Houston 18-Wheeler Accident Lawyer

Attorney Michael Grossman Discusses Your Legal Options After You’ve Been in an Accident with an 18 Wheeler or Semi-Truck

The wide open spaces of the Lone Star State are crisscrossed with major and minor transportation routes for both Texans and the businesses that keep Texas humming. We’re shipping goods all over the state and to all points throughout the rest of America.

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Being the critical port that it is, Houston is a hub for shipping heavy cargo over land after they’ve been offloaded from big cargo ships. That means there seem to be as many 18-wheelers on the roads around Houston as there are cars.

With thousands of tractor trailers driving across the country in a short amount of time, and drivers logging long miles staring at the road as it passes by, accidents, injuries, and even deaths are a statistical inevitability.

If you have been injured in an 18-wheeler accident, or if a loved one was killed in a Houston semi-truck wreck, Houston 18-wheeler accident lawyer Michael Grossman is here to help you. Over the past 20 years, we have litigated hundreds of trucking accidents cases, and we empathize with the pain you have suffered. We can help. We also want to inform you of the challenges and difficulties you are facing as you seek compensation. We want you to know about the legal venues available so that you can take the right action to achieve just restitution for your 18 wheeler accident injury.

The Houston semi trailer 18 wheeler accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices would like to take some time to explain some of the basics of a semi trailer 18 wheeler accident case, such as whether you have a valid claim, the purpose of semi trailer 18 wheeler accident litigation, naming the defendants in your case, the two ways to win a claim, investigating the facts, obstacles to your claim, and why you should hire a lawyer to help you with your litigation.

Who Is At Fault for a Houston 18-Wheeler Accident?

Truckers, trucking companies, manufacturers, companies that load trucks, and companies that plan routes are only a few of the many individuals or entities which may cause a wreck. In order to hold the responsible party accountable and collect fully for your losses, it’s important to identify all of the parties who were at fault for causing your accident.

Truck Drivers

First, there are the 18-wheeler drivers themselves. Truckers are among the parties most frequently responsible for causing accidents because of the nature of most wrecks. Their actions often directly cause wrecks. Sometimes, truckers are merely careless, reckless or incompetent. They may speed, roll through stop signs, ignore traffic warnings, ignore traffic conditions, or make illegal turns.

When their own driving errors lead to accidents and injuries, the truckers themselves may be held responsible for their carelessness in a Houston personal injury civil suit. Sometimes, a tractor-trailer accident in Houston does not result from ordinary carelessness or recklessness. Truckers can cause accidents by driving without getting enough sleep. Did you know that, by law, truck drivers are required to take periodic rest breaks and keep track of their stops in records? That, combined with the tight deadlines and demands truck drivers often face, can be a recipe for disaster. Some truckers are faced with impossible deadlines or with compensation systems which value speed over proper safety precautions.

Sometimes, there is so much pressure that these drivers may skip their rest breaks and falsify their log books. This happens way too often as many lawsuits and undercover press operations have discovered. There was one study which showed that around one of every five long haul truckers admitted to having fallen asleep at the wheel at least once in the month preceding the study. Truckers who skip their breaks and spend more than eight hours at a time behind the wheel double their likelihoods of being involved in wrecks, according to studies conducted by such organizations as the National Transportation Safety Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Whether the 18 wheeler driver in your case was careless or fatigued, you may be able to name him or her as a defendant in your lawsuit if their actions can be proven to have led to your wreck.

When multiple parties contribute to causing an accident, all of them may be named as defendants in your lawsuit. Finding the right defendant or defendants is not always a simple proposition or a straightforward challenge in Texas truck accident litigation. This is because so many entities may play a role in preparing a truck to make deliveries, and there are so many people on the road.

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18-Wheeler Companies

Trucking companies may be held responsible for accidents through either direct or indirect liability. A trucking company is directly liable for causing an accident if the trucking company did something negligent which ultimately led to a wreck. If a trucking company was supposed to have kept its fleet in good working order, but failed to repair the brakes on one of its trucks, the trucking company may be able to be held directly liable for any resulting injuries.

