Houston 18-Wheeler Attorney

Do You Understand Liability Issues When You are Hurt in a Trucking Accident in Houston?

In Texas, and especially in and around Houston, we have a lot of modern highways and multi-lane freeways. A lot of 18-wheelers use those highways, tens of thousands of them at least.

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They haul all types of goods to all parts of the state and country. Because Houston has the highest concentration of refineries in the U.S., a large percentage of them are filled with all kinds of highly flammable petrochemicals and fuels.

Although nine out of ten truckers are never a problem for Texas drivers, what about the remaining 10 percent? Just how good is that driver? How safe is the load they carry? How safe is the 18-wheeler itself? Does it even belong on the road? It’s no wonder you may feel a bit uneasy when an 18-wheeler pulls alongside you at 70 miles an hour on a crowded freeway. This is why accidents, injuries and even deaths are a near statistical inevitability when 18-wheelers are on the road in and around Houston and other communities along the Gulf coast.

If you have been injured in a big rig accident or if a loved one was injured or killed in one, a Houston 18-wheeler attorney at Grossman Law Offices stands ready to help you. We continue to win many judgments for our clients and have litigated hundreds of trucking accidents cases during our 20-plus years of service to injury victims. We understand the pain you suffer and the financial weight you may bear after being involved in one of these horrible accidents.

In spite of your ability to recover from your injuries, your troubles are likely far from over. The difficulties you face in your quest to seek fair compensation for your injuries can be just as arduous as the physical injuries and pain you now suffer from the accident itself. Fighting for a fair settlement, even going to court to secure a fair injury award, often creates even more emotional stress and extends your fiscal problems. This is why we feel it is so important for you to know every one of the legal avenues available so that you can take the right action to win a just and fair restitution for your injuries, pain and suffering, and lost income.

Who Owes You Damages For Your Injuries and Pain From a Houston 18-Wheeler Wreck?

If you have been hurt in an 18-wheeler accident, the first thing you must find out is whose fault it is in order to determine who is legally liable for injuries you suffered and your property damage. In a lot of 18-wheeler accidents, many parties may share liability for damages. As often as not, there is more than one defendant. A legal notion in Texas law called “respondent superior” states that employers of those determined to be liable for the wreck their employee causes can be held responsible for the action or inaction of their employee.

In a claim involving an 18-wheeler, a combination of a number of different parties can be responsible, and subsequently held liable for the wreck. This includes the trucker, the company he or she works for, the company that loaded the trailer, the person who planned the truck’s route, and by connection to any responsible party, the insurance company who insured those who are liable.

Another source of liability is relatively new. Over the past few years, with the state outsourcing a lot of road maintenance duties, as well as highway construction to private industry, if a privately-owned company is performing road construction or maintenance and creates hazardous road conditions that cause an 18-wheeler accident in which you are the victim, these companies may also be held liable for a portion, or maybe all, of the liability arising from the accident. All private companies retained by the state to build and maintain Texas roads must document that they are properly insured, or provide a very large liability through a bond.

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To win your claim among a surplus of potential defendants, you need an experienced Houston 18-wheeler attorney on your side that also has the ability to investigate the scene of an accident to discover who is liable. Naturally, local or state law enforcement agencies investigate all 18-wheeler accidents. In some instances, so does the US Department of Transportation (DOT), especially if a repeat offender of their statutes and laws governing interstate transportation is involved.

Many times those investigations only reveal the primary responsible parties such as the drivers or the company that owns the rig if the 18-wheeler has bad brakes or some other safety violation. But such investigations often fall short of identifying all underlying causes for the 18 wheeler accident, which often reveals every liable party who may have escaped criminal detection. Experienced 18 wheeler accident lawyers and their investigators are the ones who conduct these thoroughly stringent inquiries to identify everyone who is liable. They know how to determine the degree of each responsible party in every 18 wheeler accident. Occasionally our investigations reveal additional criminal facts of the accident that law officials miss. We pass them along to the appropriate agencies for further discretionary action.

When you are injured in an 18 wheeler accident, your attorney must determine whether the negligent truck driver caused the wreck, if someone else played an important part, or if a mechanical malfunction might be responsible. What if the company that owned the cargo failed to correctly load it or didn’t safely secure the cargo which caused it to break free during transport and topple the trailer? Or, did the route planner negligently send the truck into an area not properly zoned for 18-wheelers? Or maybe flammable chemicals were loaded inside a tanker not rated to carry such dangerous materials and suddenly, unexpectedly exploded, seriously injuring you as you drove alongside it on an inner Houston freeway. Remember the ammonia tanker that unexpectedly exploded at the Southwest Freeway/610 interchange some years ago where hundreds were hurt when they drove through the ammonia cloud?

