The next part of a complete lawsuit will be about proving that the defendant’s conduct breached that duty in the accident. Here much of the physical and recorded physical evidence comes into play. Our firm uses what we have gathered to show the action or inaction by the trucker, the trucking firm and any responsible third parties to establish that the defendant or defendants were negligent in some manner leading to the fatal accident. The standard here is the reasonable person standard. Our firm tries to show the defendant breached the duty that he owed the accident victim in a fatal truck accident when he did or failed to do a thing that a reasonable person would have. Our firm will make the assertion that a reasonable person would have taken the action to keep the accident victim safe, and the defendant did not. The jurors are the ones who will decide whether the defendant’s actions were severe enough to constitute a breach, and our firm knows how to make a compelling lawsuit to jurors because our firm has done so in lawsuits like yours for twenty years.
That leads us to causation. Many individuals may be on the road at the time an accident occurs and many parties may have contributed to the fatal truck accident. Our firm shows the jurors in a step-by-step manner backed by physical evidence exactly how the breach and negligence caused the fatal accident. This is not enough simply to show breach. When you don’t have the physical evidence to show that this was the defendant you’re naming as the cause, you will not win in a jury trial.
The last thing you have to show is damages. As our firm discussed, this is not easy to calculate or to make a case for. “Damages” refers to the money that the defendant will pay you if you win your lawsuit before the jurors and judge for all of the various harms you have suffered in losing your family member. You have to be able to show your damages. Asserting them is not enough and there is no set formula for damages that a juror follows. Each lawsuit is different and there’s no guideline beyond that you may show in a court of law. What this means is you must bring physical evidence of your injuries to court to support your calculations and your claim.
Many times in these kinds of fatal truck accident lawsuits, the amount of damages is a contested by the defendants. The defendants will argue that your damages are worth far less than your estimation because to them the bottom line is the bottom line. They want to pay as little as possible. These are sometimes presented well by defendants, and sometimes they are merely last-resort attempts to avoid legal and monetary responsibility. This will take some work to estimate how much your family member’s final health care fees and your own (if you were also a party to the accident) will ultimately amount to. This is because many times this is still unclear how extensive your treatment will be and how long your recovery will take, and if you will need such things as therapy or counseling in dealing with your loss.
Then there is figuring out the loss of your late family member’s future earnings. Figuring up the loss of future earning capacity is not some set formula where you take the accident victim’s last yearly salary and multiplying by his life expectancy. Few people have stagnant earnings and income over their lives, so you will need to account for factors such as the time value of money and promotions, any raises that the victim would have received had he been able to continue to work and you have to show the likelihood of these gains. Then you have to figure out how to put a value on the intangible losses such as pain and anguish – both the pain and anguish of your lost family member knowledgeable before their death, and your own for the loss of your family member and many other intangibles.
Call Us Today
Our fatal truck accident attorneys may offer you the experience and knowledge necessary to properly and fully litigate a wrongful death trucking accident lawsuit, or make a strong enough case that the insurance companies and responsible parties offer you a just settlement.
Our Law Offices are familiar with the challenges, complexities and many times arcane intricacies that are involved in litigating fatal trucking accidents. Our firm will protect you from aggressive or unfair insurance firms and our firm knows how to fight well-trained defense attorneys. Our firm will thoroughly examine an accident scene to make sure that the facts of what happened are established beyond any doubt so that all responsible parties are brought to justice. You are going through a hard time right now. Our firm is sensitive to your loss and we will be there to help you navigate these troubling, tragic times. Our goal is to help you get some semblance of your life back. Our reputation is well known among the insurance firms. Our Law Offices is fully prepared to seek justice on your behalf. Call our fatal truck accident attorneys. Our firm is here to stand up for you.
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stupid blog needs to be changed
Commercial Vehicle Accident Attorney Tells You What To Expect After Your Accident
Any party who drives through Texas will see that commercial truck traffic is a large portion of the traffic on the highways through Texas. Transporting commercial vehicles allow Texans to both export products to the rest of America and Mexico, and for us to enjoy the products brought in from the rest of the world. With all the large commercial vehicles on the highway and all the commercial vehicle drivers paid to spend long hours at the wheel, accidents and even deaths are statistically going to happen.
If you or a family member has been hurt in a commercial vehicle accident, you need a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney on your side. Our Law Offices are here for you. We have spent the last two decades in litigation cases involving commercial vehicle accidents, so we know the devastating disaster they may cause you and your family. We want you to know that your challenges are just beginning with the wreck. Now you need to deal with anguish and difficulty of navigating the court process to obtain redress for the damage that has been done to you. We wish to inform you of your legal options so you may make the best decisions to make sure you receive the compensation you deserve.
