Articles Posted in Trucking Litigation

During the first half of the twentieth-century, interstate motor carriers attempted to immunize themselves from liability for negligent drivers by hiring inadequately insured, risky trucks and their drivers – like C&C and the Carnleys in this case.  The companies would classify the drivers who operated the trucks as “independent contractors,” and disclaim any association when…

A Vallejo, California jury awarded an 8-year-old Vacaville boy and his mother $11.3 million Thursday in connection with a freeway wreck that killed his father and twin sister.  The jury found Swift Transportation Company liable for the actions of its big rig driver, who cut across two lanes of traffic on westbound Interstate 80 to…

A federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., has awarded $15 million to a tow-truck operator who lost his right leg after being hit by a tractor-trailer on Christmas Eve 2002, according to news reports.  Jurors on Nov. 8 ordered Little Bear Transport of Salt Lake City to pay Bruce Austin of Bowie, Ariz., $5 million in…

An article in today’s Dallas Morning News explains the obvious: “Trucking companies sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to avoid admitting fault in fatal accidents. They purge onboard computers, falsify records and destroy documents that federal law requires them to keep.” We’ve seen it too often.  The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and…

Last month there was a news story about the New Jersey Committee on Attorney Advertising, a panel appointed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruling that attorney advertisements that tout listings such as the “Super Lawyers” listings violate professional responsibility rules against ads that compare lawyers’ services or create an “unjustified expectation about results.” …

The Large Truck Crash Causation Study announced by U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration this past spring is now available to the public. LTCCS is the first-ever national study to attempt to determine the critical events and associated factors that contribute to serious large truck crashes allowing the DOT and others to implement effective countermeasures…

No statistics are available, but I’m beginning to suspect that the new hours of service rules adopted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration may be helping to reduce the incidence of fatigue related truck crashes.  This is just an impressionistic hunch and extremely preliminary, but there may be a trend. For nearly a year…

While there are no published decisions adopting this position, it is theoretically possible to hold trucking company owners and officers personally liable for their personal participation in dispatching drivers on trips that cannot possibly be lawfully completed. Violations of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations provide applicable standards of care, breaches of duty, and evidence of…

A recent decision in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois uses the Regulatory Guidance to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations for a construction of the Regs supporting punitive damages. See Trotter v. B & W Cartage Co., Inc., 2006 WL 1004882 (S.D.Ill.,2006). The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful…

Sometimes it seems like half the job in catastrophic trucking litigation is analysis of insurance coverages. Recently I was consulted by a lawyer in my hometown about a situation in which an owner-operator’s insurer had tendered policy limits of $1,000,000. There was also a Lloyd’s “contingent liability endorsement” for an additional $1,000,00 issued to a…