It is rarely easy to determine immediate fault in an 18-wheeler accident. This is why you benefit in many ways through the experience of a Texas truck accident lawyer who will make sure that every liable party who is responsible for an 18 wheeler accident in Houston is held responsible for your injuries, along with the damage to your vehicle, its passengers and other contents.

What Happens if I Choose to Deal With an Insurance Company Myself and Don’t Hire an Experienced Attorney?

A non-attorney has a very hard time accumulating all the knowledge required to effectively negotiate a fair settlement with insurance companies, or successfully represent him or herself in court. Representing yourself is possible, but winning is a very long shot. Litigation in 18 wheeler accident-related injury cases is extremely complex. Inexperienced attorneys have only a slightly better chance than you alone of recovering any reasonable compensation. So why would you even entertain such a foolish idea, especially when tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the table? Would you fix your own pipes or build your own house on a vacant lot you purchased? You likely wouldn’t, and this is one of the reasons why you need the legal experience and investigative power of an attorney to represent your personal injury case from an 18 wheeler accident

Everyone has heard the old adage about the law: "Those who represent themselves have a fool for a client," but it’s doubly disastrous in any personal injury case, especially one involving an 18-wheeler because the laws and procedures involved are so complex, and the playing field is often tilted in the favor of the trucking companies, their insurance providers and attorneys. Those who oppose you have deep pockets and years of experience at winning these kinds of cases. You need much more than general knowledge of the law to succeed in trucking accident litigation.

Here’s a little secret that few non-lawyers know. Legal knowledge doesn’t make up a third of all the necessary elements for success in personal injury cases. Successful litigation requires thorough knowledge of civil procedure and the ability to develop the perfect strategy necessary to battle the insurance companies and their defense lawyers. Legal novices, by their very definition, don’t have that. Your opponents respect doesn’t hurt either. This is why an experienced and highly regarded, respected Houston 18-wheeler attorney who has spent years taking on the insurance companies and their lawyers, and beaten them, is a powerful weapon in your fight for just compensation.

Also, if you have a relative or friend who is a lawyer, even though he or she might be looking out for your best interests and might be inspired to fight hard for your rights when an 18-wheeler accident has befallen you, often, that person might have a difficult time disassociating him or herself emotionally from issues surrounding your case. Personal injury law is often quite intense. A specialized 18 wheeler attorney must be pragmatic, focus solely on the facts of a case and be very cool under fire if you are to be successful. What happens if that friend or relative attorney doesn’t win the case, or accepts a less-than-fair settlement because he knows how badly you need the money now? How will you feel about your friend of relative then? Keep your family members and friends out of your legal business. You will be very wise to remember this when deciding who will represent your 18 wheeler liability lawsuit to your greatest benefit.

Insurance Companies Are Great at Playing the Game of “No”

The federal government requires trucking companies to purchase sizable insurance policies to protect against accidents that occur. You may hold the misguided belief that the trucking insurance compensation process is quick and relative free of surprises so all you have to do is file a claim and wait for that inevitable, and generous, compensatory check.

This is an unlikely scenario. All insurance companies are in the business of taking in premiums and paying out as little as absolutely necessary in claims. Since insurance policies for 18-wheelers involve huge sums of money, much greater than your personal car insurance coverage, the insurance company’s only mission is to keep from paying you fairly, and increase its high profits. So it comes as no surprise that insurance companies deny every claim possible, whenever possible and for as long as possible. They do this by habit. Without the right attorney on your side, collecting a fair settlement from an insurance company is anything but foolproof.

While the Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code grants the right for anyone who has been injured in an 18 wheeler accident, or the family of one who was killed to be compensated for the harm done, to seek compensation, the law doesn’t say reimbursement is automatically granted when a victim claims an injury or loss. This is the dirty little secret that insurance companies don’t want you to know until you find out the hard way by having to deal with an out-of-hand denial by an insurer.

You, as plaintiff, must first prove the liability of the party responsible for the accident and the injuries you suffered from that accident. Furthermore, in any liability case, the plaintiff holds the burden of proof. You must clearly show that the money you’re asking for fairly reflects the loss you’ve experienced from those damages and injuries. The insurance company and the lawyers who represent them does everything possible to deny a plaintiff’s claim or argue that the level of restitution you seek is excessive and unreasonable.

