Birmingham Injury Blog

The Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article about how trucking companies adding a "black box" to their trucks to record things like speed, location, and movement -basically to make sure the driver is where they're supposed to be- can come back to haunt the trucking company if one of their vehicles is involved in an accident.

John Bratt, writer of the article, discusses the impact of the black box in a recent case he was involved in over a Maryland trucking accident. He says that, like all experienced lawyers who deal with trucking accidents, he requested the vehicle data recorder information. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that factors like the risk factors like the truck's speed, vehicle load and how the load affected the truck's ability to stop is relevant information to the case.

Amazingly, the request for the truck's black box was denied because the defense's lawyer felt that it was "overly broad, unduly burdensome and seeks to discover information not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence."

This is as absurd as arguing that a video of the accident isn't relevant...there can't be anything more relevant in a truck accident trial than the "vehicle movement data."

The Indiana Injury Law Blog has posted an article that discusses a new regulation that would require truckers to drive for less than eleven consecutive hours, the current time limit.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working to produce an official plan to reduce the number of hours truckers can drive, but likely won't have results for around nine months. Previously, truckers were limited to ten hours of driving time per day, so it would seem likely the FMCSA would revert back to that.

At first it may not seem that a single hour can make a significant difference, but trucker fatigue accounts for a large number of traffic accidents.

Every year, thousands of truck accidents can be traced to tired, drowsy truckers, fatigued from too many hours spent on the job...Dealing with trucker fatigue is an important part of reducing accident fatality rates, and setting lower maximum working hours for truckers is an important part of those efforts.

An eleven hour day would certainly make sense from an economic standpoint, but the pressure truckers are under to make timed deliveries combined with fatigue can often lead to serious accidents.

Profits for the trucking industry must not be allowed to take precedence over the safety of motorists and truck drivers.

The Alabama Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article about the settlement in a wrongful death case brought against a trucking company. A Chilton county man was killed in a car accident in January 2008 because of a logging truck's negligence.

James Sanderson was stopped behind two vehicles in a left hand turning lane, a logging truck was directly in front of him. He was then rear-ended by another log truck that was speeding. The collision forced Sanderson's van forward into the first log truck. A log came through the windshield and caused a "traumatic head injury" to Sanderson.

The case was brought to trial and the plaintiff was able to prove that Gary Fruge's, driver of the second truck, speeding and faulty brakes were the causes of the fatal accident.

Apparently proving that the trucking company had failed to properly maintain their vehicle, the jury fined both Fruge and the company for whom he was driving. The lawyer for the Sanderson family produced experts who testified that Fruge was traveling well in excess of the posted 50mph speed limit.
The Sandersons' attorney argued that Fruge had about one thousand feet in which to bring his truck to a full stop. From the evidence, experts testified that the truck must have been travelling around 65-75mph for Fruge to have applied the brakes and still strike the victim’s van with sufficient force to cause the resulting damage and fatal injuries. Experts showed that if Fruge been going 45mph, he would have been able to stop within 360 feet after first application of the truck's brakes.

The jury agreed and ruled Gary Fruge and the Gorum Trucking company responsible for Sanderson's death. His surviving widow and three children were awarded a $3.5 million settlement in July of this year.

The Alabama Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article about a native Alabama trucker who caused a crash in Missouri that killed 3 people last July.

The driver, Jeffery Knight, reached to get his cell phone, flipped it open quickly and looked back up to see a car stopped in front of him without brake lights or flashers.

highway patrol report quotes Knight as saying, "I reached across the dash to get my cell phone. I flipped the phone open, looked back at traffic, and I was there right at the last car (in the line of cars stuck in traffic). I didn't see any brake lights or emergency flashers. After I hit the first car, I just remember holding the steering wheel and seeing cars going to my left and right."

He collided with a line of 10 cars stopped because of traffic, killing 3 and injuring 15. Knight, who previously had a clean driving record, was convicted on April 8 with 3 counts of second degree involuntary manslaughter

...which alleges that the deaths resulted from "criminal negligence." According to authorities, each count is punishable by up to four years in prison.

The Chicago Personal Injury Blog has posted an article that discusses the use an Engine Control Module (ECM), or "black box", can play in determining the details of a truck wreck.

ECMs typically monitor engine performance, evidence of hard braking and clutch use, but some of the newer models can monitor things like driver fatigue and keep track of vehicles that may be in a driver's blind spot.

