Dallas 18-Wheeler Accident Lawyer

Dallas Attorney Michael Grossman Discusses What to do After a Dallas 18-Wheeler Accident

Recovering from any accident can be trying, but few accidents have the devastating effects of truck accidents. With commercial 18-wheelers tipping the scales in excess of 80,000 pounds, serious damage occurs when tired truck drivers, who are paid by the hour and often work long shifts, fall asleep or allow their concentration to lapse, and the drivers of other vehicles are usually the ones most severely impacted with injuries, property damage and sometimes even death.

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After handling truck accident cases for 20 years, the Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices know that you’ve got a lot of medical and legal questions you need answered if you or a loved one has suffered an injury or even been killed as a result of an accident with an 18-wheeler. Most critically, it’s important that you see a doctor if you’ve been injured – not just to treat the injury but also to document it. If you don’t have medical coverage or are under-insured, then contact us today – we can refer you to a doctor who will take your financial situation into consideration.

Once you have taken care of your injuries, it’s time to start considering legal action. The law doesn’t require that the negligent party volunteer payment for the harm done to you, but the burden falls on you to seek the compensation for your injuries. You need an experienced Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyer who can help you understand your legal options, so you can make the best decisions to secure the restitution you deserve. We want you to know about all the standard facets of truck accident law:

• The reason for filing a lawsuit
• Parties who commonly cause or contribute to the cause of 18-wheeler accidents
• The necessity of a timely and thorough investigation
• Pitfalls that undo people who attempt to file their own accident claims
• How a Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyer can help you

No generalized summary of truck accident law can replace the legal advice of an experienced and skilled attorney. To learn more about how these laws apply to your case, call us today at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free) to ask specific questions.

Why You Should File an 18-Wheeler Accident Injury Lawsuit

Our attorneys know the devastating emotional and physical harm an accident with an 18-wheeler can cause. We’re also aware that many accident victims resist taking legal action because it forces them to relive the accident and putting a monetary value on their injuries leaves a bad taste in their mouths. However, as we will examine later on this article, it’s critical to the success of your case to begin as soon as possible after the accident.

Lawsuits to resolve truck accident injuries serve two vital functions: allowing you to recover from financial losses caused by the accident and to punish negligent wrongdoers. No sum of money can erase the memory of your accident or remove the damage it has caused, but you have suffered considerable monetary losses. Recovering compensation from the responsible party is the only way to get you and your family back to enjoying your lives. Medical bills to fix your injuries and repair bills to repair your car can be astronomical, and you may have the added financial strain of lost wages due to recovery time. Suing the liable party can help you recover from these monetary setbacks.

Beyond paying for your bills and recovering your wages, a truck accident lawsuit helps punish those whose negligence caused the accident. By suing the negligent party or parties and making them pay, you increase the chances that party will not do the same thing again. Nothing gets people’s attention like lightening their bank account.

Common Negligent Causes of 18-Wheeler Accidents

In order to begin your claim, you must first determine how the accident happened and who was responsible, so you know whom to sue. In most truck accident cases, multiple parties can be responsible for the accident in whole or in part because many different people and companies are involved in the process of loading and transporting goods in trucks. Any of a number of people could have done something negligent to cause the accident. An experienced Dallas Texas 18-wheeler accident lawyer can use the experience compiled over years of handling truck accident cases to identify the cause of your accident and all of the responsible parties. Faulty parties can include, but are not limited to: the trucker, the trucking company, the company that planned the truck’s route, the company that loaded the truck, manufacturers of the truck or trailer or other third parties. For example:

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• Truckers: Truckers spend long hours on the road, and they are most often responsible in whole or in part for accidents involving 18-wheelers due to their negligence. Truck drivers can commit a variety of intentional negligent acts that cause wrecks: speeding, running stop signs, swerving, or driving while intoxicated or under the influence of illegal drugs. In other cases, truck drivers simply cause the accident due to fatigue. While the federal government requires truckers to take mandatory rest stops, many truckers neglect to take a break so that they can meet demanding schedules. Studies have shown that drivers who spend more than eight hours consecutively behind the wheel double their chances of causing accidents. According to one poll, 20 percent of truck drivers admitted to falling asleep while driving at least once in the past month. If a trucker’s negligence – whether intentionally or not – caused an accident, you can name him or her as a defendant in your lawsuit.
• Trucking Companies: A legal concept in Texas called respondeat superior holds employers responsible for the actions or inactions of their employees. Thus, if the trucker committed negligence causing your accident, then the trucking company is also liable. However, the trucking company may have compounded its responsibility with its own negligence. For instance, if it hired a trucker with a history of DUI convictions, and that driver causes an accident while intoxicated, then the trucking company may be held directly responsible for the accident. However, the trucking company does not have to do anything wrong in order to be held accountable for the negligent actions of its drivers. This means that as long as the trucker is negligent, you can always sue the trucking company. This is usually advised, since the trucking company has greater resources than its drivers.
• The Company that Planned the Route: Not all roads are built to sustain trucking. Moreover, bridges may have weight restrictions, and underpasses may have height limits. Thus, to ensure safety, many trucking companies rely on contractors to plan the routes their trucks take. If this company sends the truck down a route that proves dangerous or impassable, then this company can be held responsible in court.
• The Company that Loaded the Truck: Sometimes, the truck is loaded by the company that owned the cargo and sometimes by another company that performs such tasks. If the cargo was loaded improperly, this can cause a wreck and lead the liability of this company. The law restricts cargo load to 80,000 pounds, but many companies skirt this law in order to transport more goods at a lower cost. An overloaded truck is more likely to topple and will cause far greater damage when it gets into a wreck. In addition, sometimes the company that loads the cargo will fail to properly secure it. If not properly fastened down, the cargo can become loose and cause a load shift that causes the trailer to tip over and jackknife in the road. In the case of flatbed trucks, the cargo can fall into the road and cause severe damage to the cars of unsuspecting drivers who are following in the truck’s wake.
• Manufacturers: Both the truck and its trailer are made up of many different parts. If any of these components break down or malfunction while the truck is in operation, then it can lead to an accident. If a design defect or manufacturing error caused this malfunction, resulting in a wreck, then the accident victim has the right to pursue compensation from the manufacturer.
• Other Drivers: Not all truck accidents are caused by the truck or its driver. In many cases, another driver fails to take reasonable care to provide for the safety of others on the road, causing an accident with an 18-wheeler that involves other drivers on the road as well. In this case, damages can also be sought from this third party.

Any one or combination of these parties may have caused or contributed to the 18-wheeler accident that injured you. You must be able to identify the cause the correct defendants in order to hold the responsible parties accountable and secure the compensation you deserve for your injuries.

Prompt Investigation is Critical

After you’ve been injured in an 18-wheeler accident, a timely and diligent investigation must be conducted to establish the cause of the accident and gather the necessary evidence to prove your claim. Since there are so many possibly liable parties, a thorough investigation is required to ferret out all of the negligent ones. Moreover, evidence begins to disappear quickly after any wreck, and you will need proof to convince a jury to rule in your favor. For every day you wait to hire a lawyer and put him or her on the trail of evidence, the proof you need is fading away – videos can be erased, witnesses disappear or forget what they saw, and the physical details at the accident scene change.

At Grossman Law Offices, our Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyers have mastered the ability of investigating accident cases. At no expense to our clients, we rush to the accident scene as soon as we’re hired for the purpose of investigation. We leave no stone unturned, sequestering and examining all the vehicles involved, measuring the distance between skid marks and points of impact, taking photographs, searching for video evidence, conducting forensic tests, reviewing police records, finding and interviewing witnesses and cataloging any evidence we find so it’s admissible in court.

As of right now, you’re probably already playing catch-up with the defense. In all likelihood, the trucking or insurance company sent its lawyers to the scene of the accident as soon as it occurred. They’re not interested in finding out what really happened in the wreck but just gathering evidence to prove that you, the victim, caused your own injuries with your own negligence. Moreover, without a lawyer of your own on the scene, who is to say whether the defense lawyers are conducting their investigation honorably or whether they may be tampering with the evidence. If they can prove your liability caused the accident, then they can deny your claim. If they can prove you were partially liable, then they can reduce the amount of your compensation.

The necessity of a quick investigation can be demonstrated by a case our attorneys recently resolved in Dallas. The driver of a passenger car hired us after he got into an accident at night with an 18-wheeler only to have the trucker falsely accuse him of driving without his headlights at the time of the accident. By the time we were hired, the irreparable car had been towed to a nearby salvage yard. When our attorneys went to the junkyard to investigate, they found the car was indeed missing headlights – there were none installed at all. Concerned for the fate of our client’s case, our attorneys noticed that the salvage yard had a video surveillance system, so they obtained a copy of the video. The video system was designed to erase it’s own memory every 48 hours, and we obtained a copy of the footage just in the nick of time to obtain video evidence of an agent of the trucking company stealing our client’s headlights from his car. When the trucking company’s lawyers attempted to suggest our client’s car had no headlights, we had their lie caught in the headlights, so to speak, with our video evidence. If our client had waited even one day longer to hire us, the evidence would have been lost, and his chances of securing compensation would have been gone along with it.