In other instances, trucking companies do nothing wrong themselves, but may still be held indirectly liable for an accident. Employers are responsible for the on-the-job actions of their employees. This is the case even if the employer didn’t endorse the employees’ conduct. It’s the case if the employer didn’t know about the employees’ conduct, or otherwise did nothing wrong itself. In trucking accident cases, the legal doctrine of “respondeat superior” usually allows a plaintiff to hold a trucking company liable for an accident caused by a trucker.

Route-Planning Companies

Logistics companies that plan routes may also be to blame for wrecks if an 18 wheeler collides with an environmental obstacle that it didn’t have sufficient room to clear, such as a low overpass for a tall truck, or a narrow road for a wide load. The fact is that these heavy trucks can’t go on all of the roads that your car can. Weight, cargo, and height restrictions limit trucks from traveling certain bridges, tunnels, and roads. Individual truckers almost never make up their routes as they go along. If the roads that an 18 wheeler travels are unsafe for semi trailer truck traffic and an accident results, the company that planned the route may be named as a party to a lawsuit.

Cargo Loading Companies

Truck loading companies are usually different companies than the companies that own trucks, and these companies may be held responsible for accidents that result from improperly loaded, incompetently loaded, or overloaded cargo. Sometimes it’s the case that the individual responsible for loading an 18 wheeler will do a careless job, and the cargo won’t be properly secured to the trailer. Cargo can come loose during the truck’s travels and fall onto the roadways. This is a major hazard.

Truck cargo of any size that ends up lying in the middle of the road can create a serious danger for other driver. Sometimes, companies responsible for loading trucks overload trailers and that creates its own hazard. By law, most trucks may only be loaded to 80,000 pounds but many companies, however, can and do cram more than 80,000 pounds onto a trailer in order to deliver more goods without the added cost of making additional trips. They are putting money over safety because overloaded trailers have a tendency to tip over. If overloaded or improperly secured cargo resulted in your accident, the company that loaded the truck may be held responsible.

Parts Manufacturers

Sometimes, manufacturers may be liable for causing wrecks if their defective products lead to accidents. Occasionally, truck parts leave the factory with manufacturing defects or design flaws which make the parts unsafe for use. In order for a truck to operate safely, its critical components must be working properly.

For example, if a tire is defective, an 18 wheeler runs the risk of rolling over or losing control. Or, if a brake fails, it can cause a wreck. If a strap designed to hold cargo in place is flawed, cargo could fall from the trailer onto the roadway and cause the wreck or the driver to lose control. If a manufacturer’s error caused your accident, you may be able to sue the manufacturer for damages.

Should You Represent Yourself?

Sometimes self-representation is okay in a car accident. An 18 wheeler wreck is a very different thing, though. The stakes are bigger. Many other complexities pop up in truck accident cases that don’t present issues in ordinary car accident claims. Why? Because often times, there are larger amounts of damages and more money on the table. Even sophisticated and business-savvy accident victims can’t be expected to pursue their own claims, but our Houston 18-wheeler accident lawyers have seen it all before and know how to navigate these challenges. Here are just a few of the unique challenges of litigating an 18 wheeler accident claim.

High-Dollar Trucking Company Insurance Policies

The federal government requires trucking companies to purchase sizable insurance policies to protect against the inevitable accidents that occur. The insurance company is in business to make money, not help you. Trucking companies purchase high dollar insurance policies from insurance companies, but these policies are not like the policies in relation to what you know of car insurance policies. They are worth about 50 times more money than an insurance policy on a typical passenger car. In other words, insurance companies stand to lose much more money when they pay a claim under a truck insurance policy than in comparison to paying a claim for a passenger vehicle accident. Since insurance policies for 18-wheelers involve huge sums of money, the insurance company’s main focus is to keep from paying you adequately so it can retain as much profit as possible.

Experienced Trucking Accident Insurance Adjusters

Thus, they are willing to spend much more money and resources defending against paying these claims in court. They will bring to bear their very finest insurance adjusters. Anyone who has ever been involved in a car accident knows what adjusters do. They do all they can to deny your claim or offer you as little money as possible in compensation for your injuries. However, elite adjusters that handle the more expensive truck accident claims do it on a much larger and aggressive scale. They got to where they are by developing a reputation for being tough on accident victims. They intend to be tough on your claim too.