However, because not all trucks have the same type of information it is important to find out what sort of data is available. In order to determine whether or not a truck is equipped with an ECM, refer to the vehicle’s “line sheet” or “build sheets” which identify all the equipment on the tractor when it was delivered from its manufacturer.

To be useful, the ECM information must be accessed as soon as after the crash as possible so that

...the data found on the ECM can be used by experts to reconstruct the accident, the scene, and different versions of the trucking crash as given by the different drivers and witnesses.

The Chicago Personal Injury Blog has posted an article about unqualified drivers obtaining licenses to drive trucks, buses, and other large vehicles.

Testing methods to get licenses to operate large vehicles vary in different states. Some states have more rigorous procedures than others. For example, Illinois is just 1 of 12 states that require the driver to test in the type of vehicle they will be operating.

The Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 (CMVSA) was designed to keep drivers from having a commercial license in more than one state. At least this would keep unqualified drivers confined to the state that their license was issued.

The CMVSA is also cracking down on the past practice among some unqualified drivers who had multiple licenses from different states to spread around their traffic convictions using different licenses from different states. A new system allows states to exchange information on traffic violations, making it easier to remove problem drivers from the road. In addition, truck drivers who violate the law are subject to tougher penalties.

The Georgia Injury Law Blog has posted an article that brings to light the problem of medically unfit truck drivers. By law, truckers are required to have a medical certificate that states they are medically sound to operate a truck. However, these are easily (and often) faked. Blank certificates are available from a government website, so all the driver has to do is print it and proceed to fill it out.

According to trucker health experts, drivers who work long hours, sleep little, eat possibly unhealthy and high fat food during their meal breaks and spend lonely hours from their families are more likely to be at risk for lifestyle dieses like heart disease. Besides cardiac diseases, truckers also suffer from neurological disorders and sleep apnea, a condition in which there are frequent disturbances in sleep. People who suffer from sleep apnea are more likely to be tired and fatigued the next day, and consequently, nod off at the wheel.

There are roughly 560,000 truckers who are receiving medical disability payments, yet still retain commercial trucking licenses. This means they are not fit to operate the vehicle, but possibly still are.

However by 2012, the government hopes to have a national database of truckers up that will file medical certificates and also enable examiners to file their findings. Hopefully this will help to control the dangerous problem of unfit truck drivers.

The Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog has a blog post that discusses the dangers of trucks on the road. According to this post, nearly 4,000 accidents have occurred in Tennessee that resulted in "serious bodily injury or death" to the people in the other vehicle because of trucks.

The blog post has these suggestions to keep in mind when driving near trucks:

Truckers Have Large Blind spots. Truckers have gaping blind spots around the front, back, and sides of the truck. When cars are in these blind spots, the trucker can’t see them. Truckers Make Wide turns. Truckers often have to swing wide to the left to make a right turn. If a car attempts to go between the truck and the curb, the driver may get squeezed by the tractor-trailer. Truckers Require Longer Stopping Distances. If there is a sudden stop on the highway, tractor-trailers may not have enough stopping distance to prevent a rear-end collision due to their heavier weight.

Some factors that contribute to truck accidents are also included:

Driver fatigue, long hours and unrealistic schedules. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blames driver fatigue as a probable factor in 20 to 40% of truck crashes. • Intoxicated driving. The NTSB recently reported that one or more drugs was detected in 67% of fatally injured truck drivers. • Driver error. When operators fail to adhere to speed limits set for trucks, the likelihood of a jackknife or rollover significantly increases. • Substandard inspection. According to the FMCSA, there were over 2 million roadside inspection violations last year alone.

We should certainly let this serve as a reminder to be extra careful when driving near trucks!

Matt Elofson of the Dothan Eagle reported recently that the fatalities in Alabama due to car and truck wrecks has declined:

Alabama Governor Bob Riley said last month in a statement that early numbers showed about a 17 percent decrease in fatal crashes across Alabama over the same period. Riley said 2008 became the safest year to travel in more than two decades with 633 people killed during traffic crashes investigated by state troopers. There were 766 people killed in 2007 on Alabama highways investigated by state troopers.
According to a statement from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, early estimates showed fatalities across the country to have dropped by about 10 percent in 2008. Those estimates showed 31,110 people died on the nation’s roads from January to October 2008, compared to 34,502 in 2007, during that same 10-month time period.

There are several reasons given for this - higher gas prices and a crackdown on speeding and not wearing seat belts.

Its obvious but when we don't speed and when we wear our seat belts, fewer fatalities happen.

Let's all put into practice what we know and drive safer while wearing our seat-belts.

(Thanks to the Alabama Injury Attorney Blog for alerting us to this interesting article).

