Houston Truck Crash Attorney

Attorney Michael Grossman Discusses Houston Truck Accidents Involving Injury

Anyone who has ever driven on a freeway has eyed the behemoth might of an 18-wheeled semi-truck. You can traverse its length at full highway speed and miss entire towns as you crawl across its sprawling shade.

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Cutting across the highways at literally all hours of the night, these machines haul the cogs of our mass production from one coast to another, Mexico to Canada. The cargo of these beasts is measured in tons, just as its reach is measured in car-lengths. Their total weight can equal that of 25 regular automobiles. These automotive giants are in perpetual motion. Just as the legion of automobiles results in a multiplicity of normal car accidents, the amount of 18-wheelers on America’s highways means that truck wrecks are an unfortunate reality.

The results of a truck crash can be devastating. Here we see physics’ cruel reality. When a truck wreck involves a car of regular size, it is like an infant wrestling a professional football player. Add to that advantage motion and the imbalance of momentum becomes ludicrous. When a moving semi-truck collides with another car, depending on the difference in speed, its hulking mass strikes with such force that most of what it encounters it obliterates.

If you or someone you love has been involved in a truck accident in Galveston or elsewhere in South Texas, you need the help of a Houston truck crash attorney. Michael Grossman has 20 years of experience in personal injury law and has won hundreds of truck accident cases. He is anxious to hear your circumstances and determine how he can help, so call Grossman Law Offices any time for a free legal consultation at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free). In this article, we will examine some of the parameters of truck accident law and the ways in which Grossman Law Offices may be able to help you. It is by no means an exhaustive look, but it may help you determine how best to proceed.

Truck Accident Law

Truck accident law is like any other personal injury litigation inasmuch as its aim is to help victims recover losses, compensation for damages suffered, so that the scales are restored, near as can be, to the balance known prior to the accident occurring. The idea that money can ever pave over one’s tangible pain and suffering may strike you as a callous notion. It is true that these losses are difficult to quantify, but financial payment is the only means at the court’s disposal and thus it is important to seek this financial compensation in the interests of justice. Financial losses, though, are inevitable in truck accidents. In the wake of truck crash cases, victims are often left with staggering medical bills. Additionally, victims are often prevented from returning to work, resulting in a compiling loss of wages the victim could have earned. No personal injury can ever be wholly addressed by monetary compensation, but the same can help victims and their families recover as near as possible and help restore the normal order of their livelihoods.

In order to seek just, monetary recompense for damages, you need to be prepared to litigate. It is comparable to preparing for an important battle. Unfortunately, you cannot sit idly, waiting on the good graces of those at fault or the insurance companies that represent them. In our world, you must actively take what is rightfully yours, as determined by a fair justice system. Fortunately, there are many tools at your disposal to do just that.

Conducting Investigations

More serious lawsuits, and truck crash suits are certainly serious, necessitate a concerted investigation to determine the parameters of the accident. Subsequent to your truck accident, you will need to ensure that a third party conducts a thorough investigation of the incident. Personal injury law hinges on the notion of liability, something that is by no means clear following an accident. Liability, in its true proportions, needs to be established and an investigation can help you to this end.

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Moreover, a properly conducted investigation will yield evidence that victims can exhibit in a courtroom to bolster their cases. Especially in trials demanding a jury, a robust defense is built on coming to court with ample evidence: photographs, emergency call transcripts, faulty truck equipment and other tangible, visible, tactile items appealing to a jury’s senses. Winning their attention, after all, is necessary to winning your case.