They have aggressive tactics. They will call accident victims repeatedly to ask them questions about the wreck, to discuss what seem like irrelevant details and to just “touch base.” Though their questions may appear innocent and well-intentioned on the surface, they are seldom conducted with your best interests in mind. They’re usually designed and calculated to get you to admit something that could be used against you by getting you to tell them something that could be taken out of context. They could make it sound like you’re saying that you aren’t really hurt or that you caused the accident. You can expect your words to be recorded and come back to haunt you. There’s only one good way to deal with insurance adjusters, and that’s not to deal with them at all. Instead, have your lawyer take their calls. When they can’t speak to the accident victims that we represent, they don’t even have the opportunity to ask our clients things that could be damaging to their cases.

Experienced Defense Attorneys

Moreover, these insurance companies keep aggressive defense lawyers on staff or on retainer, and call them into action as soon as a wreck occurs. They begin building a case against you even before you’ve decided whether or not to pursue a claim against them. Because they specialize in insurance defense law, these lawyers know many loopholes in the law that can be used to deny the claims of accident victims who don’t understand the law as well as they do. If you try to file a lawsuit on your own, chances are that these attorneys will be successful in having your claim dismissed on some technicality.

Investigating an 18-Wheeler Accident in Houston, TX

Then there’s the matter of evidence. As we said, they go to work gathering evidence immediately. Do most people even know what evidence would be relevant in an 18 wheeler accident case? You need to have someone examine the evidence to see if you have a case. An investigation will allow you to determine who caused your accident and if there is more than one party.

A professional investigation allows accident victims to gather the evidence that they need to prove the defendant’s liability in court. That’s how court cases work best for the plaintiff. Jurors don’t want to be told how to decide. They want to make up their own minds after seeing photographs, hearing 911 call recordings, holding bits of defective tires, seeing improper loading manifests, seeing the driver’s employment and drug test results, and otherwise evaluating evidence that you collect during your investigation. Evidence isn’t a luxury or a bonus; it’s what you’ll need to bring to court if you want to win you case and get compensated for your losses.

Many times, based on initial evidence, it won’t be obvious who was at fault for causing an 18 wheeler wreck. Many individuals on the road, including other drivers and pedestrians, may have played a role in causing a crash and they may be partially liable. In other cases that we’ve seen, the mistake which ultimately leads to an accident occurs behind the scenes as the 18 wheeler is being loaded or maintenanced. Until we conduct a thorough investigation, there’s no sure way to know who should be named as a defendant a defendant in your lawsuit.

We look for the evidence you’ll need to win your case or to make the other party offer you a settlement commensurate with your losses and damages. We are experienced at getting what is needed to convince a jury. Our professionals record measurements, take pictures, talk to witnesses, perform forensic testing, gather police reports, find video surveillance footage, examine wreckage, and collect evidence in a way that makes everything we gather for your case admissible in court.

Houston 18 wheeler accident law firm Grossman Law Offices knows how to conduct a strong investigation. They can help determine who caused your injuries and how to get the evidence you’ll need to hold all of the defendants accountable for what they’ve done. It’s standard procedure for us to visit the scene of the accident in nearly every truck accident case that we handle, no matter how far away.

Why Contacting Legal Help ASAP Can be Vital After a Texas Commercial Trucking Accident

We once had a case in which our client was being blamed for causing a collision with an 18 wheeler. The other side argued that our client was at fault for driving without headlamps installed on his vehicle. Our lawyers went to the salvage yard where our client’s car had been towed to see if there was any truth to the defendant’s story. Sure enough, our client’s car was missing its headlamps.

But we believed our client. We weren’t satisfied with what we found. So we went to the salvage yard owner for the yard’s video surveillance footage. The tapes were scheduled to be erased later that day. We got to them just in the nick of time. On the tapes, we saw that the defendant had visited the salvage yard and taken our clients’ headlamps from his car. After that, we had no trouble proving that the defendant had tampered with the evidence and that his defense was a sham.

