Injury Lawyers Texarkana

Texarkana Truck Accident Lawyer Michael Grossman: 18-wheeler Crash Lawyers

It might be blatantly obvious to you that you were not to blame for the 18-wheeler accident that you were involved in, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy for you to get the just restitution you deserve. The defendant, according to Texas law, does not owe you a thing; if you want to get that fair compensation, you will have to fight to get it.

Accident injury victims who choose to represent themselves in litigation almost never win. Often, they leave the courtroom with nothing, and wind up making the worst mistake of their lives. As a result of their choice to go it alone, they are now on the hook for all the medical expenses they’ve incurred, as well as the other financial losses they have accumulated. Most of the time, a seasoned and skilled Texarkana trucking accident attorney can mean the difference between you getting thousands – or possibly millions – of dollars for your injury and getting nothing.

It might not be automatic that you will obtain compensation for the losses you’re incurred after your 18-wheeler accident, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a difficult process. If you have an effective Texarkana trucking accident lawyer by your side, the chances of you winning your case and holding those responsible accountable for their actions will increase exponentially. In this article we provide information on some of the basic components regarding 18-wheeler accident law, and what you need to know in order to make sure your rights are protected. Some of the topics that are covered include:

• The importance of legal action
• Two ways to win your case
• Determining the defendant
• Launching an investigation
• Hurdles to winning your case
• How Grossman Law Offices can help you

The information in this article, however, is designed to provide the basics of the law in regard to 18-wheeler accidents. It is not intended to take the place of actual legal counsel. For a free and confidential consultation regarding the specifics of your case, call Grossman Law Offices at 1-855-239-1290 (toll free). We will gladly answer any questions you may have concerning the law surrounding truck accidents.

The Importance of Legal Action
There are two vital purposes behind filing a claim or initiating a lawsuit against a defendant. No. 1, filing a suit will make it possible for you to recoup the monetary losses you have incurred as the result of your accident. However, you must be informed going in that, in the eyes of the law, you are not automatically entitled to get fair compensation for your injury. From the start of any litigation, the scales of justice are tilted toward the defendant, the legal term for the person or entity that caused your injury. You, the plaintiff, will have to move those scales in your favor to have a chance at winning your case. The defendant is under no kind of obligation to pay you for the injury you have suffered or the monetary losses you have experienced. You will likely have to fight extremely hard in order to get the fair compensation you have coming to you.

You have undoubtedly not only suffered physical and emotional losses, you have also suffered financially. You are probably faced with expensive medical bills and significant repair costs, and have to face the added burden of lost wages because you have not been able to return to your job since the accident occurred. If you are successful in your efforts to obtain justice and fair compensation from the defendant, this will not only help ease your monetary burdens, it will also help you get your life back on track because you will no longer have to deal with the stress of financial problems associated with the accident.

Also, initiating litigation lets you punish those responsible for the accident, and help to make sure that defendant will not make the same mistakes in the future and cause someone else to have to go through what you are experiencing.

Two Ways to Win Your Case
There are, in most cases involving a truck accident, two ways for plaintiffs to win and obtain compensation for their injuries. Most of the time, a plaintiff and defendant will be able to reach an agreement outside of court, without the need of a judge or jury intervening. There are other instances, however, where the parties cannot agree and the case goes to trial. When this happens, the plaintiff will have to win the case to have any chance at winning restitution.

Settlements
When a settlement takes place, the defendant offers a certain amount of money to a plaintiff to compensate the plaintiff for his or her injuries, without being compelled to do so by a judge or jury. The plaintiff, in return, then agrees not to file any other lawsuit against the defendant to try and get any more money in the future. Accepting a fair settlement offer is of great benefit to a plaintiff, because it allows him or her to get their compensation quicker, and without having to go through the uncertainty of a trial. And make no mistake, uncertainty is always a part of the trial process; especially when a panel of randomly selected jurors is charged with deciding the fate of a claim.

