Any personal injury lawsuit is about balancing two competing principles: your desire to recover your losses and the due process rights of the person or business accused of causing your losses. To that end, you have the burden of making your case, while the law affords certain defenses to the accused. Given that these defenses are designed to prevent your case from moving forward, it's important to understand how they work. What are the most common defenses in a truck accident lawsuit?

Answer: The most common defenses in a Texas truck accident case are comparative fault, failure to mitigate damages, an Act of God, the victim had a pre-existing condition, attempting to blame a third party, and character assassination.

The defense can be successful if it establishes that the trucking company is not responsible for your injury or reduces the amount the trucking company would otherwise owe for your losses. To do so, they may try one, several, or even all of the mentioned defenses as your case makes its way through litigation. In this article we'll explain each potential defense in greater detail, but before we do that let's briefly talk about what the defense is actually trying to accomplish.

How Defenses Generally Work

In a civil suit after a truck accident, the defense attorney's primary goal is to introduce as much doubt as they can that the the trucking company or its driver is responsible for your losses. More specifically, they want to make a jury doubt that you sufficiently proved the crucial elements of your case: The truck driver owed you a legal duty to drive with enough care to avoid injuring anyone, he breached that duty by causing a crash, and his breach of that duty caused you to sustain serious damages.

The burden of proving what happened and who's to blame for it falls wholly on the plaintiff, so the defense wants to discredit as much of the case as they can. If they can make a jury believe the plaintiff's narrative and evidence aren't strong enough, then they can reduce their client's liability or even get the case thrown out. Over time their efforts started to form predictable patterns, which we listed above. Let's look at each of them in turn.

Comparative Fault

In essence, the comparative fault defense allows the trucking company to say that you, the victim, are also at fault—whether partially or entirely—for your accident. How vigorously they argue that depends largely on the specifics of the accident.

Texas uses a theory of liability called modified comparative fault. In a nutshell, a victim found to be more than half responsible for their accident gets their case thrown out. If they are less than 51% responsible for the crash and their injuries, but a jury thinks they're still somewhat to blame, their compensation is reduced by the same percent they were at fault.

Example 1: A truck driver runs a red light and hits Bobby's car, but Bobby wasn't wearing a seat belt. If the jury decides that his failure to strap in turned a minor accident into a major one, they may put the majority of fault on him. Let's say they determine that Bobby was 60% at fault and the trucker was 40% at fault. Since Bobby was found more than 51% to blame, he'd get nothing under Texas law.

Example 2: Trevor's car gets sideswiped by a delivery truck as both vehicles merged into the same lane. Neither driver used turn signals. Trevor technically had the right of way, but by failing to signal he may have been partly responsible for the collision.

A jury says Trevor was 20% at fault and the trucking company is 80% at fault. That means Trevor won $100,000, but hang on: Since he was 20% at fault, the company only has to pay 80% of the jury award. Trevor is awarded $80,000 (and hopefully learns a lesson about using turn signals).

Trucking defense attorneys regularly argue comparative fault if there's even a chance they can make a jury believe the victim was anything less than perfect behind the wheel. Modern driving culture being what it is, that's not usually a tough sell, so plaintiffs should expect some version of this defense in almost any lawsuit.

Failure to Mitigate Damages

"Mitigating damages" means taking affirmative steps to reduce the amount of harm someone suffers due to an accident. With that in mind, failure to mitigate damages is when an accident victim doesn't seek timely medical treatment and allows a wound to go untreated. In many cases, that delay results in a much worse injury.

Example: Jane breaks her arm in a crash with an 18-wheeler. For one reason or another she never went and had it set, but instead of just healing improperly the wound actually became infected and Jane ultimately lost her arm to amputation.

Jane sues the trucking company for the loss of her limb, but the defense points out that her procrastination made a manageable situation far worse. They argue, "If you had sought timely medical treatment, you'd still have your arm. The broken bone may be on us, but losing the limb happened because you didn't get it treated."

