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What Legally Allows Me to Sue a Trucking Company after a Texas Truck Accident?

After a Texas truck accident, most people may understand that they will have to sue not just the driver who hurt them, but also the trucking company behind that driver. However, they may not have a particularly good handle on what laws permit them to do so. So what are the most common legal theories that allow an injured person to sue a trucking company after a truck accident?

Answer: Vicarious liability and general negligence are the two most common theories under which people sue a trucking company after a Texas truck accident.

In this article we will explain both theories of liability, provide hypothetical examples, and talk about their importance in holding a trucking company properly accountable.

Theory #1: Vicarious Liability

Companies are typically considered vicariously liable for accidents and injuries their employees cause. What does vicarious liability mean? Simply put, it means that if a company employee recklessly hurts someone while doing their job, the law treats it the same as if the company itself caused the harm.

That may not strike you as fair, but think about this: Since there's only so much a single person can get done during the course of a day, companies benefit from having employees. However, a company cannot reap the benefits of a larger workforce without also taking on some responsibility for it. Vicarious liability may sound at first like someone is being blamed for another person's actions, but that's not really what it does. Instead, it imposes a standard that goes like this: An employer benefits from having employees, so it's unjust to simply wash their hands of responsibility if those employees hurt people who are not affiliated with the company.

How does that work in the real world? Let's look at an example:

Ronald is an 18-wheeler driver employed by a Texas trucking company. He is partway through a delivery haul when he looks at his phone and runs a stop sign. His truck T-bones Wendy's SUV and causes her serious injuries.

Because Ronald got distracted and disregarded the stop sign, his actions would likely be considered the most direct causes of the harm done to Wendy. Obviously she can sue him directly under a theory of general negligence, just as she could sue any other driver that hit and injured her on the roadway. Since Ronald was working on his employer's behalf at the time, though, the company who put him on the road that day would also be indirectly or vicariously liable for Wendy's injuries. The company wasn't driving the truck, of course, but Ronald wouldn't have been there if not for his job, so the people who put him in that truck—and that truck on the road—have some legal responsibility for what he did.

In short, vicarious liability is a company being held responsible for its employee's actions, not any specific bad behavior that the company engaged in.

Theory #2: General Negligence

What about instances where it's not the employee's carelessness that a company is vicariously liable for? What if instead the company itself did something to contribute to the crash? Here's a few examples of what that might look like:

  • Hiring unqualified, dangerous, or inexperienced drivers;
  • Providing inadequate training;
  • Neglecting scheduled and/or necessary fleet inspection and maintenance;
  • Overworking drivers, e.g. ignoring hours of service regulations;
  • Overloading cargo or failing to properly secure it; and
  • Allowing or encouraging drivers to engage in reckless driving.

That's not a complete list, but it illustrates how a company's own wrongdoing could contribute to its employee hurting or killing someone on the job. In instances like those, where an attorney can prove the company created a hazard, and that hazard causes another person's injury or death, the company itself may be seen as negligent.

Here's how that concept would look in an example scenario:

Bud is hired to be a truck driver, despite Bud having a history of substance abuse and not having a commercial license. Unsurprisingly, Bud is not on the job long before he drives drunk and causes a multi-vehicle traffic accident that sends several people to local hospitals.

Yes, Bud clearly screwed up in that situation, and he deserves to face consequences. At the same time, though, a company who is responsible for vetting and hiring competent truck drivers signed him up and put him behind the wheel despite the obvious risks he posed. That's its own separate wrong, and is a clear example of the company doing something dangerous independent of Bud's own reckless actions.

Even with the concepts explained in greater detail, people may still wonder: If you can already hold the company vicariously liable for the actions of their driver, why go through the trouble of pursuing other theories like general negligence? There are a couple of key reasons to be as comprehensive as possible in identifying theories of liability.

First, there's the matter of diversifying your approach. In order to win your case, you need the jury to believe at least one of your theories of liability—which means it's best to have more than one ready. If you put all your eggs in the vicarious liability basket and the jury doesn't buy it, for example, then you lose your case. After all, a jury might feel bad for a company who was seemingly just implicated by association when their employee made a bad choice. However, if the company had systemic problems of its own—problems which contributed to its reckless employee hurting someone—then the jury is more likely to hold them both accountable. Having multiple viable theories of liability increases the chances that the jury will agree with one of them, thereby increasing the chances of winning your case and maximizing your awarded damages.

That leads into the next point: Moral victory aside, winning your case doesn't help you much if the jury doesn't award any substantial damages. Few if any people would go through the extensive trouble of suing a truck driver or trucking company if they knew a jury would ultimately award just a single symbolic dollar for their ordeal. Covering all their losses is why the majority of people sue, and exposing wrongdoing on both the driver's and the company's part can help advance that goal.

Grossman Law Can Help

There's one final aspect of using multiple theories of liability in a truck accident lawsuit, and it's probably the most important one: Seeking justice. Yes, a lawsuit helps make injured victims whole, but another major part of it is holding all the wrongdoers properly accountable for the damage they did. In my career I've seen many instances where a trucking company would happily have thrown their driver under the bus for a jury to blame rather than face consequences for its own dangerous practices.

Questionable trucking companies should answer for their part when their employees cause harm, but decades of truck accident litigation have shown they won't accept liability without a battle. Against the resources they may bring to bear in their defense, a skilled and experienced truck accident attorney can be an invaluable ally.

The attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have decades of experience helping Texas truck accident victims hold the right parties accountable. If you were injured or lost someone in any kind of commercial vehicle accident, call Grossman Law any time for a free and confidential consultation.

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