after an accident took place, but the quicker we can begin an investigation, the stronger chance we have of locating the proof needed to obtain the compensation you’re owed. Don’t wait any longer before reaching an 18-wheeler accident lawyer.

Common Obstacles that Plaintiffs Must Overcome

You may have filed an insurance claim after a regular car wreck, but that doesn’t instantly give you credibility to work your 18-wheeler accident lawsuit by yourself. Trucking insurance policies are estimated to be 50 times worth the value of a regular insurance policy. Because of the size of commercial trucking insurance policies, litigation to handle these cases is usually more detailed than what you experience in your car. Plaintiffs who believe they’ll save money on lawyer’s fees through self-representation soon realize they’ve cost themselves way more with compensation that’s been decreased or totally denied. People who have no legal background and lawyers fresh out of school are often befuddled when trying to file lawsuits after 18-wheeler accidents because of numerous challenges: showing the burden of proof, the enormity of insurance policies, self-insured companies, and lying truckers.

Burden of Proof

The law doesn’t demand that the defendant or defendants pay you a cent after you’ve been injured in an 18-wheeler accident unless, as the plaintiff, can properly show they need to. If you want to get the restitution you want for your injuries, you’ll have to support your case with strong, factual evidence. While other means of negotiation can be leaned on to settle claims, you still need to find evidence to the defense and insurance workers will need to approach this in good faith. You also must meet these four requirements for an 18-wheeler accident case:

Duty – The first part of this process is showing the defendant owed you a duty to keep him or her safe by behaving reasonably. The law has established guidelines for the legal duty of care owed for certain circumstances and for each party depending on their relationships. In 18-wheeler accident cases, meeting this factor tends to be easy, since all drivers have to operate their vehicles in a way that would ensure the safety of other drivers, pedestrians, and passengers on the roads.

Breach – If you want to see your case succeed, the next step is showing the defendant or defendants violated the obligation of care you were owed. This usually happens when the defendant puts others at harm either with choices that regular people wouldn’t make or inaction when most of us would be asked to take charge. You’ll have to get evidence that proves the defendant ignored his or her legal duty of care through action or inaction if you want to show this violation. Besides all that, you’ll need an 18-wheeler accident lawyer who is capable of using that evidence in a persuasive manner with a jury and getting them to see the defendant or defendants acted inappropriately.

Causation – Along with being able to show the defendant or defendant’s violation of their legal duty to you, you also need to prove your injuries were a result of this breach. Since numerous parties could have caused or played a part in the cause of an 18-wheeler accident, it takes very detailed, factual, credible evidence to let a jury see a causal relationship existed between the defendant breaking his or her obligation to you and the harm that resulted. If this isn’t done, the defendant can take down your case by shifting blame to someone else for your injuries. Many times, the defendant’s or defendant’s best chances of winning are to dodge blame and put it right at the victim for causing their own injuries with their negligence.

Damages – Once you’ve demonstrated all three other components of a strong 18-wheeler accident lawsuit, you then have to prove the damages owed to you were due to the injuries you had. In the legal world, damages have zero to do with your injuries or property damage but instead are about the compensation owed to the defendant for the harm that’s been caused. The plaintiff has the chance to seek damages for medical expenses, lost wages, pain, and suffering lost earning income, damaged property and other forms of losses incurred in the accident.