Defendants are well aware that they are under no obligation legally to offer payment to a plaintiff. Because of this, it can be extremely hard to get a just settlement offer without the help of an experienced Texarkana trucking accident attorney working for you. Such an attorney will make sure a crystal clear message will be sent to the defendants – settle with us, or you will be taken to court; and you might lose a lot of money. When defendants become nervous, they are more apt to offer a plaintiff a fair settlement amount rather than risk losing a great deal more money in a trial.

Whatever you do, you have to be on the alert for a bad settlement offer; in fact, you’ll probably get one before you even hire a lawyer. A defendant knows that, should you accept their offer to settle out of court, you will not be able to enlist legal help to take legal action against them for more money at a future date. Defendants are notorious for preying on confused, frazzled plaintiffs – plaintiffs who may be crying out for a quick infusion of cash. Those plaintiffs face an ever-increasing pile of bills; for medical expenses, to repair automobiles, etc., and they are also likely facing the stress of lost work wages, since they haven’t been able to return to their job due to their injury. Therefore, it is an all too common occurrence for defendants to dangle a carrot of easy, quick cash in front of an injury victim, and those victims, all too often, accept. As a result, the defendant is getting off extremely lightly, and will basically be off the hook from a legal standpoint. Again, if you receive one of these offers and accept it, it will be legally binding. If the defendant in your trucking accident case has offered you an out-of-court settlement, please do not accept it until an experienced Texarkana trucking accident lawyer has had the chance to look it over. The attorneys with Grossman Law Offices know the true monetary value of your case, and can tell you whether or not the defendant’s settlement offer is a fair one.

Trials
There are a variety of reasons that cases do not settle out of court. When that happens, a plaintiff’s only way of getting the just restitution he or she deserves is by taking the case to a trial. Because the injury victim bears the burden of proof in litigation involving a trucking accident, he or she will have the more difficult task of the two sides in a trial. In order to have a chance at winning in a trial, you have to provide compelling evidence to prove each of the four elements of every claim involving a truck accident. These elements, explained in detail below, are duty, breach, causation and damages.

• Duty – In order to establish duty, you, the plaintiff has to prove that the defendant in the case owed that plaintiff a duty to behave in a cautious enough manner so as not to bring harm to you. This is typically a fairly straightforward element, because nearly all people owe all other people the duty to act as would a reasonable person in regard to not harming other people. This could mean not performing unreasonably dangerous actions, or taking distinct precautions in order to protect others from experiencing harm.
• Breach – The next thing you must prove is that the conduct of the defendant resulted in a breach of the duty of care that was owed to you. Should the “reasonable person” duty of care apply in regard to your case, then proving breach means proving the defendant performed some sort of action that a reasonable person would not have performed. In order to establish that a breach occurred, you have to provide evidence to show the court exactly what the defendant either did or did not do. A judge or jury will then consider all of the circumstances surrounding your case and then decide whether or not the actions of the defendant can be considered a breach of the duty of care that you were owed.
• Causation – The third element you must prove is causation. It is not adequate to merely prove that the defendant was in breach of the duty of care you were owed. You must also prove that the actions of the defendant caused the injury you are suffering from. To prove this element, however, you have to have a great deal of rock-solid, compelling evidence. There are multiple entities that play a role in preparing a truck for any kind of trip – an error on the part of any one of them could result in an accident. Because there are so many potentially responsible parties, many defendants will commonly attempt to sway a judge or jury that that another party, or even the plaintiff, was to blame for causing the accident. You will have no chance of winning your lawsuit if you do not produce compelling enough evidence that can put the blame squarely on the defendant.
• Damages – This fourth and final element refers to the monetary amount that you will collect from the defendant should you be successful in establishing the other three elements of your case. Plaintiffs can be compensated for a variety of damages, including loss of earning capacity, lost wages, medical expenses, pain and suffering, and other financial losses incurred due to the accident. However, you must accurately calculate the amount of money that is owed to you, and provide evidence that supports those calculations, in order to be able to win damages. More than likely, the defendant will also calculate how much you are owed, and that number will be significantly smaller than the one you come up with. It is imperative that you present compelling proof that your calculations are correct, and you’re not merely looking for a handout. And you must also prove that the defendant’s calculations are nothing more than, basically, a desperate attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the accident that injured you.