Houston truck crash attorney Michael Grossman and his capable staff at Grossman Law Offices have the means at their disposal to conduct a proper investigation into the circumstances of your truck accident. Having won thousands of personal injury cases, Michael Grossman knows how best to carry out a proper investigation to garner the evidence needed. He and his investigators have 20 years of experience culling scenes and witnesses for pertinent information and using it to great effect in and out of a courtroom to win trials and generous settlements. In addition to other services, these are some of the duties Grossman Law Offices ensures are performed during investigation:

• Taking measurements of the accident scene
• Taking pictures of the accident scene and all angles of vehicles involved
• Conducting personal interviews with witnesses
• Performing forensic testing
• Acquiring police reports of the incident
• Locating and sorting surveillance video footage
• Examining rubble and wreckage resulting from the truck accident

The preceding task list is generalized, but thorough. It is what Grossman Law Offices does for clients who have been involved in a Houston truck crash. It is also what the defendant’s lawyers are doing for him or her, particularly if the defendant is employed by a large trucking company. Consequently, it is always vital that you move quickly to conduct your own investigation, because defendants and the trucking companies that employ them are certainly availing themselves of very special investigator at their disposal. Their deep pockets imply that they have many of them.

Investigations are a race against time. Once a truck accident occurs, the circumstances of the incident become more and more convoluted as time sweeps up evidence, clears away the vehicles, saps the memories of witnesses, allows defendants to tamper with evidence. Do not let defense attorneys outpace your own investigations, hire a truck accident lawyer quickly and let them get to work right away.

The haste with which you must begin to work your own case, and the depths to which trucking companies will sink, is illustrated by another recently handled by Grossman Law Offices. Our firm’s victim was involved in a truck crash and suffered great loss. The defendant’s defense team argued that the reason for the accident was the victim’s blatant neglect to operate his vehicle without headlights. A ridiculous assumption that ought to be lent no credence, but it was true that an examination of the victim’s vehicle revealed that the headlamps had been deliberately removed. Unsatisfied, our lawyers acquired surveillance tapes from the wreckage yard where the victim’s dilapidated automobile was being stored. These revealed that the defendant’s own defense team entered the yard and removed the headlights themselves to support their ridiculous leap of logic.

Beyond revealing what less scrupulous men will do to cheat the basic notions of justice, this should show you just how important it is to have a capable investigative team working for you. If the tapes had never been acquired, our victim might still be living without just compensation. Instead, because of our efforts, the victim was fairly compensated and the defense team was held in accusation for their crime of deliberate tampering. If you live in Houston, Galveston, Sugarland or anywhere in the surrounding area, and have recently been the victim of a truck crash, begin your defense with a thorough investigation as soon as possible.

Identifying Defendants

Finding the liable party in a truck accident case is not as simple as you might think. Several parties are involved in getting a truck prepared to make deliveries across the country, from its time in the truck yard where it receives its cargo to its time on the freeway. Any of these parties may share some of the liability for a potential accident. Fortunately, though a multitude of individuals may share blame for your accident, you can legally identify every one of them as a defendant.

The distribution of responsibility for a semi truck’s safe operation from coast to coast is staggeringly wide. Any mistake at any level can have disastrous potential down the road, literally. The drivers themselves, trucking companies, auto part manufacturers, loading companies and route-planning services are just a handful of the legion of entities that help manage semi truck operations. In turn, we will examine each and their potential contribution to the accident.

Truck Drivers

Truckers are the easiest targets for litigation and for good reason. The second-by-second operation of those hulking pieces of machinery depends largely upon the professionalism and expertise of the person who grips the wheel and taps the breaks. Sometimes, these drivers are simply careless about their driving. Their carelessness manifests itself in the form of the same moving violations that warrant ticketing for anybody: reckless speeding, disregard for stop signs and illegal turns. The difference, obviously, is that an everyday motorist is not held to the same level of professional operation as a trucker who directs a massive piece of machinery. At other times, truck drivers may be attempting to forego sleep for the sake of expediency, compromising their mental and physical faculties to the point that they can no longer be expected to safely operate a truck. By federal law, truckers are required to schedule a reasonable amount of rest for themselves at a mandated frequency. Truck drivers record these rest stops in an official log. In the past, truckers have been known to falsify these records in order to finish their hauls more quickly. A specific study of truck drivers’ fatigue indicated that approximately 20 percent of truckers fall asleep while driving at least once a month. Drivers who drive in excess of eight hours severely compromise their ability to safely operate a truck. If the driver involved in your Houston truck crash was similarly careless or sleep-deprived or found irresponsible for another reason, he or she can be named as a defendant in your personal injury lawsuit.

