How Trucking Companies Hide Behind Intentional Tort Arguments
By paying a monthly fee to an insurance agency, people essentially place a bet that something bad will happen to them or their property. To "win" on that bet, the insured must first actually lose by incurring serious damages. Depending on the policy in question, that could mean anything from a home ruined by a...
What’s the Difference Between Compensation and Restitution?
A common question we receive when someone calls us after they or a loved one has been involved in an accident is, "Won't the courts make the person who hurt me pay restitution?" As with many questions in the law, the answer to that question can be complex, because the law permits two different avenues...
Are Wet Road Conditions Grounds for an Act of God Defense?
While crashes due to inclement weather are not uncommon across the United States, I recently learned of an incident here in Texas, which prompted me to write a little more in-depth about the phenomenon. In wet, foggy conditions, a tractor-trailer hydroplaned just outside of Midland. It entered oncoming traffic and collided with a passenger vehicle,...
A Look at Commercial Truck Emergency Signal Regulations
Just before sunrise, January 9, 2017, Alex A. Ortega was killed in a collision with an 18-wheeler, which was reportedly blocking the intersection of County Road 1160 and Business 20 near Midland, Texas. According to news accounts, the truck stalled while crossing through the intersection before being struck by Mr. Ortega's vehicle. Without knowing more...
Is the 2017 Plains Ice Storm an Act of God, Legally Speaking?
This past weekend, an ice storm coated parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri with up to an inch of ice. As a result hundreds of thousands of people lost power, there were massive disruptions, and most tragically, 6 people are known to have lost their lives in storm-related traffic accidents. There is no word...
Stopping the Buck: Rose City Tragedy and Truck Accident Liability
President Harry Truman famously had a placard on his desk that read "The Buck Stops Here." The phrase ultimately means that one must take responsibility for their decisions and actions, and shouldn't "pass the buck" to avoid any consequences. That idealism is laudable, of course, but ducking blame has been practiced for millennia and shows...
How Can Human Perception Affect A Motorcycle Accident Case?
Perception is tricky. Two people can parse an image or a situation differently even when receiving identical input. Take this classic example: Or try this: Visual tricks like these have been around for years and illustrate a crucial point known to cognitive scientists and illusionists alike: In some instances, our senses lie to us. This...
The “Bad” Truck Driver in a Chehalis, WA I-5 Truck Accident
On January 6, 2017, there were two accidents on Interstate 5 in Chehalis, WA. According to reports, on the southbound side of the highway, an SUV collided with a pedestrian who was attempting to cross the road. In that accident, the 15-year-old pedestrian was killed. Naturally, this accident slowed traffic in both directions. A short...
Do Trucking Companies Need Safer Delivery Rules In Residential Neighborhoods?
Freight needs to get all over the country, and every year over $9 trillion in freight is hauled to and fro by trucks. We can talk all day about some glimmering future of electronic drones making deliveries (thanks for the raised expectations, Amazon), but our infrastructure right now depends largely on these diesel behemoths to...
Liability for Highway Obstructions in Texas Law
We have noticed a lot of news reports lately about motorists who for one reason or another collide with the rear of a tractor-trailer. Fault in these instances is always case-specific. Sometimes it falls on the passenger vehicle's driver; in other instances, fault lies with the trucker. There are even accidents where inclement weather or...
Should Semi-Truck U-Turns Be Illegal?
It's difficult for a truck accident law firm to ask questions about commercial truck safety without those who drive trucks for a living taking offense and thinking we're "anti-trucker." I'd like to dispense that notion right off the bat. We have the utmost respect for 99% of professional truck drivers who drive their whole careers...
What Do I Do If I’m in an 18-Wheeler Chain Reaction Accident?
On December 30, 2016, a chain-reaction collision begun by a 2001 Freightliner tractor-trailer led to one fatality and ten injured people on westbound Interstate 40 in St. Francis County, Arkansas. According to the official report filed by the Arkansas state highway patrol, six passenger vehicles were moving slowly in a line as traffic passed by...
Anthony Lefteris and Fraudulent Truck Driver Physicals
While it should have been a shock that federal prosecutors brought charges in early December against an Atlanta chiropractor for falsifying hundreds of truckers' medical exams, it wasn't. Over the years, our truck accident injury attorneys have come across cases where we were left wondering how a driver passed their mandatory bi-annual physical. In some...
Loose Selection and Enforcement Standards Make Some Truckers Fear Their Own Industry.
Have you heard the expression "one bad apple spoils the bunch?" I know it's a little folksy, but most people recognize its meaning without too much strain: Take a generally-benign group and introduce an element that is decidedly less so. Over time, this foreign element will corrupt the larger group, and the more the corruption...
Are Meritor WABCO Air Brake Modulator Valves Dangerous?
This past Friday, a wrongful death suit was filed in Alabama on behalf of Jordan Mays Matson. Ms. Matson lost her life October 20, 2015 in a collision with an 18-wheeler. What makes this lawsuit different from a typical 18-wheeler wrongful death suit is that in addition to the truck driver and trucking company, a...
Viral Social Media Post Falsifies Crash Details, Blames Victims
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes auto accidents are an acceptable hazard of driving around. It may be a necessary evil to spend time behind the wheel, but the road holds many hazards. Some of them are environmental, certainly—weather conditions, poor road quality, low visibility—but drivers themselves are arguably the most dangerous part...
Despite Court Case: Electronic Truck Logs Very Likely
Earlier this week we chronicled the potential Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) electronically-enforced national truck speed limit, which pitted the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the FMCSA against the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA). That doesn't appear to be the only controversy where the ATA and OOIDA find each other on opposite sides of...
Employee or Independent Contractor? The Excel Direct Case
News broke the other day of a settlement in the case of Villalpando v. Excel Direct Inc. et al. The case involves a group of truck drivers and Excel Direct, a trucking company that claims the truckers were independent contractors. The truckers saw things differently, given the many hoops they had to jump through at...
Scam Firm Puts 600 Unqualified Truck Drivers on the Road
With the recent guilty plea of Adrian Salari, the saga of RussianTruckingSchool.com nears its conclusion. This case originated from four alleged scammers, who targeted Russian-speaking individuals wanting become commercial truck drivers. Operating out of Florida, Mr. Salari, Ellariy Medvenik, Natalia Dontsova, and Clarence Davis were responsible for fraudulently obtaining Commercial Driver's Licenses (CDLs) for roughly...
Attention Truckers: You’re Not Always On The Clock When You’re In the Sleeper Berth
When an trucker is injured while in the sleeper berth of his rig, he may have an injury lawsuit on his hands, not a workers' comp claim. In most instances, when an employee is injured on the job, their losses (wages, medical bills, etc.) are covered by a worker's compensation plan, meaning they file a...