Self-Representation in a Texas Commercial Vehicle Accident Case
The law allows anyone to represent himself in a courtroom, but is rarely a good idea. Procedures to address the causes of accidents with a commercial vehicle may be extremely challenging, and people who have no legal experience have no chance of succeeding in such a challenge. You wouldn’t try to build an HDTV screen in your garage. You wouldn’t try to prescribe medicine for your sick child even if the law allowed it. Why? Because these challenging tasks require training, experience, information and resources. Bringing injury claims or lawsuits due for injury or wrongful death in a commercial vehicle accident is just as challenging. You need the expertise of a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney to win.
You Need A Commercial Vehicle Accident Attorney
Anyone may represent himself or herself in a courtroom but it’s rarely a good idea and flat-out crazy when the claim concerns commercial vehicle accidents. Anyone may learn the principles of substantive law of injuries with an Internet search, but that can’t inform you what you need to know to make your claim successfully in court. Understanding of the law is a fraction of the skills needed to succeed in such a lawsuit. A knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney may fight against the tactics of defense attorneys. The lawsuits are won over to the sound legal strategy and procedural prowess. You need someone to help you who know how to handle every detail of the claim.
It is essential to your success that you have a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney trying your personal injury claim. Only the fear of losing money motivates insurers, and a lawyer with a history of success inspires such respect, which makes the insurance firm much more probable to offer an equitable settlement. Our attorneys have won hundreds of cases to provide millions of dollars in settlements from every major insurer in the nation. When our lawyers are threatening a lawsuit, insurers know that they are better off settling and providing our clients fair settlement without needing a jury trial.
What Is The First Step For You?
Preservation of physical evidence is critical to the success of your claim. It’s necessary to engage a lawyer as soon as possible so that your attorney may start the examination before it’s too late. The physical evidence will to fade quickly – video has been removed, witnesses forget what they saw and there are physical changes in the scene. For every day he waits to engage a lawyer, their chances are fading into oblivion. The team of professional investigators at our Law Offices start all cases of accident examination with due diligence of the site of the wreck to find physical evidence that the commercial vehicle driver’s negligence caused the accident. We find and interview witnesses, measure the distance between the street tire marks and impact points, review police files, and inspect all vehicles involved, take photographic physical evidence and catalog all the physical evidence so that it’s admissible.
Did You Know?
Our Texas attorneys have won hundreds of 18 wheeler accident cases. Call us today to discuss your case.
By way of example, families of two men who have suffered a horrible accident 18-wheeler engaged us. The driver was killed and the passenger was seriously hurt when the driver of a commercial vehicle attempted to turn left and got stuck, leaving the commercial vehicle on a highway curve, blocking the ability to move. However hard as it might be to believe, this type of accident happens quite frequently. Night had fallen after the wreck, and the only part of the commercial vehicle that was visible to traffic were the lights on the back of the commercial vehicle cab. The commercial vehicle was practically invisible. When our clients came around a bend in the highway, crashed into the commercial vehicle at full speed, breaking the roof of the car, killing the driver on impact and sending the passenger to the intensive care unit. The family engaged our firm the next day, and our investigators got to work on the case.
The commercial vehicle driver asserted our clients’ headlights were not on and that they were broken. When our investigators examined the remains of the car at the junkyard, they were astonished to see the lights of the vehicle missing. The headlights weren’t broken, but were completely gone. Concerned about the fate of the demand of our clients, we searched the salvage yard and noticed a security camera. After requesting a copy of the video file, the video file showed someone from the commercial vehicle company stealing the headlights. When the transport carrier later asserted that our client was driving without lights, we literally had their deception caught in the headlights. They should have settled out of court because they have paid a high price. The lesson of this anecdote is the need to act fast. The security system of the junkyard was designed to erase its memory every two days. If our client in this claim had waited longer, the physical evidence would have been lost. An immediate examination is the only way to preserve physical evidence so that we may show your claim.
After the accident, an examination like that one into the junkyard is necessary for two reasons: First, with a search, you may determine who caused the accident. It’s often not clear who was responsible for causing a commercial vehicle accident. As we asserted above, many other people, including other drivers and pedestrians, might play a role in causing an accident. Second, a proper examination allows victims to collect the physical evidence necessary to show the responsibility of the accused. Juries do not want to be told how to decide the claim. They want to make their own assessments by reviewing the physical evidence that backs up your testimony and our telling of events. Physical evidence is critical for a claim.