In this case, if our client had called us even a day later, the tapes which turned out to be so critical to his case would have been destroyed. He would have certainly lost his case and someone would have gotten away with a horrible miscarriage of justice. The bottom line is it’s best to start your investigation as soon as you can. Our lawyers can usually prepare a strong case, even if we aren’t contacted until several months after an accident occurs. However, the strongest cases are usually built when we’re contacted as soon as possible. We recommend that you don’t delay in contacting a lawyer for assistance.

Another Obstacle: Trucking Companies That Are Self Insured

When seeking compensation from a self-insured trucking company, you’re likely going to benefit from the assistance we can offer. This is where you really don’t want to go it alone. If you’ve been in an accident with a trucking company that is self-insured, then instead of dealing with an insurance company, you’ll be dealing directly with a trucking company.

Some trucking companies protect against personal injuries from trucking accidents by reserving a percentage of their assets instead of purchasing a standard policy from an insurance carrier. The federal government monitors the insurance industry, licenses adjusters and holds insurance companies, to uphold certain ethical standards. No such regulations limit self-insured companies, so seeking compensation can be far more difficult.

You’ll be negotiating directly with the company’s officers if the trucking company involved in your accident was self-insured. Dealing with the officers of a self-insured trucking company can be far worse for an unrepresented plaintiff. What we’ve often seen is that the amount of an officer’s salary usually depends directly upon the self-insured trucking company’s profits. What that means is, if an officer elects to pay your claim, the chances are that his paycheck will take a direct hit. In other words, such an officer may have a vested interest in seeing your claim severely lessened or completely denied. Unlike an insurance company’s adjusters who are professionals bound by a code of ethical conduct, no such guidelines restrict the conduct of a self-insured trucking company’s officers. These people have been known to tamper with evidence, threaten accident victims, and harass witnesses in order to avoid paying claims.

What Happens When The 18 Wheeler Driver Lies?

For truckers, driving is their livelihood. If they get a reputation for accidents, negligence or incompetence, they won’t work anymore. Who would want to hire someone who has million dollar accidents? So you can bet that when there’s a wreck, many truckers who are found responsible for causing wrecks are fired. They know this. That’s why truckers will sometimes lie in order to avoid responsibility and maintain their livelihoods. In so doing, they will frequently blame accident victims like you for causing wrecks, or will look to pin blame onto any other party that may have been involved in the Houston commercial trucking accident.

You run the risk of losing your claim if the trucker in your case is lying and you can’t prove otherwise. That’s why it’s absolutely critical to be able to expose the trucker’s lies for the judge and jury. Houston 18-wheeler accident lawyer Michael Grossman at Grossman Law Offices can help you validate a truck driver’s story. We’re often able to uncover enough evidence to prove that the trucker’s story doesn’t add up. If we can find the overwhelming contradictory evidence to the trucker’s prevarication, the judge and jury are unlikely to believe the trucker. When the hard evidence isn’t enough, we use depositions to get to the truth that the trucker is trying to cover up. We’ll grill the trucker in your case to get him to come clean before your trial.

Why You Should Consider Houston Truck Accident Litigation

For starters, when you hire an attorney who brings a Houston personal injury lawsuit against a defendant in an 18 wheeler accident, it gives injured accident victims the potential to recover financially for their losses. The losses following truck accidents are frequently financial, too. Accident victims will likely face high medical bills and repair bills following a wreck. If a truck accident victim is unable to return to work while recovering from injuries, these bills can mount up due to the combination of lost wages and medical expenses. Filing a lawsuit against a defendant can help you with the financial aspects of your recovery. Getting paid by the party responsible for an accident goes a long way in helping a victim and his or her family get back on their feet again.

No one will volunteer to pay you money. If you want to recover, you’ll need to fight for your rights and you’ll need an experienced advocate on your side like Houston Texas 18-wheeler accident attorney Michael Grossman.