It is typical in a car wreck or truck crash case for both sides to send each other interrogatories in the discovery process. This process is where both sides gain information and documents to help each side understand the facts and positions of each party in the case.

Interrogatories are commonly used. These are written questions that the other party must answer in writing under oath. They can range from the simple ("State your name, address, date of birth") to the more complicated ("State everything you did as soon as you realized you were losing control of your truck on Interstate 20 in Birmingham").

The idea of interrogatories is that it allows each party, in an inexpensive way, to question the other party. On purpose of questioning the other party is to find out facts - such as "Did you consume any alcoholic beverages in the 24 hours before the wreck". Another purpose is to find out the position of the other party - such as "Do you contend that the actions of any other driver contributed to the wreck".

When we can find out the answers to these types of questions in written interrogatories it may allow us to not have to take depositions of certain people or to shorten the depositions we do take.

It is very important that we answer interrogatories in a timely manner (30 days) and we provide full responses to the questions asked. These are questions under oath and they can be used against the answering party in the trial of the case and in pre-trial motions for summary judgment. Sometimes people answer these questions in a careless manner but we have seen poorly answered interrogatories greatly impact the way a trial proceeds. If they are answered in one way and then in deposition the party answers the same type of question in a different way, this can impact credibility. So, take these very seriously as they are important to your car wreck or truck wreck case.

Please let us know if you have any questions about interrogatories and we hope that as you are reading this you have a wonderful day....

Contributory negligence is a favorite defense of nearly every defense lawyer who represents a car wreck defendant or a trucking defendant. It is a defense which if successful means that your case is over against that particular defendant. Only a couple of states have contributory negligence, and you guessed it, Alabama is one of them....

The basic idea is if you are even 1% at fault and the defendant is 99% at fault, you lose. You recover nothing. In most states there is a reduction of the award by the percentage you are at fault (and maybe at 50% there is no recovery) but in Alabama it is all or nothing.

This means that at the outset of the case and all through the case we must carefully consider all angles that the defendant will argue that you were even slightly at fault. This is yet another reason why it is so important to tell us (or whoever you hire to handle your car wreck or truck wreck case) all the facts and details so we can present your claim in the best possible manner.

While we are not fans of this law, it is the law so we deal with it the best way we can. There are strategies to use this law to our advantage in trying the case but those are beyond the scope of this introductory overview on contributory negligence.

Please contact us through this blog if you have any questions or comments.

The Wichita Eagle newspaper reports that last month a $23.5 million verdict was awarded to a man with a severe spinal injury due to the negligence of a truck driver who tested positive for methamphetamine. The injured man had $5 million in medical bills.

I'm sure he would gladly trade all the money to have his health back but since we can't turn back the hands of time it is nice to know that juries appreciate the severity of injuries and are willing to fairly compensate victims of any type of negligence, including negligence of a few bad truck drivers who give the vast majority of honest competent truck drivers a bad name....

Vicarious liability often comes up in lawsuits in Alabama, particularly against trucking companies. We are often asked by clients who have done some research before hiring a lawyer what this term means in general and what it means for their case in particular.

The simplest meaning of vicarious liability (or also known as "respondeat superior") is that one person (the master or principal) is held legally responsible for the tort or wrongful act of another (the servant or agent). We will discuss in another blog post the idea of "negligent entrustment" which is another manner in which one person can be held legally liable or legally responsible for the wrongful acts of another but generally vicarious liability is how this occurs.

While there are certainly exceptions to this the basic gist is that an employer or principal has hired an employee or agent and if that employee or agent commits a tort while working for the employer or principal, then the employer or principal is liable. So, if a truck driver runs a red light while driving for FedEx, for example, then FedEx is responsible for that wrongful conduct. It doesn't normally matter if FedEx tells its drivers not to run red lights. It doesn't matter because FedEx is getting the benefit of having its employees act on its behalf and it must compensate those Alabama residents who are injured by the negligence of FedEx employees.

The test is whether the employee or agent or servant was "acting in the line and scope of his or her employment (or agency)". If so, then normally the employer or principal is liable. If not, then there is normally no liability.

Anytime someone in Alabama has been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck, we always want to know if the person who was negligent was "on the job" or running an errand for somebody else as that other person or company may be responsible. This is critically important as often times the negligent person does not have insurance or only has the minimum amount ($25,000) but the principal or employer may have enough to fully compensate our injured client.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this or your particular situation if you do not already have a lawyer.

