The devastation caused by a truck accident can be incomprehensible due to the sheer size of the vehicles involved and the laws of physics at play. Severe injuries and fatalities are common in such situations, and those involved also face immense financial stress due to lost business and mounting medical expenses. In a city like Las Vegas, the potential financial losses can be even more catastrophic due to its reputation as a massive business hub.
Fortunately, a Las Vegas truck accident injury law firm understands these harsh realities. They also know that proving liability in these cases can be complicated, involving multiple parties such as trucking companies, drivers, manufacturers, or maintenance providers. To maximize truck accident victims’ claims, lawyers navigate intricate legal issues and evaluate evidence closely.
This post explains how lawyers calculate liability in truck accidents and their strategies to increase potential compensation.
Table of Contents
Establishing Liability
The first step to maximizing truck accident claims is identifying who is responsible for the accident. Trucking accidents often result from driver negligence, equipment failure, or poor maintenance practices. Conducting thorough investigations of these incidents is essential to determine all contributing factors.
Here are some of the parties that might be responsible for a trucking accident:
- The driver: If the driver was impaired by drugs or alcohol during the crash, they might be liable for damages.
- The employer: Employers are responsible for ensuring their drivers abide by safety regulations and have valid licenses. If they fail to do so and an employee causes an accident for these reasons, the organization may also bear responsibility.
- Maintenance providers: Negligent maintenance practices on commercial trucks can lead to serious malfunctions that contribute to crashes.
- Manufacturers: Sometimes, accidents are caused by manufacturer defects. Product liability laws apply if wiring or brakes prove inadequate due to design flaws.
Sometimes assigning liability isn’t straightforward. Skilled investigators examine minute details to clarify the causes behind the incident.
Proving Negligence
Once liable parties have been identified, proving negligence leading up to the events causing injury is necessary. This involves gathering ample proof showing hazardous conditions existed at the location before the occurrence (e.g., situational photos) and expert witness testimony from engineers, physicians, and mechanics.
Here are some types of evidence that might be used to demonstrate negligence:
- Proof of driver fatigue: Trucking companies must follow regulations and ensure their drivers get sufficient rest between shifts. If a company makes driving over multiple days mandatory or forces drivers to violate Federal Hours-of-Service rules, this may prove negligence.
- Maintenance reports: Companies must keep up-to-date maintenance records on all their commercial vehicles. If something falls through the cracks during inspection due to a lack of documentation, it could fall under “negligent maintenance.”
- Black box data: ECU computer information provides detailed timing and speed data from before impact. Most big-rig trucks have this installed on the dashboard or engine control unit (ECU). This evidence gives insight into how long the vehicle was inoperable and the hazards that existed on the road.
- Witness testimony: Eyewitness accounts can help lawyers reconstruct the minute-by-minute events leading to an accident.
Assembling Legal Arguments
Once a negligent party is identified, it is essential to create persuasive legal arguments to maximize compensation claims during settlement or trial. Lawyers spend significant time gathering information, analyzing damage estimates, and assembling exhibits such as medical bills or calculations depicting lost wages and future quality-of-life cost projections.
Here are some typical legal arguments injury lawyers present in truck accident cases:
- Negligence per se: Violations of the law are recognized as acts constituting a failure of demonstrative care, commonly referred to as negligence per se. The standards governing commercial trucking carriers specifically address things like training qualifications and timeline metrics within organizations to measure safety compliance.
- Vicarious Liability: Employers may be indirectly liable via vicarious liability law since employee actions made while “on-the-job” fall under umbrella-personal accountability standards. The employer is entrusting task completion to the employee in the first place.
Maximizing Settlement Value
Finally, it is essential to have a strategy for maximizing settlement value for clients injured in trucking accidents. Such litigation is subject to different rules and regulations than other types of personal injury cases, contributing to the difficulty of obtaining compensation for damages.
Here are some strategies that lawyers use to maximize the value of truck accident claims:
- Hiring necessary experts: Skilled lawyers need qualified medical personnel to provide support and economists or financial analysts who can assess damage beyond physical harm. These expert witnesses have experience estimating future loss/income projections according to current market predictions.
- Investigating every aspect thoroughly: Thoroughly examining the case typically reveals facts allowing personal liability proofs, including liability issues with the equipment manufacturer, maintenance negligence, and even crossing intersections when able. This helps in shielding defendant-evasion tactics.
- Positioning the case in court: Your legal team must create a compelling narrative regarding the actions of the parties involved and how they directly led to victimization. The prosecution must present such facts so that judges and juries can understand the reasons for compensation requests while conveying emotional encounters tied to the aftermath events.
Conclusion
Truck accidents can be devastating, but having an experienced attorney on your side can significantly increase the maximum settlement amount obtainable. Lawyers with specific knowledge of handling truck-related matters know what evidence works best, proving negligence and demonstrating employability in practical situations. This maximizes settlement values that clients deserve after experiencing such traumatic events caused by driver carelessness, lack of vehicle maintenance, or illegal driving procedures followed by employer tendencies to ignore safety mandates.
