You deserve to take legal action against the party responsible for your accident with a delivery truck. Before you file a complaint with your local civil justice, though, you need to know who you can hold legally responsible for your crash. While your gut may give you one answer, you have a legal obligation to present evidence to defend your claim.
While you can return to your accident scene and gather evidence of someone’s negligence, there are other factors that can affect your right to hold someone liable for a truck accident. Contracts play a significant role in determining whose name goes in your personal injury complaint and whose doesn’t.
Who pays, then, for your delivery truck accident? You can work with a delivery truck crash lawyer to assign blame and take action accordingly.
How to Establish Liability After a Delivery Truck Accident
If you want to assign liability for your delivery truck crash, you need to prove that a particular party or parties violated the duty of care owed to you. That “duty of care” describes the social contract into which everyone on the road enters when they get behind the wheel, walk on the sidewalk, or otherwise engage with moving traffic.
A truck driver’s duty of care dictates that the driver must take reasonable action to protect you from undue harm. That means not getting distracted behind the wheel, obeying each state’s roadway laws, and forgoing reckless behavior. A driver or related party who breaches the duty of care owed to you may owe you damages based on your roadway losses.
That said, you can’t claim that a delivery truck driver violated the duty owed to you without evidence. If you want to file a civil claim against a delivery truck driver after an accident, make sure that you can prove their negligence with:
- Video footage of your accident
- Photos of your accident
- Debris from your crash
- Input from expert witnesses
- Statements from bystanders who witnessed your accident
- A truck’s black box data, if available
You can count on a delivery truck crash lawyer to gather and analyze this evidence on your behalf.
Contracts and Their Impact on Delivery Truck Liability
The contracts involved in a delivery truck case have a distinct impact on your right to hold certain parties liable for your losses. You need to determine what role a delivery truck driver plays within the hierarchy of a trucking agency or related corporation before you file a personal injury claim to avoid confusion or errors that might see your case thrown out.
Specifically, you need to determine whether the driver who hit you works as an independent contractor or a corporate employee. Independent delivery truck drivers do not benefit from a corporation’s legal protection. As such, you can hold an individual delivery truck driver and their insurance provider liable for your losses if they cause your accident.
If the driver who hit you works as an employee of a corporation, your rights change. Corporations can take the blame for the wrongs that their employees do while on the clock. If you can prove that the driver who hit you was both on duty and a corporate employee, you may name the employing corporation responsible for your recovery.
Third-Parties and Their Impact on Delivery Truck Liability
There’s always a chance that the truck driver who was allegedly responsible for your accident only engaged in roadway negligence as a response to another driver or obstacle. In these cases, there may be a third party responsible for your delivery truck accident. Our team can bring forward evidence of another party’s influence over your crash and apportion fault accordingly.
The other parties that may play a role in your delivery truck accident can include the following:
- Construction crews
- Private motorists
- Corporate motorists
- Bicyclists
- Pedestrians
- Motorcyclists
- Automotive manufacturers
- Automotive mechanics
- Government officials
You can discuss the specifics of a truck accident case involving multiple liable parties with our team.
Berry Law’s Team Provides You With Multiple Attorney Perspectives
How to Communicate with the Party Liable for Your Delivery Truck Accident
If you’re working with a delivery truck crash attorney, you should not have to communicate directly with a liable party unless you so choose. Even then, you may want an attorney present for those exchanges, as a truck accident attorney can protect you from intimidation attempts or phrasing that might impact your case.
Should you receive a phone call, email, or other form of communication from a party before you determine who to hold liable for your losses, let your lawyer know. The party that steps forward to take the blame for your accident may not be the party that the law finds liable for your losses. Our team can help you navigate these circumstances without compromising your right to action.
Berry Law Can Represent Your Best Interests
The question of liability often becomes a defining one once you begin an investigation into your losses. After all, you can’t proceed with your case if you don’t know who you want to hold liable for a delivery truck accident. Fortunately, no one expects you to analyze contracts or investigate your accident scene while you’re still recovering from your injuries.
If you need help assigning liability for a delivery truck accident, let Berry Law take the reins on your case. Our team can return to the accident scene, bring forward relevant evidence, and untangle the contracts most relevant to your case. All the while, you can prioritize your and your loved ones’ recovery.
You can contact Berry Law online or by phone today to schedule a free, stress-free case evaluation with an experienced truck accident lawyer.