The commercial vehicle accident attorneys at our Law Offices have over the course of two decades learned how to conduct an examination to determine who caused the wreck and they know how to get the physical evidence you need to make sure we indict all the parties liable. In fact, we made a standard procedure to visit the wreck site in almost all commercial vehicle accidents we deal with, no matter the distance. They look for physical evidence that may help you win your claim. We record measurements, take pictures, talk to eye witnesses, gather forensic investigations, collect police reports, take hold of any video surveillance, exam the vehicles and the streets, and anything else we may to help your lawsuit. We collect the physical evidence in such a manner that it’s admissible and acceptable to the court.
Most defense attorneys arrive at the scene of the accident moments after an accident takes place. It’s probable that the defense attorneys involved in your lawsuit have already completed the examination, assisted by teams of lawyers, adjustors and investigators. They start as soon as possible to strengthen their case because they know that the physical evidence has a tendency to disappear after an accident.
Our commercial vehicle accident attorneys and their team make sure that all parties liable for the injuries in a commercial vehicle accident are held accountable.
It is best to begin your claim and investigation as soon as possible. Our attorneys can prepare a solid case, although sometimes we are not contacted until several weeks after an accident happens. The strongest cases are usually built when we are contacted as soon as possible after the incident. We suggest that you do not delay contacting a commercial vehicle accident attorney to help you.
Contact several law firms and inquire as to how many such commercial vehicle accident lawsuits they’ve handled and what their record is. Ask for the name of a client that had a similar commercial vehicle accident who may give their opinion of the law firm. Interview at least two or three attorneys, and make sure they offer you a free initial consultation on your particular lawsuit. If they do not offer some references, or they do not have extensive experience with commercial vehicle accidents, you probably don’t want to engage that law firm.
Who Is To Blame In The Commercial Vehicle Accident That Injured You?
To submit your lawsuit, you must determine who actually caused the accident that hurt you. In most commercial vehicle trucking accidents there are more than one party at fault, at least partially, and assigning degrees of responsibility may be a complex process. In the state of Texas, there is the legal concept of respondeat superior that holds employers liable for acts of their workers. Therefore, in cases of commercial vehicle accidents, there are generally at least two defendants – the driver and the commercial vehicle firm that employs him. If the commercial vehicle driver suffered a momentary lack of concentration and caused a wreck, the commercial vehicle firm is also liable.
However, responsibility is rarely limited to these two parties. The firm that loaded the commercial vehicle could have failed to secure the cargo correctly, causing a load shift, which causes an accident. The firm that planned the highway could have sent the commercial vehicle on a street that is not designed for commercial vehicles. If a mechanical challenge caused the accident, the mechanic who maintained the commercial vehicle could be liable. And it’s also possible that the driver of another car drove hazardously, that the commercial vehicle swerved to hit another car. Very rarely is the question of responsibility in an accident involving a commercial vehicle easy to establish. To complete your lawsuit, you need a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney who knows how best to investigate the exact cause of the accident, if you know who is liable for damages.
Commercial Vehicle Drivers Will Lie
Do not expect a commercial vehicle driver who caused the accident to admit their responsibility. What happens to a commercial vehicle driver who is negligent in an accident? He will most probably find it hard to find a commercial vehicle driving job with another firm, as he now has a black mark on his driving record. With the state of the job market and the economy, many who are otherwise reliable will lie to protect their jobs and the ability to provide for their families.
By way of example, a client once engaged the firm to deal with a lying commercial vehicle driver. Our client was hurt in a commercial vehicle accident one night and the commercial vehicle driver asserted our client was driving without headlights at the time of the accident. Our investigators diligently searched the scene and saw a security camera at a nearby store pointing directly at the point of impact. After obtaining a copy of the video, we had a clear picture of our clients with their lights shining. When the commercial vehicle driver has repeated their lies during the deposition, he was caught. Dishonesty and deception are common in commercial vehicle accidents. Our commercial vehicle accident attorneys and their team know how to find the critical physical evidence through a thorough examination and how to ask the right questions to catch people lying.
Large Insurers of Commercial Vehicles
The federal government requires carriers to purchase large insurance to protect against the inevitable accidents that occur as a result of doing business. However, do not believe that the process of resolving a personal injury action will be quick and painless just because the commercial vehicle firm is insured. Insurers are trying to make money, not help you. As the commercial vehicle insurance is much more valuable than the standard automobile insurance policies and they will fee huge sums of money for the insurance firm, they will fight hard to protect its assets. Adjusters live by the adage, “If you give someone an inch, they will take a mile.” They think if they offer you something, the next victim will ask for more. They do what they may to protect their money.
