Trucking Accidents

Experience Counts

(Warning: this section is graphic)

• A woman who was pregnant with her first baby was decapitated when a semi tried making a u-turn on a dark roadway, jackknifed with the trailer straddling the highway, and became stuck.  The trucking company argued the woman was speeding.  We hired an expert who inspected the black box to prove she was traveling 70 mph in a 65 mph area.  We hired a “conspicuity” expert to prove she would have assumed the reflective lights on the side of the trailer were city lights in the distance until it was too late.  We traveled to Fresno California to depose the owner and manager of the trucking company to show the company had policies against making a u-turn – especially at night – thus, either the company failed to train the driver or the driver failed to follow company policy.  We traveled to Bakersfield to depose the driver who testified he was lost and should not have attempted the u-turn.  Our client (the husband) recovered an undisclosed amount well above 7 figures.
• My very first trucking case came from a trucking accident in Show Low. A fatigued driver who was driving over-hours ran into the back of our client.  The trucking company refused to respond to our correspondence, so we filed suit and subpoenaed several documents.  They continued to refuse (saying they were too busy to pull the documents from storage), but told us we could come inspect their storage and have access to any documents contained there.  So, I flew to Knoxville, TN and literally crawled across boxes piled high in a 5th-wheel trailer (their storage facility).  I found names of former employees, called dozens and found three who were willing to testify that the owner of the company required them to drive over-hours or he would fire them and hire someone else who would drive over-hours.  The case settled very quickly thereafter for hundreds of thousands even though our client’s injuries were not severe.
• Our client’s husband drove a motorcycle in a rural farming area.  Trucks driving on the farm adjacent to the road stirred up clouds of dust covering the highway.  A truck pulled onto the highway in a cloud of dust.  Our client’s husband did not see the truck, ran into the back and died on the spot.  After hiring experts and taking depositions in Roswell, NM of the truck driver and owner of the trucking company, the case settled for an amount we are not allowed to disclose, but that will bless the life of our client for the rest of her life.