If the defense argues that the plaintiff failed to mitigate damages, they want to reduce their own liability by claiming the victim didn't do everything they could after the fact to minimize their losses. To be clear, though, the law only expects a plaintiff to take reasonable steps, like using crutches for a broken foot. If mitigation would be unreasonably expensive, time-consuming, or inconvenient, failure to mitigate may not be an effective defense. That would be up to a jury to decide.

Act of God

The Act of God defense basically claims that an accident was caused by unforeseeable and unavoidable natural events (earthquakes, floods, tornadoes), not human error or negligence. So if there was bad weather on the day of the accident, why can't the defense just shift all the blame to that? Because as often as this tactic is tried, it almost never works. Using a natural event as an excuse for an accident has very strict requirements. A defense attorney has to prove the following:

• The event was truly unforeseeable, like a lightning strike out of a clear sky.
• The truck driver took all reasonable precautions given the circumstances.
• The natural event was the direct and sole cause of the accident.

Example: A traveling 18-wheeler's loaded trailer is blown over by a sudden and violent wind gust, part of an unexpected microburst storm. The falling trailer crushes a nearby car, injuring its driver. The weather seemed fine moments before the accident, and no severe weather warnings were issued for the area.

In that scenario, the defense might claim the damage was caused solely by an act of God, not by any negligence on the part of the driver or the company. They would still have to produce clear evidence showing the suddenness and unpredictability of the weather event, and the absence of any human error contributing to the crash. That means no speeding or distraction, the truck was in good repair, and the driver kept track of weather warnings—which showed no sign of incoming hazards. If the "unexpected" storm mentioned in the example was actually forecasted days ago, then the truck driver being unaware was arguably their own fault. In those cases, human error or negligence outweighs any natural cause.

Pre-Existing Conditions

The pre-existing condition defense is used by defendants to argue that the truck accident victim's injuries weren't caused by the crash, but instead were just the result of a medical issue or injury that existed before the crash occurred. Put another way, the defense tries to separate old injuries from new ones by asserting that:

1. The plaintiff already had a similar injury or condition before the accident;
2. The truck accident didn't seriously worsen or aggravate that condition; and
3. The plaintiff wants compensation for harm unrelated to the defendant’s actions.

Example: Johnny is hurt after a truck rear-ends his car in traffic. He sues, claiming he suffered a herniated disk in his lower back. During the discovery process, the defense finds medical records showing Johnny already had chronic lower back pain and a prior disk injury from a previous car accident. The trucking company’s attorneys use those records to argue that the crash didn't cause the disk issue, so they should not be held liable for related treatment or damages.

This argument doesn't necessarily clear the defendant of all liability even if it succeeds. Under what's known as the eggshell plaintiff rule, a defendant can still be held responsible if their actions worsened a pre-existing condition—even if the victim was especially vulnerable, like a senior citizen or a child. However, the defense may still use the pre-existing condition argument to reduce damages or attack the credibility of the victim’s injury claims. As always, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that the truck driver directly caused or significantly worsened their injuries.

Blaming Third Parties

Traffic accidents are often more complex than "one vehicle hit another," and commercial wrecks are no exception. Many factors may contribute one way or another to a crash, and the defense isn't shy about pointing fingers their direction. Over the years we've seen trucking company attorneys blame everything under the sun (and sometimes the sun itself) for a crash and any injuries that followed. Below are a few of the most common scapegoats:

• Traffic/Other Drivers: Another motorist allegedly cut off the truck, braked suddenly, or made an unsafe lane change, causing the truck to hit one or more other vehicles.
• Pedestrians or Cyclists: Someone on foot or a bike entered the roadway illegally or unpredictably, giving the truck driver little time to react. This often comes up when a wreck happens at an intersection, where crosswalks and traffic signals may be important factors.
• Vehicle Manufacturers: Defense attorneys blame a defective part or system in the truck or other involved vehicle (e.g., brake failure, steering malfunction, tire blowout) for the accident. If they're right, this may be grounds for a separate product liability claim against the faulty part's manufacturer.
• Maintenance Contractors or Mechanics: Because many trucking companies outsource their fleets to third-party repair shops or maintenance providers, they may claim the third party failed to properly service the truck, leading to a mechanical failure that caused the crash.
• Cargo Loaders or Shippers: Trucking companies often transport cargo after the company who hired them loads and arranges it. If the cargo shifted during transit and destabilized the truck, the defense may argue the loaders are truly to blame for the crash.
• Government Entities: Poor road design or conditions, faulty traffic signals, bad signage, and construction zone hazards, most of which are the responsibility of local or state agencies, often get blamed for a truck driver losing control.
• Third-Party Dispatchers: Sometimes the person on the other end of a truck's CB radio or messenger client is an outsourced dispatcher from another firm. If that dispatcher gives bad directions or makes unreasonable demands of the driver, the defense may point fingers their direction after an accident.

The defense hopes to use these external factors to reduce or eliminate their clients' liability, but juries generally weigh just how much impact they really had—and whether the truck driver or company could or should have avoided them.

Character Assassination

Distasteful as it probably sounds, the defense is not above calling the victim's character into question during a lawsuit. Why drag them through the mud? Because if a jury sees the victim or their family as bad people, they're less sympathetic and therefore less likely to award them as much compensation. The smear campaign could take different forms, including:

• Intoxication: If a victim happens to have alcohol in their system at the time of their crash with a commercial truck, that complicates things. A jury ultimately decides how to interpret that detail, but the defense will likely make as big a deal of it as they can. Since liability is generally determined by comparative fault, alcohol's involvement may place a greater share of blame on the victim.
• Social Media: Defense attorneys often look at a plaintiff’s social media accounts to find posts that could hurt their case. If someone claims they’re in constant pain or unable to work, but then posts pictures of themselves on vacation, at the gym, or doing anything active, the defense will use that to argue the injuries aren't as serious as claimed. Even posts that seem harmless, like smiling at a party, can be twisted to suggest the plaintiff is exaggerating their suffering. Anything shared online after an accident may be used to question the plaintiff’s story.
• Criminal History or Prior Lawsuits: Defense attorneys may try to discredit a plaintiff by bringing up any criminal records or past litigation, hoping to show a background of dishonest behavior. For example, if the plaintiff has been convicted of crimes related to fraud or theft, the defense might argue that calls their claim's truthfulness into question. If the plaintiff has filed multiple lawsuits in the past, the defense could try to paint them as an opportunist rather than a genuine victim.
  While not all prior convictions or lawsuits are legally admissible in court, defense attorneys will try to use anything they can—within the rules—to weaken the plaintiff's case, raise doubts in the minds of jurors, and potentially reduce sympathy for the injured party.
• Accusations of Dishonesty: A defense attorney may imply or outright say that the victim is misrepresenting their damages. If the victim claims lost wages, the defense scrutinizes their employment record for spotty employment, unemployment, or a lack of real future earning potential. As we mentioned earlier, claims about medical expenses may meet arguments of pre-existing conditions or failure to mitigate damages. Attorneys might also point out inconsistencies between police reports, depositions, treatment records, and other evidence to suggest the plaintiff is unreliable or untruthful. The less reliable a jury believes the plaintiff is, the harder it may be to convince them that the victim's story is the true one.

That's not every weapon in the defense's arsenal, but hopefully you get an idea of what a truck accident victim might expect if their case goes before a jury. The defense won't pull punches if making you look bad helps their client, so it's best to have allies ready to fight back with equal or greater energy.

Grossman Law Is Here to Help

As you can see, defense attorneys have a lot of ways to discredit your case—and they're not shy about using each and every one to sway a jury to their side. Squaring off against corporate defense attorneys takes experience and resources that the average truck accident victim simply doesn't have.

An experienced truck accident attorney can help you avoid and defeat common trucking company defenses, ensuring that you get the maximum value for your truck accident claim. The attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have decades of experience going toe-to-toe with trucking companies and their insurers, making sure no excuses get in the way of their clients getting what they deserve. If you were hurt or lost a loved one in a commercial vehicle accident, contact Grossman Law today for a free and confidential consultation.