The Seedy Side of an Insurance Company: Adjusters Who are Not to be Trusted

Insurance adjusters are often just as dangerous to an accident victim as the defense lawyers who represent their companies. Their goal is to help their employer, not you, plain and simple. They are interested solely in saving their companies money by denying your claim or underestimating the cost of the accident. An adjuster may act like your best friend and constantly assures you that all of your needs are met. Insurance adjusters are very clever. They know you probably have a good relationship with your car insurance agent. So they imitate your “good neighbor” auto agent and ease you into a false sense of security. Often they might innocently try and record you saying something that is later twisted into sounding like your admitting liability and destroy your chance to receive fair, or any, compensation. The trucking company’s insurance adjuster gets paid to deny or hinder your claim. Remember, insurance companies are in business for themselves, not you. Some unscrupulous adjusters even convince uninformed personal injury victims, often deceptively, to sign away the legal right to sue in exchange for a small settlement that never comes close to compensating the victim’s injuries or other losses from an 18 wheeler accident.

Corporate insurance adjusters and defense lawyers love nothing more than to find a victim who tries to represent his or herself. They know how easy it is to lead a novice around by the nose. The behavior of insurance adjusters alone should be proof-enough of why you need an aggressive 18 wheeler accident lawyer who knows how to combat the tactics of the insurance companies and win your fair settlement. Only the history of success of an experienced Houston 18-wheeler attorney with Grossman Law Offices will combat unscrupulous insurance adjusters and frighten their insurance company employers into a fair settlement, or beat them in court if they don’t.

Insurance companies are even prepared to fight injury claims before the accidents even occur. They have experienced attorneys on staff, or permanent retainer. They’re just waiting to take on personal injury claims. They specialize in cases like yours and know every trick to tilt the case in favor of their insurance company employers. Insurance defense lawyers race to the scene of an accident as soon as it happens and begin investigating to build a case against you while you are still deciding whether or not you even need to hire a lawyer. If you have been injured in an accident involving an 18-wheeler, you mustn’t hesitate in finding a Texas 18 wheeler accident law firm to help you. You only get one bite at the apple, and once it’s lost, there are no do-overs.

Don’t Make the Fatal Mistake of Trusting a Trucker in an 18 Wheeler Accident

With so much at stake, chances are you cannot trust the truck driver to tell the truth if he or she causes an expensive accident. If truck drivers are found to be liable for an accident, not only will they be fired, it could become very difficult for them to land a new job after costing his or her previous employer enormous damages due to his or her negligence. Sometimes trucking companies will make the driver the “fall guy” and fire him outright. Then they cover themselves of true responsibility, or their negligence that caused the accident.

If this isn’t the driver’s first wreck behind the wheel of an 18 wheeler, it’s possible to lose either his state trucking drivers license, or his DOT certification, which means the (former) truck driver has to find a new line of work. With the high unemployment rates in the United States, the temptation for that driver to lie, cheat or behave dishonestly to save their job is too great since that driver now risks losing the paycheck that supports his or her family.

After suffering an injury in an 18 wheeler accident in which the driver of the truck claimed that our client was driving with his lights off at night, our investigators quickly examined the scene. They discovered a security camera outside a convenience store that was pointed directly its parking lot and the accident scene behind it. The video clearly showed our client’s headlights shining brightly. We proved that the truck driver boldly lied. Witnesses and defendants can lie and or callously misrepresent critical facts in trucking accident cases. The lawyers with Grossman Law Offices know how to uncover the lies, and counter them with the truth to stop witness misrepresentations. Over the past 20 years, we have conducted hundreds of 18-wheeler accident investigations to get to the bottom of the case, and won for our clients’ fair and just compensation by shining the light on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Self-Insured Truck Companies Represent a Sinister Threat to Your Just Compensation

Some trucking companies protect against personal injuries from accidents by reserving a percentage of their assets to pay accident claims, instead of purchasing a coverage policy from an insurance carrier. And though federal and state governments monitor the insurance industry, licenses adjusters and hold insurance companies to ethical standards as best it can, no such regulations exist for self-insured trucking companies. Seeking compensation from these “self-insured” firms, or self-insured independent truckers, can be far more difficult, and as chaotic, as finding justice in the Old West.

You will pursue settlement with an officer of the company, not an insurance adjuster. This company officer’s salary is typically tied directly to company profits. Any amount paid to you for an injury comes directly out of the company coffers, which means that when the company’s officer compensates you, he or she is literally taking money out of their own pocket. This is why we’re not surprised when a self-insured company officer stoops to any means to deny your claim, which protects the company’s assets. Self-insured companies (as well as independent truckers) have been known to willfully destroy damning evidence, bribe witnesses, and even intimidate their victims, sometimes physically. There have been times when those intimidation attempts were directed at our clients. This is why every time our attorneys are hired against a liable self-insured party; the first action we take is to prevent anyone with the company from behaving unsuitably toward our clients. Often, we are forced to demand that they completely refrain from communicating with our clients unless one of our attorneys is present.

