Houston Tractor Trailer Accident Attorney

If You’ve Been Injured in an 18-Wheeler Accident, Houston Tractor Trailer Truck Accident Lawyer Michael Grossman Can Help You

Tractor-trailer, semi-trucks, 18-wheelers, and other types of commercial trucks are constantly on the roads, highways, and Interstates in and around Houston, Texas.

With so many people located in Houston, in addition to its hub as a major international transport city, Houston 18-wheeler accidents occur almost daily. When these types of Texas tractor-trailer accidents happen, the damage caused can often be quite severe, resulting in extreme personal injury or even death. If you’ve been injured in a semi-truck accident in Houston, or have lost a loved one due to an 18-wheeler accident in Texas, you may not be aware of your legal options so that you can be rightfully compensated for your injury or loss. Houston tractor trailer-accident attorney Michael Grossman offers the following informational article on Texas trucking accidents so that you can become better informed about your legal rights and about possible challenges in seeking compensation through a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. With two decades of experience in defending the rights of those injured or killed in tractor-trailer accidents in Houston and elsewhere in the State of Texas, Michael Grossman and his team at Grossman Law Offices are ready to help you seek the compensation you deserve.

Liability in Houston Texas Tractor Trailer Accidents

When a tractor-trailer is involved in a wreck in Texas, there can often be more than just one liable party for the accident. While the semi-truck driver will likely bear liability, the truck driver’s employer will also be a liable party, due to the legal notion of “respondeat superior” in Texas law, which states that an employer is responsible for their employees’ actions. Since all Texas commercial trucking companies must carry some type of insurance coverage on their drivers and trucks, an insurance company will then also become involved in a personal injury or wrongful death claim as a result of a Houston semi-truck accident. From the very outset of a majority of 18-wheeler accidents in Texas, there can be three liable parties, who could all be defendants in a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit.

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In addition to these three possible defendants, other entities may also bear partial liability for an accident depending on their role in the accident. For example, many trucking companies choose to employ the services of third-party cargo-loading companies. If this outside company is negligent in their duties to properly load and secure a tractor-trailer’s cargo and a shifting load causes a wreck resulting in injury or death, the third-party cargo-loading company can be held partially liable for the victim’s injury or death. In the same way, a third-party route-planning company, also often utilized by trucking companies, can be held partially liable if their negligence contributes to an injurious or fatal trucking accident in Houston or elsewhere in Texas. Additionally, a faulty safety device or a defective mechanical part, such as bad brakes, may cause the manufacturer of that part to be partially liable if the malfunction contributes to an accident. Other drivers on the road can also be held liable if their negligent behavior caused a truck to have an accident.

In other words, Texas tractor-trailer accident scenes can often have much more then one liable party, and many of these liable parties may not have even been directly involved in the accident or at the accident site. In order to detect these other types of liable parties, a thorough investigation must be done into the accident scene so that all liable parties can be held accountable for their negligence. As a result, each liable party will be proportionately responsible for awarding a victim compensation based on their percentage of liability in causing a commercial truck wreck resulting in injury or death. In other words, if a third-party cargo-loading company was 30% responsible for a wreck that resulted in $1,000,000 worth of damages to have been incurred by the victim, then the cargo-loading company would have to award $300,000 to the injured victim. Without the help of an experienced Houston tractor trailer accident attorney like Michael Grossman and the investigative prowess of his team at Grossman Law Offices, who know what to look for in 18-wheeler accident cases, identifying and proving the fault of multiple liable parties can be a daunting task for a non-attorney or an otherwise inexperienced lawyer.

Expensive Insurance Policies at Play

Commercial trucking companies in Texas must carry insurance coverage. Since the amount of damage that 18-wheelers and semi-trucks can cause in a wreck can be quite extensive, the insurance policies that cover such trucks must also be as extensive. In other words, insurance policies involved in Texas 18-wheeler accident cases are often some of the most expensive insurance policies. Victims may assume that such a large insurance policy would mean a quick and fair payout to them in compensation for their injury or loss, but the reverse of that thought is more often true. It’s actually as a result of the sheer size of the insurance policy that the insurance company in charge of that policy will work as arduously as possible in order to ensure that they’re not responsible for writing a check with such a hefty sum attached. As a result, they’ll send their most experienced insurance adjusters to work the claim.