We have handled a number of trucking cases and many involve truckers who seem to suffer from a dangerous condition called sleep apnea. When you combine falling asleep with a huge semi truck this can and has proved deadly in many truck wrecks which have devastated the lives of people in Alabama and across the country.

We were pleased to see a blog post from Ken Shigley about a proposal to test at risk truckers for sleep apnea. Hopefully this will help detect problems and allow truckers and their employers to safeguard not only the truckers but the innocent drivers of cars who share the roads with truckers.

If you have any questions about a truck wreck or automobile accident, please feel free to contact us.

One thing that is often surprising to our clients when they have been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck is that the health insurance company (BlueCross BlueShield, United, etc.) which has paid for medical treatment often has the right to recover the amount of money that it spent on medical treatment. This right is called a "subrogation" right, which means that the health insurance company can “stand in the shoes” of the injured person and recover its money from the wrongdoer.

When a health insurance company pays medical bills, it normally does not pay dollar-for-dollar but instead pays a percentage. It is that lesser percentage (for example $200.00 on a $1000.00 bill) that must be reimbursed. Normally, the health insurance company will negotiate with the injured person and will reduce the amount that it claims as subrogation by the amount of the attorney’s fee being paid by the injured person to his or her attorney. This makes sense as the injured person has hired an attorney to create a “pool” of money from which the health insurance company is reaching into and drawing from. So the health insurance company should have to pay its share of the attorney’s fee to create that. This has the effect of lowering the amount that the injured person must pay back to the health insurance company.

The law changed a number of years ago so that the Jury can now hear that the injured person has health insurance and how much the health insurance company actually paid. We will address this in a separate blog post, but we did want to alert you to this fact and to be watching for this blog post from us.

If you have been injured in a car wreck or truck wreck and would like to talk to us, we are always happy to schedule a free consultation with you.

“Adding insult to injury” – that is what it is like to be crashed into in a car or truck wreck and have medical bills that are turned over to a debt collector or a collection law-firm. If you are dealing with collectors because of your injuries in an automobile crash, we hope this blog post will be of some assistance.

Why am I getting collection notices? It could be your health insurance company is not paying the bills as quickly as they should. It could be that you have no health insurance or it excludes bills for car wrecks. Remember you may have “medical payments” insurance on your car insurance that would pay for some of the bills. But ultimately the insurance company for the driver who is at fault should pay – but this rarely happens until the whole case is settled. This is because the insurance company wants to use leverage and pressure from collection agencies and collection law-firms to force you into a settlement for less than you should – just to get these collectors off your back.

Every situation is different but remember that collectors, whether lawyers or non lawyers, cannot harass you. On our consumer blog – Alabama Consumer Law Blog – we have several articles about dealing with collectors that might be of interest to you:

When Can An Alabama Consumer Sue A Debt Collector - Part II?
Should An Alabama Consumer Contact A Consumer Lawyer When First Contacted By A Debt Collector?
Collection Letters Are Often Illegal In Alabama

We wish you the best of luck and please contact us if you have questions about harassing debt collectors or about your car wreck if you are not already represented by a lawyer.

Mark Zamora, who also graduated from the Cumberland School of Law like we did, has an excellent set of request for production of documents for use in a truck wreck case. While each case is different, this is a good starting point for lawyers handling truck wreck cases. We commend it to your good use.

As you know, we highly recommend Ken Shigley's blog - one reason is the depth and variety of posts he has including a nice variety of videos. One new video he has involves a YouTube video of a bobtail tractor (just the truck part without the trailer) skidding on wet pavement. Its interesting, particularly if you are looking at a truck case. Here is the video:

Over the years we have handled numerous trucking cases but what is shown in this excellent video which Ken Shigley has posted about is not something we have seen in video form. It shows what happens to a vehicle that strikes a truck from the side and then what happens when the truck is equipped with safety devices to minimize the harm to the vehicle's driver. First, though, the video shows a rear impact with and without the safety devices. Take a look at the video:

This video makes it very easy to see why truck wrecks so often result in the death of the driver of the car even if the truck is not moving. Be careful out on the roads since we don't (for some reason) have the same safety devices as other countries on our trucks.

Thanks to Ken Shigley of the excellent Atlanta Injury Law Blog who alerted us to this fascinating link of a video of a truck jack-knifing, hitting a vehicle, and ending up in flames. This graphically illustrates why truck wrecks can happen so fast and be so deadly.

If you have any questions about a truck wreck, please feel free to fill out the "Contact Us" to the left and one of our attorneys will personally respond to you.