Your Best Chance After an 18 Wheeler Accident is With Experience on Your Side

Only after trying hundreds of cases can a lawyer learn the intricacies of developing the right tactics for success at trial or in negotiations with insurance companies in an 18 wheeler accident. Most people, and many inexperienced attorneys, don’t know the proper way to answer interrogatories, prepare demand packets, and conduct sophisticated depositions which get to the bottom of liability for the accident that caused your injuries and pain. Experienced attorneys know how to conduct sophisticated accident investigations or respond to lists of admissions. You need somebody who knows how to do all of this, and forcefully represent your interests.

Insurance companies only agree to fair settlements if you are protected by an attorney with a history of success in court. While insurance companies and their lawyers are eager to take on non-lawyers and inexperienced attorneys, they fear us. When we file a claim, the insurance companies usually see the wisdom of settling with our clients for a fair amount. They want to avoid a trial, especially if they know you have a strong case. And from a fair settlement, our clients can resume living their lives again because we’ve negotiated that compensation on their behalf.

What Should You Do Now?

You need to take steps to preserve the evidence in your case now, and to act quickly. You must hire a lawyer to begin investigating the accident scene immediately. Every moment that you wait, evidence is becoming stale, witnesses’ memories fade, or their stories’ can “mysteriously” change. The accident scene also becomes altered either by the passing of time, or because your opponents do it themselves. Physical evidence that proves your case also might begin to “mysteriously” disappear. As soon as we are hired, Grossman Law Offices begins a thorough investigation of the accident scene to uncover the right evidence that proves liability of the truck driver, the trucking company and any other third-parties. We inspect all the vehicles involved, clearly survey the accident scene, measure distances, hunt for photographic and video evidence and assemble it all to clearly prove your case. We leave no stone unturned to uncover all the evidence that proves your claim beyond reproach.

For example, we were once hired by the families of two men who were involved in a terrible accident with a big rig. After the initial accident, the truck’s trailer was stretched across the unlit road on a moonless night. Only the taillights of the trailer hear the shoulder of the highway were visible to oncoming drivers. Our clients rounded a curve and unknowingly smashed into the trailer. One man died at the scene. The other was left fighting for his life.

The force of the collision ripped off the roof of the vehicle, killing the driver and critically injuring the passenger. The next day we were hired, flew to the scene of the accident and begin investigating that same day. Our client’s car had already been towed to a salvage yard by the time we arrived. After examining the vehicle, we noted its strange lack of headlights. Finding this odd, our investigators spotted a security camera on the premises and we asked to view the video. It showed an official of the trucking company illegally removing the headlights. When the company tried to claim our client had been driving a car without headlights, we produced the video that caught them red-handed. You can guess who won this case. But what you don’t know is that both law enforcement officials and the U.S. Department of Transportation found this video very interesting. And you get a better idea of what we mean when we say that evidence can sometimes “mysteriously disappear.”

If the love ones of these two men drove down the road, minding their own business when tragedy found them, had waited any longer to hire us, this crucial evidence would have been gone forever, because the salvage yard’s surveillance system didn’t save its video for more than two days. And we can’t think of a stronger reason why Gulf coast victims of tractor-trailer accidents need to find a Houston 18-wheeler attorney now, so the investigation can begin while the case, and evidence, is still fresh. Lies and missing evidence can cripple your legal right to fair compensation for an 18-wheeler accident from the moment it happens only if, by inaction, you allow it.

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We Can Help You Recover Your Life After an 18-Wheeler Accident

The best way for a victim in a big rig accident to ensure full compensation is to find assistance from an experienced Houston 18-wheeler attorney who knows how to clearly prove the defendant’s undeniable liability, and then win equitable damages

Grossman Law Offices has over 20 years experience handling personal injury litigation in 18-wheeler accident cases. If you or a loved one has been in a trucking accident, we use every bit of our expertise to assure that you receive fair compensation for the injuries and pain you have suffered. We’ve helped deliver millions of dollars to hundreds of accident victims in Texas. So if you or a loved one has been involved in a trucking accident in Houston or anywhere in the Gulf Coast, let an experienced accident lawyer help you seek full and fair compensation.

Call us today at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free), send us an email, or fill out the form at the top of this page for a free consultation to continue your road to total recovery and resume your life.

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