Matt’s Monthly Minute

This month's "Monthly Minute" discusses the complexities of wrecks involving commercial motor carriers.

According to data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), approximately 500,000 truck wrecks occur every year in the United States. About 5,000 of these wrecks result in fatalities. Statistics show that one out of every eight traffic deaths involve a commercial truck.

Wrecks involving commercial motor carriers cannot be handled in the same way as a generic automobile case. There are complex federal regulations, multiple potential parties who may bear responsibility, product liability issues, and insurance questions which are specific to commercial motor carriers and wrecks with commercial trucks. This area of law is a minefield for the injured person and for the attorney who is inexperienced in commercial carrier litigation.

By way of example, consider the following list of potential parties who may be liable for a truck driver’s negligence or who may be independently liable for their own negligence:

 - Driver
 - Tractor owner
 - Tractor permanent and/or trip lessee
 - Trailer owner
 - Trailer lessees
 - Employer for vicarious liability
 - Employer for its own negligence
 - Shipper or freight broker
 - Manufacturer
 - Maintenance company
 - Physician who performed DOT physical
 - Party or parties who loaded trailer

Common theories of liability impacting commercial truck wrecks include the following:

 - Negligence
 - Vicarious liability such as from respondeat superior
 - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation violations
 - Joint venture
 - Negligent hiring, training, supervision or control
 - Negligent entrustment
 - Improper loading
 - Failure to provide safe work place
 - Agency
 - Borrowed employee
 - Conspiracy
 - Product liability (brakes, tire failure, rim failures, etc.)
 - Inadequate lighting
 - Driver fatigue

In addition to damages to compensate a person who has been injured, or the family of a person who has been killed, commercial truck wrecks frequently warrant punitive damage claims. Punitive damages may be awarded in addition to compensatory damages when a person or company has behaved in a reckless, wilful, wanton, or grossly negligent manner. Punitive damages are designed to punish a wrongdoer for his conduct and to deter others from doing the same thing.

In trucking cases punitive damages may be appropriate when there is evidence of negligent hiring, retention, supervision, or entrustment; the intentional use of unsafe or broken equipment; allowing or requiring a driver to drive while fatigued; requiring a driver to falsify log books; not properly monitoring hours of service compliance; overloading a trailer; ignoring driver complaints about safety or maintenance issues; driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol; falsifying medical history information to get a DOT medical card; stopping the truck in a lane of travel; allowing the driver to use a radar detector; etc.

Wrecks involving commercial trucks should always be carefully investigated to determine the underlying cause of a collision, and only after a thorough investigation should there be any discussion about settlement. If there is evidence to support a punitive damage claim you owe it to yourself, your family, and the public at large to pursue the responsible parties and put an end to the reckless or wilful conduct.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a truck wreck, call us today. Let us answer your questions and help you take the first step towards justice.

- Matthew L. Bretz