Lies and deception are commonplace in truck accident cases, so a quick and thorough investigation is absolutely essential to your chances of success. Granted, our attorneys can often find the necessary evidence long after an accident, but the strongest cases are constructed when we are hired and begin our investigation immediately. Do not hesitate any longer before contacting an 18-wheeler accident lawyer in Dallas.

Common Pitfalls Plaintiffs Must Overcome

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are prepared to handle your 18-wheeler accident lawsuit just because you have filed an insurance claim following a standard car accident. Because of the enormous size of commercial trucking insurance policies, litigation to resolve 18-wheeler accidents is far more complex than lawsuits involving the drivers of two automobiles. In most cases, plaintiffs who attempt to handle their own case fail to secure the compensation to which they are entitled. There are several obstacles which often trip up non-lawyers and inexperienced lawyers when they attempt to file lawsuits following truck accidents: the burden of proof, the size of the insurance policies, self-insured trucking companies and truck drivers who lie.

Burden of Proof

After you have been injured in a trucking accident, the defendant or defendants owe you nothing, unless you, the plaintiff, can prove they do. In order to recover the compensation you deserve, you will need to have the necessary evidence to prove your case. Even in cases where a settlement is negotiated, evidence is necessary to encourage the defense to negotiate in good faith. You will need to prove each of the four necessary components of a trucking accident case:

• Duty - The first thing you must be able to establish is that the defendant owed you a duty to behave reasonably to provide for your safety. This element of the case can usually be met fairly easy, since all drivers owe the other drivers, pedestrians and passengers on the road the responsibility of operating their motor vehicle in a reasonably safe manner. The law establishes the legal duty of care owed for any specific circumstances and for each party depending upon their relationships.
• Breach - Next, you must prove that the defendant or defendants breached the duty of care that they owed you. This usually happens when the defendant put others at risk either by doing something that a reasonable person wouldn’t do or not doing something that a reasonable person should be expected to do. In order to prove this breach of duty, you’ll need to find evidence that establishes how the defendant ignored his or legal duty of care by action or inaction. You will need to be able to convince a jury that the defendant or defendants acted unreasonably.
• Causation - Not only must you be able to prove that the defendant or defendants had a legal duty to you and ignored it, but also that this breach of duty caused your injuries. Since so many different parties could have helped cause any trucking accident, you need strong evidence to convince a jury of the causal relationship between the defendant’s neglect of duty and your injuries, or the defendant stands a strong chance of beating your case by deflecting blame onto another party. In many cases, the defendant or defendants even blame the plaintiff’s negligence, so you must have strong evidence to protect your chances of securing the compensation you deserve.
• Damages - Once you have proven the defendant’s causal relationship with your injuries, you must then prove the damages that the defendant owes for harm done. Damages do not refer to the harm itself, but rather to the compensation the defendant owes for that harm. Damages provide restitution to the plaintiff for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, lost earning potential, property damages and other losses incurred in the wreck. In order to receive the compensation you deserve, you can’t just ask the court for it. Instead, you must be able to present evidence that proves your losses and your calculations of their value. In most cases, defendants attempt to contest the amount of damages being sought by plaintiffs and will present their own calculations which devalue the total financial impact the plaintiff has sustained. Thus, you must present airtight evidence to prove your calculations validity and the inaccuracy of the defendant’s estimations. For the inexperienced, calculating damages can be completely mystifying. Subjective damages such as pain and suffering or loss of earning potential are near impossible to ascertain without significant experience handling like cases. Putting a price tag on your pain or figuring out the total value of hypothetical raises and inflation to determine lost earning capacity can be very tricky. There are no do-overs, so you only get one chance to calculate the damages you are owed. Our Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyers have been determining damages for 20 years, and we know how to take into account all of your losses to secure the compensation you deserve for your injuries.

If you fail to prove any of these four components, you will also fail to secure the compensation to which you are entitled. Especially if you’re going to trial, you must have the help of Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyer. After years of litigating truck accident cases, our lawyers know how to devise a legal strategy to convince any jury that you have met the burden of proof.

Enormous Insurance Policies

The federal government requires trucking companies to purchase large insurance policies to protect against the inevitable accidents, injuries and fatalities that occur as a result of doing business. As a result, many people mistakenly believe that they will be able to acquire compensation quickly and easily. That’s just not the case. Insurance policies for trucks can be worth as much as 50 times that of a standard passenger car. Since the policies are so large, the insurance companies usually expend a much greater effort to protect them. With 50 times the assets the to lose, the insurance companies will spend 50 times the resources to defend trucking policies.