There’s a second reason to file suit – punishing the guilty party and ensuring that they take steps to ensure that no one else gets hurt as you and your family did. When you file a Texas personal injury lawsuit against the individual or entity that caused your accident, your injuries won’t be suffered in vain. You’ll be punishing the responsible party, and holding that party accountable for their actions. If they suffer enough in court, this may diminish the likelihood that the party will make similar mistakes that put other families in danger in the future.

Trial and settlement are the two ways you can win your claim and get compensation for your damages. While the Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code provides the right for someone who has been injured in a trucking accident or the family of someone who has been killed to seek compensation for the harm done, the law doesn’t say compensation should be handed over whenever a victim claims an injury. The plaintiff must first prove the liability of the party responsible for the accident and the injuries that were inflicted as a result of the accident.

Furthermore, the plaintiff holds the burden of proof for demonstrating that the compensation requested fairly represents the damages suffered. The insurance company will do everything it can to deny the plaintiffs claim or debate the level of restitution sought. The best way for a victim to ensure full compensation is to find assistance from a Houston 18 wheeler accident law firm with attorneys who know how to prove liability and determine equitable damages, or can work to convince the defendant to offer a fair, out-of-court settlement to the plaintiff.

In a settlement, the plaintiff and the defendant avoid the need for trial by negotiating and reaching an agreement without the assistance of a judge or jury or the cost of a trial. Usually this means the defendant voluntarily agrees to pay the plaintiff a particular sum of money and, in exchange for the money, the plaintiff promises not to sue the defendant in the future for more money for injuries that resulted from the same accident.

Accepting a good settlement offer is highly beneficial to an accident victim, but you don’t want to accept a bad settlement. When you elicit and accept a fair settlement offer, you’ll usually get your money much faster than you would have had your case gone to trial, and accepting a fair settlement offer means avoiding the uncertainty that’s always present when you entrust the fate of your claim to a panel of randomly selected jurors. But there’s a problem: getting a good settlement offer from a defendant usually isn’t easy and typically requires the assistance of an Houston 18-wheeler accident lawyer like Michael Grossman.

Defendants won’t want to pay you anything unless they know you have a sure case that will cost them more if they go to court and may stand to lose the case before a judge and jury. In addition to whatever they have to pay, they are out court costs, attorney’s fees, or other costs. Because of this, they’re rarely motivated to volunteer to pay you money in a voluntary settlement unless they’re nervous that they will lose if they face you at trial. So, naturally, the best way to make a defendant nervous is to have strong evidence and a lawyer with an excellent reputation on your side.

A fair warning though about settlements: When they’re offered before you have a lawyer, don’t even think about accepting them. The defendant in your case may try to convince you to accept a bad settlement offer, and while a good, earned settlement can benefit accident victims, bad settlements, also known as unmediated settlements, can permanently strip you of your legal rights. They require you to give up your ability to sue the defendant for what your case is really worth.

Defendants hope that you’ll accept small amounts of fast cash that they dangle in front of you in full satisfaction of their liabilities. They may claim that their offer is all that you’re entitled to or the best that you’re going to get. This is a lie perpetrated upon unsuspecting victims who are likely in need of quick cash and may be in a vulnerable position. If the defendant in your case offers you a settlement and you haven’t hired a lawyer, chances are that they’re trying to dupe you. An experienced Houston 18-wheeler accident lawyer can tell you how much your case is worth and help you evaluate whether the defendant’s offer is truly fair. Be sure you speak with a lawyer before you give up any of your legal rights.

The Trial Process for an 18-Wheeler Wreck in Houston, TX

If you go to court, the plaintiff bears the burden of proof at trial to prove that the defendant should be held responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries. If the burden of proof isn’t sufficiently met, the defendant in a case wins by default and you receive nothing. It’s this heavy burden placed on a plaintiff’s shoulders that makes it true that you don’t want to represent yourself in court under any circumstances, and this is especially true in cases as complex as truck accident litigation.

You need a strong trial strategy, a compelling body of evidence presented in a way that it won’t get thrown out, and a lawyer experienced with the tactics defense lawyers use in these kinds of truck accidents. You have to have both evidence and trial strategy that prove the four elements of a truck accident claim in a compelling way that convinces a jury and the judge.

