Commercial freight vehicles pose an outsized risk to smaller passenger vehicles sharing the roadways. The large semi-trucks used for long-haul freight transport are essential to the American economy, but they can also present numerous hazards. Despite the numerous improvements in passenger vehicle safety over the years, as well, severe accidents involving large commercial trucks have been on the rise, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) highlighting that the number of fatal accidents involving at least one large truck or bus increased 52% in the years 2010-2021. The hazards presented by these large vehicles are increased when long-haul semi-trucks suffer from manufacturing defects, or from insufficiently thorough or frequent maintenance. While cases of clear driver error may be simple, albeit tragic, reaching an accurate determination of the party or parties responsible in a truck accident case in which faulty equipment or improper maintenance protocols may have been a factor can be more difficult. The Shillen Mackall Seldon & Spicer team has experience handling personal injury cases arising from truck accidents in multiple states, and we pride ourselves on our thorough approach to truck accident investigations and holding negligent parties to account. To learn more, set up a free case evaluation by calling our offices in New Hampshire, Florida, or Vermont at (802) 457-4848 today.
Investigating Truck Accident Liability
Determining liability after a trucking accident can often be more complicated than making the same type of determination in the wake of a crash between two passenger cars, primarily because the range of possible liable parties tends to be wider in a trucking accident. While the driver who causes the collision in a car accident may sometimes themselves be the unfortunate victim of an automotive manufacturing defect, in most car accident cases there are not multiple parties who may share partial responsibility for factors identified as contributing to the crash. In trucking accident investigations, however, this kind of multi-party liability scenario is so common that an attorney evaluating a truck accident case will often begin by setting out to determine how many parties may have played a role in creating the conditions that led to the accident.
Besides the driver, parties that often share a part in liability for a trucking accident include:
- The trucking company
- The truck manufacturer
- A third-party truck maintenance provider
Not all of these parties will be present, much less liable, in every truck accident case. However, the number of potentially negligent parties connected to a truck accident tends to be higher, on average, than the number of parties involved in a passenger car collision – potentially encompassing any party responsible for any stage in the Safety Management Cycle (SMC) tool established by the FMCSA. An experienced truck accident injury lawyer with Shillen Mackall Seldon & Spicer may be able to investigate the circumstances surrounding your truck accident and help to determine who may be legally responsible for damages such as:
- Medical bills
- Missed wages
- Vehicle repairs
- Pain and suffering
Consider reaching out to our offices in Florida, New Hampshire, or Vermont to schedule a free consultation to review your case.
Improper or Inadequate Maintenance and Truck Accidents
Maintenance lapses are unfortunately among the more common factors contributing to truck accidents. Failures to properly maintain a commercial semi-truck may result in any of the following:
- brake failure
- malfunctioning tail lights
- ineffective windshield wipers
- faulty steering system
A variety of other possible outcomes can result from a failure to perform regular maintenance checks or failure to complete scheduled maintenance. The severity of the consequences may depend on external factors, such as weather, road conditions, and speed of travel.
Responsibility for Commercial Vehicle Maintenance
Different parties may be responsible for the maintenance of large commercial trucks. In some cases, a driver operating as an independent contractor may bear the brunt of the responsibility for ensuring that their vehicle is roadworthy and ready to drive. In others, a “trucker” with a commercial driver’s license (CDL) may be working as an employee of a large-scale trucking company (or a large-scale business that deploys its own shipping fleet). Additionally, companies maintaining long-haul freight transport services sometimes contract with third parties to provide regular commercial vehicle maintenance services.
Thanks to the complexity of all these factors, simply determining that inadequate or improper maintenance contributed to a truck accident does not necessarily identify the responsible party. In order to determine who was at fault, it will often be necessary to determine not only which parts or vehicle systems malfunctioned, but which party or parties had responsibility for maintaining the key components. Even once responsibility for performing maintenance on a given vehicle system or component has been determined, it may also be the case that a different party – often the truck driver, but potentially the superintendent or foreman responsible for overseeing the fleet’s yard for off-duty vehicles – had a duty to conduct regular checks to determine the vehicle’s condition and report needed maintenance to the departments responsible for providing the necessary maintenance and repair services.
Impact of Improper Maintenance Liability on Truck Accident Claims
Determining the parties responsible for truck accidents is important not only because pursuing claims with the appropriate insurer and, if necessary, filing legal action against the appropriate parties is essential to ensuring a fair outcome that holds negligence to account, but also because the terms and coverage amounts of liability insurance policies on commercial freight trucks can vary widely depending on whether the truck is owned and operated by an independent contractor vs. a large company, among other factors. For similar reasons, the amounts truck accident victims may be eligible to receive as compensation in a court case may in some instances be limited by the negligent party’s ability to pay – possibly even if the accident victim receives a favorable outcome in their case.
At the end of the day, as well, while accident victims typically do want to achieve compensation to cover the losses they have suffered due to truck accidents, more often than not they also want to close their case feeling that justice has served. Victims of truck accident injuries – or, in the most tragic cases, the victims’ families – often want to know that the right parties have been held to account, in the hope that their case outcome will discourage similar negligence in the future and save others from the suffering they personally have experienced.
Manufacturing or Equipment Defects
Regular maintenance may not be adequate to keep a vehicle in good working order if the parts used in repairs are themselves faulty. If the truck driver was attentive to the rules of the road and the roadway conditions and acted appropriately in the moments leading up to the accident, and if the parties responsible for maintaining the semi-truck involved in the crash also fulfilled their duty of care toward those with whom the commercial vehicle would be sharing the roads by conducting regular equipment checks and ensuring that all the vehicle’s recommended maintenance procedures were completed within the manufacturer’s recommended time-frames, then a truck accident attorney may seek to investigate the possibility of defective parts, whether original to the truck or used during a later vehicle repair.
Defective products in commercial trucks fortunately do not always lead to truck accidents. However, a faulty part that fails at the wrong moment, or that performs at a level beneath the driver’s reasonable expectations, can easily contribute to the likelihood of a collision. Depending on the circumstances and the parts involved, a defective part in a commercial freight vehicle may also increase the severity of an accident, even if the failed or faulty component does not directly cause the crash.
Seek Assistance Determining the Cause of Your Truck Accident
The number of parties that can be involved in producing a commercial vehicle, loading it with cargo, driving it under potentially unpredictable highway conditions, and ensuring not only that the truck undergoes both regularly-scheduled and as-needed maintenance, but that the maintenance is properly completed and that any parts used are free of defects, can give rise to a highly complex situation for determining truck accident liability. While instances of gross driver error or clear equipment failure may simplify a truck accident lawyer’s investigative process, truck accidents involve complex liability questions often enough that an experienced personal injury lawyer will in many cases want to conduct a thorough investigation into the maintenance history of the vehicle, as well as the safety record of its make and model, before advising a client of their options for proceeding in a particular case.
Truck accident lawyers often work on a contingency basis, which disincentivizes these attorneys from pursuing cases they think are unlikely to win. The compassionate and dedicated personal injury team with Shillen Mackall Seldon & Spicer offers free case evaluations in Florida, New Hampshire, and Vermont, so consider scheduling a consultation with a member of our experienced staff to review your truck accident case and seek professional perspective regarding your legal options. Call (802) 457-4848 today.