Trucking Companies

Despite perception, truckers are not always the sole responsible party in a truck accident. Trucking companies, too, shoulder much of the responsibility of ensuring safe passage for their trucks and truck drivers. They can be directly or indirectly held responsible for many accidents. A trucking company can be held liable when a truck accident attorney can demonstrate the reality of their negligence and how it led to an accident. A trucking company is responsible for keeping their fleet of vehicles in safe, working condition. If the company fails to repair the breaks, steering alignment or any other component of a vehicle that is directly relevant to its safe operation, that company is liable for any accident in which the compromised vehicle is involved.

Trucking companies can also be held indirectly liable for the actions of their employees through a legal theory known as respondeat superior. This theory states that employers can be held responsible for the actions of an employee in that employees regular execution of their work. Trucking companies can be identified as defendants in accident cases even if they did not directly endorse the actions of an employee or even have knowledge of it. A capable Houston truck crash attorney can usually exercise respondeat superior in any truck accident case.

Manufacturers

As with any personal injury case, defective products can also be the cause of accidents. This is especially true of diesel trucks, which depend so heavily on reliable equipment. The many systems inherent in a truck – fuel, steering, electrical, suspension, etc. – are comprised of components whose smooth operation is critical. It is possible for one of these components to depart the factory blighted by defects that damage its reliable performance. Worse, the part may be of a flawed designed to begin with, making it defective from its point of conception. A flaw in a tire can lead to a rollover. A flaw in a brake line can lead to a runaway truck. A faulty trailer hitch can lead to a trailer coming undone amidst a busy highway. Manufacturer errors can generate a multitude of disastrous consequences. If a poorly designed or manufactured part was at the core of your accident’s cause, you can and should sue the part manufacturer.

Loading Companies

The companies in charge of loading down semis with cargo are often distinct from the trucking companies that own the vehicles. They are responsible for the cargo and cargo alone and, should they improperly or excessively load a trailer, they are liable for the damages that ensue. An individual worker might not take due care in loading cargo, improperly securing it inside or on top of a trailer. If such a load flies loose while driving, it can have serious consequences on the driver and the motorists around him or her. Even if it does not initially hit another motorist, loose cargo that has come to rest in the middle of a roadbed can lead to serious accidents.

Loading companies have also been known to excessively load trailers. Most trucks are limited to 80,000 pounds of cargo, but loading companies will sometimes shove more than that into a trailer to save money and time. Trailers loaded beyond capacity are at greater risk of tipping over or compromising the other functions of a truck. Truck brakes are only safely rated for a certain mass. Should this mass be exceeded, the truck may have difficulty stopping before hitting something. Loading companies are responsible for safely filling trucks with cargo. If they are found to be negligent in this duty, then they can be sued.

Route-Planning Services

Truckers often use route-planning companies to help guide them to their destinations. A responsible company must ensure that the truck’s route is correspondent to its size and clearance limitations. Roads and bridges have weight limitations that may require route companies to circumnavigate certain areas. Overpasses, too, have height restrictions that have ramifications on which route a truck takes. If a route company has not exercised due diligence in planning a safe path for a trucker, the truck may collide with obstacles or, worse, completely destroy a bridge. If you are anywhere in the vicinity, you may be part of the collateral damage of this incident. If this is the case, you may be able to include a route-planning company as a defendant in your case.

These are only a few examples of possible liable parties in your truck accident case. If you have been involved in a semi truck accident in Southeast Texas, you need to secure the help of a capable Houston truck crash attorney to sort out exactly which of these, or some other party, are at fault.

