Articles Posted in Trucking Litigation

A young truck driver from California lost his life on the side of I-16 in Laurens County, Georgia, on March 2nd. This  tragedy highlights how truck drivers are in one of the most dangerous occupations. According to news reports, a 22-year-old California truck driver was killed when he sideswiped a disabled semi in predawn darkness…

A fiery crash on I-95 at Richmond Hill near Savannah in Chatham County on July 26th caused the wrongful death of a woman and sent her husband to a specialized burn unit in Augusta. It appears all too typical of other truck accident cases we have handled throughout Georgia, including those in the Savannah area…

Strategy is essential in litigation. Among the most important strategic considerations is determining in which court a case may be litigated and tried. Most trucking crash cases involve an analysis of jurisdiction and venue questions. In Georgia state courts, cases must be filed in a county where a defendant is a resident. Federal courts are…

Lawyers and paralegals who had previously worked at personal injury firms that advertise heavily on television, billboards and bus placards have told me many tales about the business model of those firms. They have told me how lawyers may be responsible for 600 cases at a time, with 100 or more in litigation. They have…

Effective representation of the plaintiff in a case of serious injury or wrongful death often requires that counsel overcome an “independent contractor” defense.  That frequently involves solving a shell game of independent contractor business relationships used to evade financial responsibility. Sometimes lawyers refer to this as getting “beyond the monkey to the organ grinder.” The general rule is that a…

Photo our expert used to identify negligent maintenance issues even though trucking company had sold their dump truck out of state. Tom was having a good day. Between sales calls, he stopped his pickup truck at a red light at the end of bridge waiting to turn left onto a freeway ramp. He had been…

No matter how many years a lawyer has practiced, there is no end to the need for exposure to bright new ideas from the best lawyers around the United States. Over the past year, I had the opportunity to serve as chair of the Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway and Premises Liability Section of the American…

People may enjoy watching “Ice Road Truckers” on television. But there is nothing entertaining about a tractor trailer bearing down upon you at excessive speed, out of control on an icy highway. A truck driver from Georgia has been charged with three counts of “three charges of grossly negligent driving with death resulting,” the Vermont…

“TMI” for “too much information” is a common, joking expression for overdisclosure of personal details in conversation or social media. Now it appears that trucking companies with bad safety records yelled “TMI!” loudly enough, and spent enough money on “K” Street lobbyists and campaign contributions to impede public access to their safety records. Five years…

Last week in Cherokee County, a Comcast truck failed to stop behind a car that had stopped to turn, went into the opposite lane, and struck head-on an oncoming car, killing the driver. According to media reports, at the intersection of Ga. 140 and Avery Road, a Ford Fiesta  stopped to turn left onto Avery Road…