The fact of your injury does not mean that the law guarantees compensation. According to Texas Civil Remedies Code, an injury victim or relatives of a party who unjustly died in a commercial vehicle accident are entitled to bring action against the commercial vehicle firm. However, the victim or victim’s family has the burden of proof to establish the responsibility of the carrier or insurer for reimbursement. The victim must show that the compensation sought is fair and distributed equally among all those liable according to their relative degree of responsibility. On the other hand, the insurance firm also has rights and will be trying to reject the lawsuit or reduce the size of your compensation.
Tricky Adjusters
With so much money involved in commercial vehicle insurance, insurance firms generally assign their most experienced adjusters to take these assignments. They handle insurance claims for a living, and they know how to manhandle accident victims. They will pretend to be your friend and inform you they are there to help you receive compensation. They will inform you they just want to ask you a few routine questions. Insurance adjusters are not interested in getting you help, but just trying to save their firm money. They ask you questions to try and drag you into admitting your own responsibility for the wreck. Then they may refuse your request. In some cases, they attempt to convince the victims of accidents to waive the right to sue in exchange for an unjust settlement that does not adequately compensate for damages caused by an accident.
When they fly in from New York or Chicago and see that you’re at the table alone they celebrate. They know that someone without judicial experience has no chance of beating them. You need a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney to strike fear in the insurance firm.
Defense Specialists
Insurance firms do not look for lawyers as you might, because they retain lawyers who specialize in defending commercial vehicle firms for personal injury claims. They know all the tricks of the trade to handle the case on behalf of their employers, and investigate the scene of the accident when this happens. They are not concerned with finding out the truth; their purpose is merely to build a case against the victim before they decide to engage a lawyer. The longer you wait to engage a lawyer; more behind your lawyer is going to be.
Self Insured Commercial Vehicle Firms
Some firms guard against commercial vehicle accidents by setting aside a portion of their assets, rather than subscribe to a standard insurance policy. These firms have developed a reputation for being hard negotiators prone to undesirable behaviors. The federal government regulates the registration of insurance firms, licensing of insurance adjusters and requires them to respect certain principles. No such ethical bonds restrict these self-insured firms and seeking compensation for them may be an awful experience. By taking on a self-insured firm you won’t be dealing with the insurance adjuster, but rather an agent of the firm whose income is most probably derived from profit sharing. If the agent agrees to compensate the victim, they are literally giving you money from their own account, so be assured the agent of the firm will use any means he may to deny your lawsuit.
Self-insured firms have been known to tamper with the physical evidence, engage in witness perjury, and even intimidate and threaten victims. If a self-insured firm harasses you, contact us immediately and we may force them to deal with you in good faith.
Getting Compensation and Satisfaction for Your Commercial Vehicle Accident Injuries
You may go to jury trial or you may agree to a settlement with the insurer or the self-insured commercial vehicle firm. Below we’ll explain a bit more about these two ways to win your case.
In a settlement compromise, the plaintiff and the defendant avoid the need for a jury trial through negotiation and agreement without employing the help of a court. In a typical settlement, the defendant voluntarily agrees to pay the plaintiff a sum of money. In exchange for compensation, the plaintiff agrees not to sue the defendant in the future for more money for any other damages caused by the accident. The acceptance of a settlement offer is fair for the victim of the accident. By asking for and accepting a fair settlement offer, you usually receive your payment much faster than if you would have gone to court. Also, by accepting a settlement offer you avoid the uncertainty that is always present when you entrust your fortune to juries selected randomly.
To receive a fair settlement offer from a defendant is usually not easy and usually requires the support of a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney. Defendants know that they have no obligation to pay anything unless you win your claim in a courtroom. For this reason, they are rarely motivated to voluntarily pay unless they are nervous they will lose if they undergo a jury trial. The best way to make a defendant willing to pay is to have solid physical evidence and a commercial vehicle accident attorney with an excellent reputation on your side. The commercial vehicle accident attorneys at our Law Offices will make sure that in your claim, you have both. We have been handling these commercial vehicle accident claims for two decades and we have won favorable settlements and judgments against almost all the major insurers in the country. Insurance firms know our reputation and usually prefer settling with our clients to meet one of our commercial vehicle accident attorneys in the courtroom.