Making Your Case in Court

In court and in a trial, we say you have to “prove” duty. Proving duty means showing that the defendant in your accident owed you some particular duty of care to act in a way that wouldn’t cause you harm. The duty of care that people owe to protect others is dictated by the law. It depends largely on the circumstances of the situation at hand and on the relationships between the parties themselves.

The second element to prove of your claim is what we call “breach.” Once you’ve proved what duty of care the defendant owed, we’ll need to show that the defendant’s conduct breached that duty of care in the accident. This is where a lot of the physical and record evidence comes into play, whether we’re talking about the trucker, the trucking company, or a third party. Now you’ll have to show that the defendant was negligent in some manner. This is an important step to proving the defendant’s liability. To prove breach, you’ll need to present evidence to the court regarding precisely what the defendant did or failed to do. Then, the jurors will decide whether the defendant’s actions were severe enough to constitute a breach of the duty of care that he owed you.

Proving the third element, causation, means proving that the defendant’s negligence was the cause of your injuries. As you saw, many parties have a hand in preparing an 18 wheeler for the road and there can be many individuals on the road at the time an accident occurs. Consequently, multiple parties may have had varying degrees of liability for a semi-truck wreck in Houston.

Finally, you must prove your damages. The term “damages” refers to the money that the defendant will pay you if you win your case before the jury and judge. You may be entitled to collect damages for injuries such as pain and suffering, medical bills, repair bills, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, and other losses you may have suffered as a result of your accident.

It isn’t enough to simply ask for reimbursement; you’ll need to prove what you’re entitled to. This involves calculating the total amount of your losses. It means bringing evidence of your injuries to court to support your calculations. The defendant will assert that your demand is an inflated sum and essentially amounts to a request for a handout. To prove the defendant’s calculations are merely last-resort attempts to avoid his legal responsibility, you need evidence to support your demands. Calculating damages is frequently no simple task for non-attorneys or even inexperienced lawyers.

Finally, it’s often a challenging task for non-attorneys to put a price tag on ambiguous intangible losses such as pain and suffering. Calculating loss of earning capacity can be another obstacle for the inexperienced. Damages for loss of earning capacity are designed to compensate a plaintiff for the wages he won’t be able to earn in the future as a result of being unable to return to his job after an accident. In the event that damages for lost earning potential are sought due to a debilitating injury, you also need to account for factors such as the time value of money and promotions and raises that the victim would have received had he been able to continue to work.

You need more than legal knowledge of trucking accident laws to succeed with trucking accident litigation. Actually, legal knowledge comprises only about 20 percent of the expertise required for success in personal injury cases. More importantly, successful litigation requires knowledge of procedure and the strategy necessary to battle the insurance companies and defense lawyers. Insurance companies will only agree to a settlement that benefits you if you are protected by an attorney with a history of success in court. Our Houston 18 wheeler accident law firm has won hundreds of cases against nearly every major insurance company in the country.

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Call Houston 18-Wheeler Accident Lawyer Michael Grossman. We Can Help.

Protect yourself and your case. You need to hire a lawyer, so he or she can begin investigating the accident scene. For every moment you wait to find representation, evidence is beginning to spoil, witnesses’ stories are changing, the scene of the accident is changing, and evidence is disappearing. The Houston 18 wheeler accident law firm of Grossman Law Offices has 20 years experience handling personal injury litigation in 18-wheeler accident cases. Call us today at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free). We can work to uncover evidence proving the liability of the truck driver, the trucking company, or any third parties involved in your Houston 18-wheeler wreck. We inspect all the vehicles involved, measure the distance from skid marks to the point of impact, hunt for photographic evidence, and catalog all the evidence we find. We take every measure to uncover any evidence that might help prove your case. With two decades of experience in helping injured victims of 18-wheeler accidents and bereaved families of fatal semi-truck wrecks in Texas, Grossman Law Offices has the experience, knowledge, and reputation that can help you and your family through this difficult time toward a better tomorrow.

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