Veteran Insurance Adjusters

These particular types of insurance adjusters often bear little resemblance to your own auto insurance agent. With years of experience in dealing with these particular kinds of insurance policies, which are far different than policies that cover passenger vehicles, these insurance adjusters often have one goal in mind: to save their respective companies as much money as possible. In other words, they will utilize various tactics in order to have your claim denied or diminished to as small amount as possible. For example, they will likely attempt to pin blame onto you, or onto any other party involved in the trucking accident, so that their client is released from as much liability as possible. If a majority of the blame for the accident can be placed on the victim’s shoulders, then the claim could be denied, resulting in no compensation whatsoever for an aggrieved party.

If no such blame can be passed, an insurance adjuster may offer an injured victim or a bereaved family a settlement package in exchange for the aggrieved party signing away their rights to pursue further legal action. However, such a settlement is often a low-ball amount of compensation offered by an insurance company that would rather lose a little money now rather than a lot of money later. In many instances, such compensation is often much less than what is fair or would can adequately cover the expenses that an injured person has accrued due to a Houston semi-truck wreck. When such a settlement has been agreed to, there is little that even an experienced lawyer can do to further help the victim. Ensure that such a scenario does not have the likelihood of occurring to you by contacting professional legal help that can look over such documents from an insurance company in order to make sure that you’re not being taken advantage of by an aggressive insurance company.

Aggressive, Fast-Acting Defense Lawyers

Since Texas 18-wheeler accidents happen with a certain frequency, trucking companies and their insurers are ready to move quickly when a driver reports that an accident has occurred. They will deploy defense lawyers to the scene of a tractor-trailer accident, sometimes within minutes of the accident having occurred. These well-trained legal professionals will comb the accident site for any evidence that might be useful in exonerating the truck driver, the trucking company, or the insurance company. In other words, trucking companies can often get a head start on their legal proceedings in trucking accident cases in Texas due to their ability to act quickly after an 18-wheeler accident. By choosing to act just as quickly in the aftermath of a Houston semi-truck accident by contacting Houston tractor trailer accident attorney Michael Grossman, you can rest assured that an experienced investigative team will also comb the accident site, locate eyewitnesses, and gather relevant evidence so that your case will be strong and robust.

Self-Insured Trucking Companies

While a majority of trucking companies carry insurance policies from traditional insurers, there are some companies that opt to keep back a portion of their assets in order to cover themselves in the event that a claim is staked against them for a trucking accident. Such trucking companies are self-insured. In some instances, this types of companies have been known to act rather unethically against a victim seeking compensation. This can happen through ignorance, since they may be unaware of the actual rules and regulations that govern such processes, or through arrogance, where they think they can simply get away with behaviors like threatening victims, destroying evidence, or badgering witnesses. However, the Houston tractor trailer law firm of Grossman Law Offices has dealt with self-insured trucking companies before, often after an aggrieved party has contacted us after becoming mired in the frustration of having to deal with an unethically-acting defendant. In these cases, we’ve pursued certain legal remedies to compel the defendant to act rightly so that the legal playing field is leveled, allowing our clients to seek proper compensation for their injury or loss. However, had these clients contacted us before attempting to obtain compensation on their own from such a company, they likely could have saved themselves from hours or weeks of frustration.

Deceitful Tractor-Trailer Drivers

Other instances of unethical behavior can occur when a truck driver believes that he or she may lose their jobs if the truth of an accident scene is known. Such drivers, fearful of losing their very livelihood, may choose to lie about their involvement in a semi-truck wreck. However, with two decades of experience in Texas trucking accident cases, Michael Grossman and his team at Grossman Law Offices are often capable of assessing the truth regarding a semi-truck driver’s story. Through careful depositions with the truck driver, or through an extensive and thorough investigation into the accident scene, we’re often able to deduce the veracity of a driver’s story. Without such experienced help, a truck driver may be able to exonerate himself or herself from liability for an accident, especially if eyewitness testimony isn’t available or other relevant evidence hasn’t been properly obtained.