Winning Time: Two Ways to Achieving Restitution

The television and movie studios have made the courtroom one of the most popular story backdrops in our age. Lawyers, red in the face, scream at shaken witnesses. Incredulous juries gasp in horror at pieces of evidence. Stern judges viciously slam their gavels and bellow out cries for order. The reality is often less glamorous and certainly more complicated. First, cases do not always have to be won in the courtroom. Second, whether the case is won in or out of the courtroom, there are infinite nuances to making sure a personal injury case is won in the soundest manner.

Winning by Settlement

A settlement means that both plaintiff and defendant agree to terms of compensation outside of the courtroom. Usually, this means a defendant agrees to pay an amount in damages that the plaintiff and his or her lawyers find sufficient to compensate the suffered losses. This amount is negotiated by the parties’ respective lawyers and is not determined by the court or its judges. The terms of a settlement dictate that the plaintiff cannot sue the defendant for that particular injury.

Settlements are often beneficial to the victim of an accident. Assuming the victim is represented by an excellent truck accident attorney, these settlements are often generous in order to avoid the costs and labor of having to pursue the matter in court. This compensation is distributed more quickly than if the parties had gone to court. Further, putting your fate in the hands of a jury of peers, who have been known as much for their caprice as their acuity, is a risk that settlement avoids. More often than not, the defendant feels similarly.

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In truck accident cases, securing a fair settlement is a complicated and delicate task. In order to reach a reasonable settlement for your case, you will need the help of a Houston truck crash attorney. The reality is that you will be eviscerated in a courtroom if you dare to seek compensation on your own. Defendants are not obligated to pay you anything until your case is won in a court of law, at which point the weight of justice presses them into making recompense. The defendant’s lawyer will compel you to accept settlement offers that sound attractive, but are grossly insufficient to compensate for your physical, material, monetary and emotional losses. Without your own lawyer, you may be fooled into accepting something this unreasonable. Houston truck accident lawyer Michael Grossman has won hundreds of big rig accident cases in and out of court and can help you win the settlement you deserve, not a dime less.

Winning by Trial

While winning your case with a simple, fair settlement out of court is preferable for both parties, sometimes the contentiousness of the situation leads to the case going to trial. If you have not settled, the trial is the only way to win your case. This is significantly more daunting for plaintiffs, but, with the right lawyer, your case can be won easily. The burden of proof is on you. Yet, while you may not have the faintest idea of how to prove the merits of your case, a capable truck crash attorney understands exactly how to win and win definitively.

It is plain foolishness to attempt to represent yourself. This is not a reflection on your intelligence or abilities, except as they pertain to the courtroom. Law is like any craft that can only be practiced by an expert. Just as you would not want your automobile welded by a doctor, you would not want anybody but a lawyer trying to win your case in a courtroom, including you. Not only must the one who represents you in court be practiced in law, they must be practiced in the discipline of law that pertains to your particular case. If you have suffered personal injury in a big rig accident, you need a personal injury lawyer with big rig experience. Michael Grossman, who has won thousands of personal injury cases, of which hundreds have involved diesel truck accidents, possesses the very narrow set of skills that will help you win your truck accident case in a courtroom.

Courtroom Proceedings

In order to win your case in a court of law, you must adequately demonstrate four legal designations: duty, breach, causation and damages. Below, we examine each in turn to give you a better idea of how your case should be handled and to demonstrate the degree of acuity a court case requires.

• Duty

  The idea of duty is paramount to any personal injury case. It is the foundation on which the rest of the case is built. What duty means is that the defendant owed you some measure of duty in the situation. Often, this is a duty of omission, meaning that a person’s primary duty to you is to not do you harm. If you are on the road, other motorists owe you the duty of not running into you. In the case of a truck accident, the driver, company, loading personnel, manufacturers and all others involved in the truck’s operation owe you the duty of ensuring that a sound vehicle is put on the roadway and operated safely. The expectation of this duty must be reasonable. You cannot expect any other citizen to owe you a duty that is beyond their capacity to provide. It is up to you truck accident attorney to demonstrate the extent to which a defendant in the case owed you duty.

