When trucking companies injure drivers and passengers because of their drivers’ mistakes on the road, they should be held responsible. Truck accidents account for death and serious injury to the victim far more often than they do the trucker, and our lawyers help you get justice for these kinds of accidents.
We can fight the truck driver or the driver – or whoever else might be responsible – to get your damages paid. This means aggressively seeking medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and pain and suffering damages.
Do not settle for less than you deserve. Call our truck accident lawyers at The Reiff Law Firm today at (215) 709-6940.
Do You Sue a Trucking Company or the Trucker?
When you are injured by a truck driver, their status as an employee or a self-employed driver might change who you can sue. Rest assured that there usually is money to pay for your damages, whether it comes from the trucking company or an insurance company, but how your case proceeds might change.
Respondeat Superior Rules (Vicarious Liability)
Trucking companies can be held responsible for the crashes their drivers cause while on duty. This requires these three elements:
- The truck driver must be responsible for the crash, typically meaning they caused the crash through negligence.
- The driver must be an employee of the trucking company, not an independent contractor or self-employed driver.
- The crash must have happened within the scope of the driver’s employment, which is usually met when their job is literally to drive a truck.
If the driver is a contractor instead of an employee, this first requirement might not be met. You would then file against the driver and their insurance alone.
Direct Liability for Trucking Companies
Trucking companies can also be directly liable for causing a crash if something the company did contributed to the accident. This might not make them 100% at fault in every case, but the company still has to pay for its own share of fault.
This generally comes from these kinds of mistakes:
- Negligent hiring or retention of drivers the company knew or should have known were dangerous.
- Hiring unlicensed or unqualified drivers.
- Violating requirements for maintenance and inspection of the trucks they own.
- Violating other trucking regulations.
How Hours of Service Rules Affect Truck Accidents
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) puts out regulations that truckers and trucking companies need to follow. One of the most important is hours of service rules.
Summary of Hours of Service Rules
Briefly, hours of service rules restrict how long a driver can drive, using these limits:
- 8-hour driving limit, broken up by at least a 30-minute break.
- 14-hour on-duty limit, broken up by 10 hours off duty.
- 11-hour driving limit in a day, broken up by 10 hours off duty.
- 60-hour driving limit in a 7-day week or 70-hour driving limit in an 8-day week, broken up by 34 hours off duty.
Some breaks can be taken in a sleeper berth or broken up, but others cannot.
How Violations Affect Cases
If a truck driver or a trucking company violates trucking regulations, and that safety rule violation causes a crash, this can be used as per se evidence of negligence. This kind of case is not often relied upon, given that there may be other violations, too, e.g., tired driving.
However, this regulatory violation may be good evidence of recklessness that we could use to claim punitive damages.
Can You Use Your Insurance for a Truck Accident?
Understanding whether your insurance or their insurance covers a crash is a typical point of confusion for truck accident victims in Pennsylvania.
Bodily Injury Coverage
In Pennsylvania, our insurance laws require us to have at least $5,000 worth of coverage for injury treatment. This usually kicks in first and helps cover some of your damages, but it will typically not be enough.
Limited Tort vs. Full Tort System
We have a choice to make in Pennsylvania as to whether we use limited tort or full tort insurance:
- Limited tort coverage is cheaper, but limits when you can sue to serious injuries or other particular situations.
- Full tort is more expensive and never blocks you from suing.
If you want to go after the at-fault driver for coverage, you need a full tort policy or an excuse under limited tort, which is often simple enough to find in a serious injury case.
Policy Add-Ons
You may have other additional policy provisions to help with your care, which you can access without proving fault. However, you have to pay a deductible to use these first-party benefits.
At-Fault Party Still Pays
At the end of your case, the at-fault party is the one who should pay all of your costs and reimburse you for any expenses and deductibles you paid. Whether this is the individual trucker, the trucking company, or insurance companies for either party, our truck accident lawyers are here to find full compensation for you.
What Damages Are Covered?
Truck accident cases usually cover medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, property damage, and any economic damages that result. If their settlement offers do not cover all of these in full, you should reject them and let us take the case to court.
Partial Fault in a Truck Accident Case
Under Pennsylvania law, we can divide fault among multiple parties. This might mean any of these parties could share fault and pay partial damages:
- The driver could be at fault, but the trucking company may cover their share.
- The trucking company could be at fault directly, in addition to it covering its driver’s fault.
- Another driver or multiple drivers could share fault.
- The victim could have contributed to their own crash. This would reduce your damages, but you can still recover the defendants’ shares of damages as long as your fault is 50% or less.
Other outside parties, such as truck part manufacturers, may also share some liability.
Call Our Truck Accident Lawyers in Drexel Hill Today
For a free case evaluation, call the truck accident attorneys at The Reiff Law Firm at (215) 709-6940.