What Should I Do If I’ve Been Hurt in a Houston Tractor Trailer Accident?

In addition to seeking proper medical attention within a reasonable amount of time after the accident, contacting Houston tractor trailer accident attorney Michael Grossman soon in the aftermath of an 18-wheeler accident can be imperative toward your recovery process. As days pass, vital evidence can go missing, or even be manipulated or erased by those that want to skirt liability for the accident’s outcome. Additionally, eyewitnesses may forget important details of the trucking accident, or may not be able to be tracked down. When Grossman Law Offices is hired, we’ll perform a thorough investigation into your accident scene in order to make sure all liable parties are identified and held accountable for their negligent behavior. Furthermore, our investigation will be conducted such that the evidence obtained will be presentable in court should a trial case be necessary.

In a vast majority of tractor-trailer accident cases in Texas, contacting experienced legal help quickly is key toward a successful outcome for a victim. For example, we once had a client who was in a catastrophic 18-wheeler accident in which the top of his car was sheared off by the trailer of a semi-truck. Our client was the driver of the car and suffered severe injuries. He also had a passenger, who died as a result of the wreck. The decedent’s family also hired us to work the case. We flew to a junkyard to inspect our client’s car. Once there, we saw that the car had no headlights. The lights weren’t simply smashed. They had been completely removed. Since this was news to us, we asked for surveillance footage from the proprietor of the salvage yard. On that video, we witnessed a representative from the trucking company at fault visiting the junk yard and removing the headlights from our client’s car. The insurance company later attempted to pass blame onto our client for driving without headlights at night. Little did they know that we had condemning evidence showing the unethical behavior of the trucking company. We later learned that the video surveillance footage that was vital to the successful outcome of this particular case was set to delete itself shortly after we had viewed it. In other words, had we not been contacted quickly and able to move just as quickly to investigate the accident scene, our client may have been blamed for an accident that resulted in his own severe injury and his passenger’s death. This is one of many examples we could provide, but it speaks the loudest toward the importance of contacting a tractor trailer accident attorney in Houston Texas as soon as possible after you’ve been injured in an 18-wheeler accident.

Refrain from Self-Representation. Contact Houston tractor trailer accident attorney Michael Grossman

Victims that have been injured in Houston 18-wheeler accidents sometimes assume that they can handle the claim themselves, wrongly thinking that such a claim may be similar to a passenger-vehicle claim they were able to see through to a successful conclusion. However, there is a wide chasm of difference between 18-wheeler insurance policies and passenger-vehicle insurance policies. A majority of passenger-vehicle accidents involve only property damage, and the laws, rules and regulations that govern such accidents have been written in such a way that a victim can expect to be treated fairly and to have their property damage losses taken care of in a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand, seeking compensation against a truck driver, trucking company, and trucking insurance company is a completely different process fraught with potential challenges that are all erected so that the injured victim stands little to no chance of receiving fair compensation for their injury or loss. This is but one of the many reasons why such an aggrieved party will need the legal assistance of an experienced Houston TX tractor trailer accident attorney.

Non-attorneys and lawyers without prior, similar experience will likely stand to have a claim denied or a case dismissed based on a technicality, or on the fact that their opponent was more knowledgeable about the specific aspects of the law regarding their particular case. By enlisting the help of a Houston 18-wheeler accident attorney like Michael Grossman, who has 20 years of experience in these particular kinds of Texas personal injury and wrongful death cases, you can ensure that your legal help will be of the same caliber that will likely be utilized to work against you. We can be aggressive when necessary in defense of your rights so that you can stand to be fully and fairly compensated for your injury or loss due to a Houston tractor-trailer accident.

Contact Texas semi truck injury lawyer Michael Grossman at Grossman Law Offices for a free legal consultation at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free). Ask questions. Get answers. We’re here to help you in your time of need.