• Breach

  Secondly, you must demonstrate that the established duty was breached. If a truck driver blatantly disobeys a known traffic law, and this can be shown beyond a doubt, then his or her breach of duty is clearly demonstrated. In the same manner, if you and your lawyer can prove that a trucking company routinely puts their drivers in unsafe vehicles or circumstances, then their breach of duty is clearly demonstrated and you can win your case. When reasonable precautions and due diligence are not exercised and this directly leads to you suffering damages, that is a breach and that is what must be put before the eyes of a jury. You must show them what the defendant actively did or actively avoided that precipitated the breach. The severity and malice behind these sins of commission and omission will determine the correspondent severity of liability.

• Causation

  Once reasonable duty and breach by deliberate action or negligent inaction have been properly demonstrated, you also need to give proof of causation. This means that the demonstrated breach was the direct cause of your injuries. If a duty is clearly breached, but your injuries were caused by something or someone entirely unrelated, you cannot collect damages from the one who breached the duty. Your defendant may try to blame a whole cast of third parties in his or her defense in order to deflect the reality of causation. Your lawyer can make sure that the logical progression of events is demonstrated without question, proving the defendant’s causation in your accident. If, however, you do not have a knowledgeable lawyer who has the ability to prove direct causation, you may lose your case.

• Damages

  Once you have adequately shown the defendant to be liable for the accident, that he or she owed you a duty, breached the duty and that that the breach directly caused the ensuing events, you need to show that you suffered tangible damages in the accident. This is where the case is won. You have never won a case simply by being able to point the finger of guilt at the defendant. You have only won your case when you are appropriately compensated for the damages you have suffered. “Damages” is legally defined as monetary compensation. It may seem callous to quantify your pain and suffering in terms of dollars and cents, but this is the justice system’s only recourse to right the scales of justice. Accordingly, you need to seek every penny of damages to which you are justly entitled.

“Damages” covers a whole host of setbacks resulting from personal injury: medical bills, rehabilitation, lost wages, pain and suffering. The defendants in your case will likely present you with a sum total of damages that is laughably below the true mark. A good truck accident lawyer will ensure that these are rebuffed until the defendant arrives at a figure commensurate with your actual losses. This is no simple task. A courtroom will not accept just any assertion of monetary damages you seek. Each must be concretely justified to prevent abuse of the legal system. Again, an experienced lawyer knows best what damages you can reasonably seek and which you cannot. If you try to do this alone or without an attorney, you will absolutely be accepting an amount either in settlement or in the courtroom that is tragically below what will restore you to the state in which you found yourself before the accident.

Obstacles to winning your case

Trucking Company Insurance

Trucking companies must insure their trucks. Many do so by purchasing large policies from large insurance companies. The policies on trucks trump those on regular automobiles by a factor of about 50. Consequently, these insurance companies stand to lose a lot more in a court case. They represent the “deep pockets” of solvent defendants. What this means is that these large insurance companies hedge their risk by aggressively challenging claims. They loose the dogs of their most tenacious adjusters who will do their best to squash all attempts at a claim. They may low-ball plaintiffs or they may use unscrupulous means to get a case dismissed. If you are alone or using a lawyer that is not experience in dealing with these big rig insurance companies, you risk getting bullied out of winning your case. If, on the other hand, you secure a professional, experienced, stalwart Houston truck crash attorney, you are protected from these adjusters. Your lawyer is meant to stand as mediator between you and the barbs of the insurance companies. These companies know Houston lawyer Michael Grossman and respect his abilities to secure reasonable compensation for his clients. Predictably, they are prone to ease their attack when they see that Grossman Law Offices is handling your case.

