Articles Posted in Trucking Litigation

As a Georgia trial attorney handling trucking accident cases, I see too many instances of truck driver fatigue and drug usage leading to tragedy.  The pattern is exemplified in a Missouri case.  It has resulted in an $18 million settlement for the deaths of four family members (ages 55, 57, 81 and 94) on the…

Skyrocketing fuel prices have put truckers into a world of hurt.  Now two U.S. Senators have introduced a bill that would require 100 percent of fuel surcharges levied on shipping customers to be passed through to the person actually paying for the fuel, in most cases the truck driver.  The bill was introduced by Olympia…

As an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, with a practice heavily concentrated on trial of large truck and bus crash cases, I represent injured truck drivers (and their widows) almost as much as occupants of  other vehicles.  Posts about truckers violations of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations sometimes give folks the mistaken impression that I am…

I’ve spent the last few  days in New Orleans at the American Association for Justice Litigating Truck Collision Cases seminar.  I spoke on Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) in relation to large truck products liability cases, debunking misconceptions about those minimal and largely outmoded standards. Since I know opposing counsel read my blog, I…

I spent most of this week trying a truck wreck case in Macon, GA, in the State Court of Bibb County.  While the jury was deliberating, the defense made an offer my client felt he could not afford to refuse ($850,000 for aggravation of preexisting degenerative condition resulting in cervical fusion),so the process stopped short…

A Tennessee jury awarded $6.65 million in damages recently to the mother of a 17-year-old girl who died in a tractor-trailer accident. Lindsey Garretson was killed August 8, 2000 when a truck driven by Stuart Foy slammed into the back of her car on Interstate 40. Foy failed to slow the tractor-trailer, owned by KLLM…

All too often lawyers in general practice who occasionally handle a car wreck case — and for that matter lawyers who handle car wreck cases all the time — think they can handle a motor carrier crash because “it’s just a big car wreck.”  Until they have spent a year or two screwing up the…

Insurance defense lawyers have a tough job when the value of a plaintiff’s case exceeds the amount of liability insurance coverage. The tripartite relationship between insurer, insured and defense counsel is unique in the legal profession, variously described as “deeply and unavoidably vexing” and presenting an ethical dilemma that would “tax Socrates.”  See Charles Silver,…

It’s always a good day when you pick up a fi fa in the amount of $2,245,940.17, and at the same time get an order for the defendant to submit an appeal bond to cover that plus a year’s post-judgment interest.  The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide…

Wisconsin jurors heard testimony this week about a trucker who stayed out all night with friends the night before a fatal crash, and had his truck on cruise control in tenth gear when he fell asleep and overturned in 2005.  A bus carrying a high school marching band collided with the overturned big rig on…