With so much to lose, insurance companies assign their most experienced and astute insurance adjusters to handle these cases. While this situation is new to you, these adjusters have done this for a living for a very long time, and they know how to take advantage of inexperienced accident victims and their state of shock following an accident. They are the finest their company have to offer and know how to deny claims. They will attempt to convince you that they’re interested in helping you by acting like they’re your friend, but first they want you to answer some standard questions. Then, they will barrage you with a litany of questions over the same subjects, hoping that you will make the mistake of admitting your own liability. Then, they can deny your claim. The best way to negotiate with your insurance adjuster is not to – let a Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyer handle it. In fact, you shouldn’t even be talking with an adjuster without a lawyer present. When our attorneys take a case, we act as a buffer between the insurance adjuster and our clients, halting any possible admission of liability.

In some cases, particularly pushy adjusters will even attempt to get accident victims to sign away their right to sue in exchange for a settlement offer. While avoiding a lawsuit might sound like a good idea, this settlement offer seldom adequately compensates the victim. The only way to get the insurance company to offer a fair settlement is with the threat of an experienced and successful attorney filing a lawsuit.

The insurance company will also employ a team of defense specialists skilled in finding legal loopholes and procedural obstacles that allow the defendant to escape responsibility for his or her negligence. You need someone on your side who can fight fire with fire. The Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have the necessary experience to combat the tricks of the defense attorneys.

Self-Insured Companies can be More Treacherous

In some cases, trucking companies provide their own insurance by setting aside a portion of their assets instead of subscribing to a standard insurance policy. The federal government regulates the insurance industry by registering companies, licensing adjusters and establishing ethical standards. If the insurance providers do not follow these guidelines, they can be sanctioned and their adjusters can lose their licenses. Self-insured companies are not required to follow any ethical guidelines, so they have developed reputations for disreputable behavior and difficult negotiations. In most cases, when you negotiate a settlement with a self-insured company, you will be dealing with an officer of the company who derives his or her pay from profit sharing. If this officer allows you to receive the compensation you deserve, then he or she will literally be giving you his or her own money. Thus, these officers usually put their own interests before that of the injured victim and will resort to harassing witnesses, tampering with evidence and bullying victims.

If you are being bullied or threatened by a self-insured company, then you need the assistance of a Dallas truck accident lawyer. You must put a stop this. Our lawyers can take legal action to get a self-insured company to negotiate with you in good faith.

Truck Drivers Can’t be Trusted

Don’t expect the trucker whose negligence injured you to admit his or her liability, for he or she has significant incentive not to be honest. Any truck driver who is found to have injured others with his or her negligence will surely be fired by his or her employer. Additionally, employment elsewhere will not be easy to find after the trucker has established a record of costing his employers huge settlements due to his or negligence. In order to keep their jobs, many truck drivers will resort to lying – especially in this fragile economy and job market. You must be able to prove the truck driver is lying to secure the compensation you deserve.

Our Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyers are well schooled in the art of investigation in order to find the evidence that reveals the trucker’s lies. By collecting a mountain of evidence that disproves the trucker’s claim, you can affect his or her credibility.

In the same manner that the insurance adjusters get victims to admit negligence through a barrage of questions, our attorneys will devise a line of deposition question that will trick the trucker into admitting his or her own lie. The Dallas 18-wheeler accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have conducted thousands of depositions, and we know how to ask the right questions to shine the light on lies.

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How We Can Help

If you or a family member has suffered an injury in an 18-wheeler accident in the Metroplex area, you need to take steps to protect your legal rights by hiring an experienced Dallas 18 wheeler accident lawyer who can help you recover the compensation you deserve. Our attorneys will handle every facet of your case from start to finish, keeping you abreast of any developments along the way. We provide the following services:

• Investigating the accident’s cause
• Filing comprehensive lawsuits and claims against all of the parties who caused your injuries
• Gathering the necessary evidence to meet your burden of proof
• Pressuring the defendants with our reputation of success
• Acting as a bugger between the victim and the insurance adjusters
• Exposing the trucker’s lies with investigation and deposition
• Devising a strong plan of attack to persuade the jury into accepting your proof
• Compelling self-insured companies to behave ethically
• Making sure you get the medical attention that you need

In all likelihood, the defendant has already begun preparing the case against you. Any time you hesitate to hire a lawyer is only causing irreparable damage to your ability to collect the compensation you deserve. Contact us today at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free) for a free consultation to find out how we can help you.

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