The process by which damages are calculated can often be an incredibly intricate and complex one. Should you still be receiving ongoing medical care, it can be very tough to, on your own, be able to estimate how high your medical expenses will ultimately get. It is even more difficult to put a “price tag,” so to speak, on the more subjective types of damages such as pain and suffering. And it can be even more difficult to try and accurately calculate your long-term losses such as loss of future earning potential, because you have to consider the value of money over time, potential merit raises, possible raises you may get for taking certain educational courses, and other factors. However, the Texarkana trucking accident attorneys with Grossman Law Offices are very familiar with how to calculate damages, since we’ve been doing it for the last two decades. We know how much a judge or jury will likely decide how much your case is worth, and can make sure you do not get shortchanged.

Our Texarkana trucking accident lawyers are here to help you, whether your case reaches an out-of-court settlement or it goes to trial. We know how to compel the defense into making our clients settlement offers that are fair, and also know how to devise strong strategies should the case have to wind up in court.

Determining the defendant
As is the case in any form of litigation, one of the first steps in a trucking accident case is to determine the defendant. Doing so in truck accident litigation can be especially difficult, since, as we mentioned previously, there are so many parties that have an involvement in getting a truck ready for a trip. And one or more of them can commit an error that can result in an accident that causes injuries or deaths. And more than one error can be committed by more than one party. Should it be determined that more than one entity played a role in your accident, you can take action against all of them, and all of them can be defendants in your lawsuit.

Some of these potentially responsible parties include the company that planned the truck’s route, the company responsible for loading the truck, the manufacturer of the truck or certain parts of the truck, and, of course, the trucking company and the truck driver.

The Company that Planned the Truck’s Route
Of course, there are certain roads that a typical automobile can travel that an 18-wheeler cannot, or at least should not, travel. There are height, weight and cargo restrictions regarding many roads, tunnels and bridges that must be taken into consideration when the route of a truck is planned. Because of these complexities, many trucking companies choose to hire outside firms to plan truck routes. Should this company make an error in planning a route, such as ignoring vital road or bridge restrictions that can lead to a dangerous accident, that company can be held accountable for any injuries that occur.

The Company that Loaded the Truck
Often times, a truck is not dangerous on its own. Rather, the manner in which that truck is loaded can present the danger. Most trucks, by law, cannot drive with a load in excess of 80,000 pounds. However, there are a lot of companies that, in an attempt to save time and trips, will overload a truck’s trailer. And when this occurs, a truck is more susceptible to tipping over when it comes around a turn. There are other instances where a company responsible for loading a truck will do an inadequate job of fastening cargo to a flatbed trailer. As a result, inadequately loaded cargo can loosen from the flatbed and lead to an accident that causes an injury. If your accident was caused by improperly loaded or overloaded cargo, then you can sue the company that was responsible for loading the truck.

Manufacturers

There are times where a trucking accident is caused by a manufacturer that produces parts with either manufacturing flaws or defects in design. There are lots of parts that comprise a truck, as is the case with most other vehicles, and all of these parts have to operate correctly in order for the truck to be roadworthy and safe. If, for example, the truck’s tires, or the straps designed to secure the cargo, are flawed in some manner and therefore unsafe, fellow motorists could be put in significant danger. If the manufacturer is in some way responsible for the defects or flaws of these incredibly vital parts, and an accident occurs, then that manufacturer could be held liable for any injuries that result.

The Trucking Company
While the truck driver is typically the most directly responsible party when an accident takes place, it is rare that the driver shoulders the entirety of the blame. Normally, an injury victim can sue not only the driver, but also the company that owns the truck and employs the driver. Two legal theories exist that allow this to happen. The theory of “direct liability” enables plaintiffs to hold the company that owns the truck liable for the accident that occurred. If the trucking company is guilty of negligence, and the negligence led to the accident that caused your injury, then the trucking company is considered directly liable. For instance, if the company that owns the truck was negligent in properly maintaining the truck’s braking system, and a brake failure led to the accident that caused your injury, then you might be able to hold the company that owns the truck directly liable for their negligence in causing the accident.