Self-Insured Big Rig Companies

The vast majority of trucking companies are insured by an outside company, but some choose to insure themselves. In these cases, the trucking company is held directly responsible for compensating plaintiffs when it loses cases. In these instances, you will be dealing directly with the trucking company and its officers. This can frequently induce more of a headache than dealing with traditional insurance adjusters. The trucking company can be similarly aggressive in its defense since the people with whom you discuss the case have put their salaries on the line. If they lose the case, their own paycheck may be cut. Moreover, though they have been known to break it, insurance adjusters are held to a professional code of ethical conduct. The employees of a self-insured trucking company are bound by no such code and are inclined to make use of all available means to bilk you out of your deserved compensation. Threats, evidence tampering and harassment have all been used by these self-insured companies in unethical attempts to deprive plaintiff’s of due course of law. If you stand alone against these sorts of companies, you stand exposed. If, however, you have a lawyer, their threats and harassment have no sting and unscrupulous trucking companies are forced into complying with the law process.

Evasive Truckers

If a truck driver is at fault in an accident, he or she has ample motivation to lie their way out of blame and payment. Truckers with any sort of accident history find employment difficult to obtain. Reputable trucking companies shy away from hiring drivers with any hint of a blighted record. These same companies are quick to terminate the employment of any of their drivers who suddenly becomes involved in a big rig accident. In order to stay employed and maintain their livelihood, truckers will lie to evade responsibility in a truck accident.

As with any area of personal injury law, big rig accident cases can devolve to a state of pitting your word against that of the driver’s. The court system puts the burden of proof on you, the plaintiff, to establish the verity of your claims over and against the driver’s. Truthful as you might be in asserting the facts of the case, truckers and their lawyers have a better chance of killing your case if you do not have legal representation. Contradictory claims tend to get cases dismissed and, apart from availing yourself of legal power, you will be unable to make yours more effectively than the defendant’s. An experienced Houston truck accident attorney knows how to conduct depositions and get the trucker’s words into record so that he or she will not be able to contradict him or herself in the future. Grossman Law Offices can ensure that lying, evasive truck drivers will not derail your case.

Houston Attorney Michael Grossman Can Help

Semi-truck accidents can be devastating, but Houston truck crash attorney can help you find justice in their destructive wakes. Grossman Law Offices has won thousands of personal injury cases, of which hundreds have dealt specifically with big-rig accidents. With 20 years of experience, Michael Grossman is able to navigate the wily avenues of personal injury law. He has dealt with insurance adjusters, aggressive trucking companies and uncooperative truck drivers. He knows how to win cases out of court, by using the merits of the plaintiff’s case to force defendants into generous settlements. Where defendant’s refuse to accept the easier option of a settlement, Michael Grossman has proven he can win in court, adequately casting a light on the appropriate evidence, conducting thorough investigations and demonstrating to juries the merits of the plaintiff’s case. When you put your case in the hands of personal injury lawyer Michael Grossman, you can be sure it will be handled carefully. These are just a few of the steps Grossman Law Offices will take to ensure victory in your case and compensation for you:

• Securing medical services for clients regardless of their ability to pay at the moment. accident scene
• Carrying out complete investigations into the accident’s circumstances and rightly dividing responsibility for it.
• Gathering data at the scene: taking measurements and photographs, making recordings, conducting interviews with witnesses, collecting documents and accumulating every available shred of evidence that is pertinent to your case.
• Applying pressure to defendants to settle the case for an amount we determine and stick to.
• Crafting trial strategies for cases that go to court.
  
• Intercepting all communication from insurance adjusters and trucking companies so they can never pressure you into obscenely small settlements.
• Holding self-insured trucking companies to ethical standards they are otherwise ill-inclined to obey.
• Taking depositions with truck drivers to ensure they are not allowed to contradict themselves later.

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If you want to win your truck accident case, you need to find the right Houston truck crash attorney. You may call Grossman Law Offices at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free) for a free consultation. We will patiently listen to the circumstances of your case and determine how we can best help you. Call quickly, before self-interested parties like truckers and their big companies can dissuade you. We are available to help, to make your case strong, to win you the compensation your rightly deserve.

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