Although a fair settlement may benefit victims, bad settlements permanently deprived them of their rights, requiring that you lose your ability to prosecute the accused for what their claim is really worth. The defendants know that accident victims often face large bills and lost income. They hope to have you accept a small settlement instead of fulfilling their obligations. They will assert that their low-ball offer is all that you are entitled to, or that there will be no better settlement coming whether in jury trial or through negotiation. They will inform you their offer is all you may expect. Do not believe them. A commercial vehicle accident attorney will inform you how much money your claim is worth and they help you assess whether the defendant’s offer is fair.
You may also take your lawsuit to court. Between the plaintiff and the defendant, the task of the plaintiff is harder in jury trial. This is due to the fact that the plaintiff has the burden of proof in proceedings. They have to show that the defendant would be liable for the injuries you incurred. With this heavy burden on your shoulders, it’s rarely a good idea to represent yourself in a courtroom. Meeting your burden of proof generally requires a solid legal strategy, convincing physical evidence and a qualified commercial vehicle accident attorney. You need a solid strategy that shows the 4 parts of commercial vehicle accident claims convincingly. These 4 parts are duty, violation, cause and damages.
Proving duty is showing that the defendant in the claim has a duty, which means he has a duty to not cause harm. This obligation to protect each other is one of the basic requirements of law but the degree to which this exists depends largely on the circumstances and relationship between the parties. In most cases it’s not hard to show that defendants in a commercial vehicle accident had a duty as they are expected to act towards others as a reasonable party would, and that means avoiding causing harm. It’s likely that this “reasonable person” standard applies to the driver in your claim.
The second part of your claim is violation. You must show that the defendant has violated the obligation or duty. After you have demonstrated both duty and the violation of which have shown that the accused is guilty of negligence. Most commercial vehicle accidents involve this, if it’s shown that the driver did not take necessary precautions for safety. To establish violation, you must provide physical evidence of the defendant’s negligence.
After you have proven that the defendant behaved hazardously, you must show causation. We have seen how several parties have a role in a commercial vehicle accident on the highway and how many people may be held liable at the time an accident happens. In many cases, the defendant tries to blame other parties, or even you, saying they are not the reason that the accident happened or that their action did not cause your injuries. If you do not have enough physical evidence to show that the defendants you named in your claim caused the accident as well as your injuries, you won’t win.
After proving the defendant’s responsibility, you must show your damages. The term “damage,” means the money that defendants must pay you, not your actual injury. You may collect damages for injuries such as pain and suffering, medical costs, repair bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity and other losses you may have incurred. You must show you are entitled to that for which you ask. This requires the calculation of the total amount of your losses and providing physical evidence of your claims. Often the amount of damages in a commercial vehicle accident lawsuit is a controversial subject. Calculation of damages is often not an easy task for those who are not lawyers, and even inexperienced lawyers don’t do this correctly.
If medical treatment is ongoing, this may take some work to estimate the amount of your last medical bills, especially if you do not know the extent of your treatment and how long this will take to recover. In addition, it’s often challenging for non-lawyers to put a price on intangible losses like mental anguish or pain and suffering. Calculation of loss of earning capacity may be another obstacle for beginners. Damages for loss of earning capacity are designed to compensate the claimant for the income they won’t be able to earn in the future due to the inability to resume work after a commercial vehicle accident. Calculation of lost earning capacity is not as simple as taking the latest annual salary, multiplied by their work life expectancy. You should consider factors such as promotions and raises, which the victim would have received if he had continued working. Our commercial vehicle accident attorneys will take into account all your losses and calculate all the damages correctly. We also know what physical evidence is needed to show these enhanced damages in a courtroom.
Proving all 4 parts of commercial vehicle accident lawsuits is critical, and if you do not provide enough physical evidence for every one of those 4 parts, you lose your claim. This is one reason why it’s so important to have a knowledgeable commercial vehicle accident attorney on your side.
The Commercial Vehicle Accident Law Firm of our Law Offices Can Help You
Did You Know?
Our Texas attorneys have won hundreds of 18 wheeler accident cases. Call us today to discuss your case.
Our commercial vehicle accident attorney and his team have helped injured Texans in the settlement of claims involving commercial vehicles in Texas for two decades.
If you’ve been in an accident, we can help you seek compensation for your injuries, pain and suffering. We have won millions of dollars in compensation for hundreds of clients. If you or a family member has been involved in a commercial vehicle accident in Texas, contact us for a free consultation and learn how we can help you get back to enjoying life.
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