There are other times where a trucking company did not appear to do anything wrong, and that all the blame for the accident lies with the truck driver. However, under the theory of “vicarious liability,” the company that owns the truck can still be held responsible. A legal doctrine known as “respondeat superior” allows this to happen. This Latin term “respondeat superior” simply means that employers are responsible for the workplace actions of their employees, whether or not the company itself did anything wrong. In the case of an accident involving a truck, this means you can sue the trucking company as well as the driver.

The Truck Driver
Again, the driver of the truck will normally be the party most directly responsible for causing an accident to occur. Truckers can make all kinds of mistakes, both on the road and off of it. They can ignore stop signs, recklessly speed, and make turns that are illegal – basically, drive in a careless manner and pose a substantial threat to all of the other motorists on the road. Often times, though, the biggest mistakes made by truckers have little to do with the actual task of driving. They can skip mandatory rest breaks in order to meet often unfairly stringent deadlines. When this occurs, those drivers exponentially increase the chances that they will fall asleep behind the wheel and cause a devastating accident. Other drivers will take illegal stimulants in an effort to stay awake, posing a danger as well. And, as unbelievable as it may seem, we have seen many instances where a driver was flat-out drunk and caused an accident. Whatever the reason, if a trucker decided to make his or her delivery schedule more of a priority than your safety, or was intoxicated in some fashion, then you can initiate legal action against that careless driver.

These parties – route-planning companies, cargo-loading companies, parts manufacturers, trucking companies and truck drivers – are just a few of the many potentially responsible entities that can be sued in the event of an accident. But you have to determine exactly which party or parties were responsible for your injury in order to have any chance at getting fair compensation for the losses that you have incurred.

The Critical Importance of a Thorough Investigation
Once an accident involving an 18-wheeler takes place, it is vital that a thorough investigation is launched into all of the circumstances that surround it. Such an investigation will not only help you identify the cause of the accident and help you determine responsibility, it will also enable you to collect the critical evidence that will be necessary to prove your case in a court of law. As was previously mentioned, the plaintiff in a truck accident case bears the burden of proof. The court does not want to simply be told how to decide a case; judges and juries need to be able to see, touch and hear evidence that supports your case. The compelling evidence that can be produced by a detailed investigation can make the difference between you winning your case and leaving the courtroom with nothing.

The Texarkana trucking accident attorneys with Grossman Law Offices are intimately familiar with how to conduct a painstakingly detailed investigation. Our standard procedure is to immediately race to the scene of an accident in nearly every single trucking accident we take. Once we arrive at the scene, we immediately begin working to uncover evidence. There are all kinds of items that can be of immense help to you in proving your case, including physical evidence such as pieces of wreckage and skid marks, statements of witnesses, photographs and video evidence, police reports, test results and much more. We can find this evidence and preserve in a manner that it can be used in court to prove your case.

However, you have to be aware that the other side in your case will be doing almost the exact same thing. Representatives for the defense will also visit the accident scene and pore through wreckage, looking for any sliver of evidence that they can use to suggest you, yourself were the cause of the accident. These defense operatives are normally sent to an accident scene almost immediately after it occurs. They will have with them investigators and other professionals who are experts in re-creating accidents. They know they need to begin their investigation as quickly as possible, because the longer it takes them to start looking for evidence, the better the chances that the evidence they are looking for will have been altered or even disappeared completely.

There is one recent case that our firm handled that illustrates the need for quickly launching an investigation. In this case, our client had been blamed for an accident that took place at night, when his car hit a truck. The defense maintained that our client was to blame because the car he was driving had no headlights. When we were called to represent him, we immediately went to the salvage yard where the remnants of his car had been sent. Sure enough, we discovered that, his car, indeed, had no headlights. We were not satisfied by merely seeing that the car was missing its headlights, so we decided to check the salvage yard’s security cameras. While looking at surveillance tapes, we aw that a representative of the defendant had entered the salvage yard and removed the headlights from the car that belonged to our client. Armed with this critical evidence, we were able to expose the underhanded attempt by the defense to avoid responsibility. That footage was scheduled to be taped over 24 hours later; if we had not immediately launched that investigation, that critical evidence may have been lost forever.

We cannot stress enough the importance of quickly conducting an investigation; the defense has already started, so you have to start as fast as possible. Again, evidence tends to disappear once an accident takes place due to weather conditions and other factors. Plus, witnesses’ memories can become cloudy or they will simply decide they no longer want to get involved. Our attorneys can normally build extremely strong cases even if we are not contacted for months after an accident takes place. However, the best cases normally ensue when we are immediately called. Please do not waste any time in contacting an experienced Texarkana trucking accident lawyer. We know the turmoil you are going through, but time is of the essence.

Hurdles You will Encounter
Many of the clients who we represent at Grossman Law Offices are very business-savvy and sophisticated. They could easily pick up a book or do some Internet research and learn the law. However, there is much, much more to emerging successful in a truck accident case than just having an understanding of the law. If you choose to pursue legal action on your own, you can almost guarantee that you will either get nowhere close to the compensation that you deserve, or you will leave that courtroom with nothing at all. And that could be the worst mistake you’ll ever make in your life – you will be on your own in paying for your crushing medical and other expenses. And you will not get a second chance.

Here are a few of the obstacles that injury victims who choose to represent themselves often fall prey to in trucking accident litigation.

Truck Drivers Who Lie
Defendants always have a reason to lie, no matter the kind of litigation in which they are involved. However, truck drivers have even more motivation than normal to lie, because their livelihood will likely depend on them doing so. If a trucker is found responsible for an accident, that is the kind of black mark that can force them into another line of work. They will not only lose their job – in all likelihood, they will not be hired by another trucking company. So, if given the choice between lying or losing their job and not being able to provide for their family, many truck drivers will try and shift the blame for the accident to the injury victim. And if you cannot prove that the truck driver is indeed lying, then you will have no chance to win your case.

The Texarkana trucking accident attorneys with Grossman Law Offices know how to get through the lies truck drivers tell and get to the truth. There are many times where we can gather immense amounts of evidence and expose the driver’s lies. When we produce witness statements, forensic test results and video surveillance footage that all corroborate your account of the events that took place, the truck driver will likely lose all credibility in the eyes of a judge or jury. Many times, we can get to the truth through witness depositions. A deposition is where the attorney of the plaintiff is allowed to ask questions of the defendant’s witnesses. We have taken thousands of such depositions over the last two decades, and have developed extremely effective questioning techniques that will often compel a truck driver to tell the truth – often long before a trial is even scheduled to begin.

Policies of Large Insurance Companies
Trucking companies are required by law to have insurance on their vehicles. The value of these policies can dwarf those of typical automobile policies – often being worth 50 times as much. Therefore, an insurance carrier could lose 50 times more money in the event of a trucking accident than it would after a “normal” automobile accident. It only follows logically, then, that the carrier would devote 50 times the resources and fight 50 times harder to defend such a policy in order to avoid having to pay. It should be evident, then, that it can be far tougher to get just compensation from a truck insurance policy than it would be an everyday automobile insurance policy.

So since they have such a vested interest in protecting this kind of policy, they will do whatever they can to keep you from winning your case. They will employ high-powered insurance adjusters for just this reason. These professionals are the kind of adjuster you may have encountered after a small fender-bender. They are seasoned and ruthless, and view you as an enemy. They got to where they are by saving their company millions of dollars through denying claims just like yours. Typically, they only respect a seasoned and experienced Texarkana trucking accident attorney.

This kind of adjuster will initially seem very nice to you. They’ll just want to ask you a few seemingly innocuous questions regarding the accident. But be very, very careful – their only true intent is to trick you into admitting the accident was your fault, or get you to otherwise say something that could be used against you in court. They will record the conversation, and then take whatever you say out of context in order to kill your claim. Basically, it is best that you simply refuse to talk to them. The attorneys at Grossman Law Offices make sure their clients are shielded from adjusters and their badgering, often intimidating tactics. We field those calls instead so that your words can never come back to hurt your case in court.

Large insurance carriers also employ highly trained and expert defense lawyers to protect their policies. These lawyers know insurance law like the back of their hand, and are intimately familiar with all the legal technicalities that can lead to your suit being thrown out of court should you either represent yourself or rely on an inexperienced attorney. Grossman Law Offices lawyers have dealt with large insurance companies for 20 years, so we know the kinds of tactics they use and the kinds of tricks they like to try and play. We know how to defeat them, and defeat them handily.

Self-Insured Trucking Companies
There are some instances where a trucking accident will not include an insurance carrier. Sometimes, trucking companies choose to simply insure themselves, and they do so by setting aside some of their assets should they have to pay a plaintiff through either an out-of-court settlement of after losing a lawsuit. Should the trucking company involved in your accident be a self-employed company, then you will likely not encounter the kind of insurance adjuster mentioned above. Rather, you will be probably dealing with an officer of the trucking company. And if you thought insurance adjusters were bad, they’re nothing compared to an officer of a self-employed trucking company.

These people are normally paid through their trucking company’s profit-sharing program, so they make more money when the trucking company makes more money. If that company loses an accident lawsuit, that cuts into the profits, obviously. It follows, then, that the company officer would lose money as well. So this person will be extremely highly motivated to deny your claim. That officer will be much more concerned with his or her financial well being than yours, so he or she will be personally motivated to make sure you don’t get a dime.

Even though insurance adjusters can be intimidating and harassing, at least they are licensed, and as a requirement of that license, they are required to follow a code of ethics. Officers with self-insured trucking companies are under no such obligation, so their behavior is not governed. Clients often turn to us for help after suffering the harassment of these people. Not only are they known for employing harassing tactics to try and bully injury victims, many of them are not above altering evidence or employing other unethical schemes to defeat your case. If you need relief from these unethical actions, please call the Texarkana trucking accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices. We will put a stop to that nonsense immediately.

How Grossman Law Offices can Help You
There are many things that a seasoned and skilled Texarkana trucking accident attorney can do to help you obtain the just restitution you deserve for the injury you have suffered. One of the things we do immediately is to make sure that our clients get the medical assistance they need. Even if you do not have insurance, or you are under-insured, we can help you find the necessary medical care. We have excellent relationships with several medical professionals in East Texas, and we can often get you the help you need at no cost to you. These medical practitioners will do this because they know our track record for success, and thus know they will most likely be reimbursed for the treatment they provide to you.

The next thing we do, as stated above, is quickly launch a detailed investigation in order to uncover the evidence you need to prove your case. Not only that, but we also take care of our clients’ cases every step of the way, and keep them informed as well. We take the litigation off of your plate so you can focus on recovering from the injury or injuries you incurred in the accident, and get your life back on track as soon as possible.

Here are just some of the services we offer our clients in every trucking accident case we take:

• Launch an investigation into the cause of the accident;
• Collect the vital evidence you need to satisfy your burden of proof;
• Put our reputation for winning cases to work for you by compelling defendants into offering a fair settlement offer;
• Develop a rock-solid trial strategy;
• Put our knowledge of court procedures to use in order to ensure your case is not dismissed by a judge;
• Field all calls from insurance adjusters so you are not exposed to their intimidating, badgering and harassing tactics;
• Expose the lies truck drivers will tell in an attempt to save their job by shifting blame to you; and
• Shield you from the often times unethical methods used by officers of self-insured trucking companies to defeat your case.

Again, these are just a few ways that the Texarkana trucking accident lawyers with Grossman Law Offices help our clients. We want to take all the stress involved with litigation off of your plate so you can focus on getting well and getting back to a normal life. If you would like to find out more about how we can help you, or to get a free and confidential consultation concerning the specific circumstances surrounding your case, please call us as soon as possible at 1-855-239-1290 (toll free). We are on hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we will gladly answer any questions you may have.