How do you recover from a freight truck accident? Collisions with a vehicle more than four times the size of a passenger car can permanently change your ability to care for yourself. Whether you’re contending with your own injuries or the grief of a loved one’s wrongful death, the path to recovery can seem hopelessly mired by obstacles.
There is good news, though. The freight truck accident attorneys with Berry Law have helped hundreds of truck accident survivors like you overcome the obstacles keeping them from a happy, healthy life. If you want to start down the road to recovery, you can work with our team to demand financial compensation from the parties liable for your losses.
What to Do After a Freight Truck Accident
The term “freight truck” serves as an umbrella term for a wide range of semi-trucks and hauling vehicles. If you get into a truck accident, you need to clarify whether you got into an accident with a:
- Box truck
- Semi-trailer
- Flatbed
- Step deck
- Tanker
Clarifying what kind of vehicle hit you and what industry its driver works for or within can help you investigate the nature of your accident more effectively.
That said, all of the trucks that fall under the freight truck umbrella are exceptionally powerful. As such, they are all incredibly dangerous. In the immediate hours following a truck accident, you need to prioritize your and your passengers’ health.
You can work with first responders to address any of your immediate health concerns, then talk with ER staff or your general practitioner about your recovery plan. You or a representative can then contact your insurance provider and call an attorney. A freight truck crash lawyer can return to the accident scene, talk to witnesses, and start investigating your crash.
What to Do After a Fatal Freight Truck Accident
It’s difficult to put a voice to the grief you may feel after a fatal freight truck accident. If you lose a loved one due to a truck driver’s negligence, that rage and sorrow can consume the weeks, months, and years following the crash.
Unfortunately, you have a limited amount of time to act on the departed’s behalf. You may have the right to pursue a wrongful death claim demanding damages for the losses both you and your loved one endured from the freight truck accident. You need to work with a wrongful death lawyer, though, to read through state law and identify the applicable statute of limitations.
If your state’s law affords you the right to represent the departed’s best interests, you can negotiate for a settlement or take the party responsible for the fatal freight truck crash to civil court. These laws may also allow you to act if you didn’t lose a loved one but want to represent someone who’s suffered paralyzing injuries or traumatic brain injuries.
You can discuss your rights under state law and your next best steps with Berry Law’s personal injury lawyers.
Liability in a Freight Truck Accident
Who do you hold accountable for a freight truck accident? Determining liability takes multiple steps. While you can investigate your accident on your own, it’s often best to rest, recuperate, and call in the professionals. The Berry Law team can:
Analyze Establishing Evidence
You can’t build a freight truck accident case without evidence. If you want to name another party liable for your losses, you must be able to back that claim with:
- Black box data
- Witness statements
- Analysis and/or input from expert witnesses
- Physical debris from the accident scene
- Videos or photos of your accident
- Social media posts describing your accident
- Police reports, medical statements, and related paperwork
Our team can gather this evidence from your accident scene in the days, weeks, and months following your crash. We can then craft an analysis of what we find and use it to identify what party the court may consider legally liable for your losses.
That party may be the freight truck’s driver, but it may also be someone else. Trucking companies, government officials, and even private motorists can all contribute to your freight truck accident losses. It’s our job to divide fault among the applicable parties and ensure your complaint fully addresses the nature of your crash.
Account for Contracts
We also have to address the role contracts may play in your accident. Most freight truck drivers today work as independent contractors. Corporations prefer to hire independent contractors because those corporations aren’t legally liable for an independent contractor’s behavior.
That said, some freight truck drivers work as full- or part-time employees. If a corporation classifies an at-fault truck driver as an employee, then you don’t name that individual driver as the party liable for your losses. So long as you can prove the driver’s company status, you can declare their employer, the trucking corporation, responsible for your economic recovery.
Requesting Damages for Your Losses
Between the medical bills, your damaged property, and the time you need to take off of work to recover, freight truck accidents can prove expensive. It’s not fair to put the responsibility for all of these bills on you when someone else’s negligence caused your accident. Berry Law knows that and advocates for your right to recover economic and non-economic accident damages.
We break the damages you deserve down into the two aforementioned categories. First, we take a look at the bills generated by your recovery. We then find the sum of those economic losses and use it as the baseline value of your case. The costs that we can include in our estimate of your desired economic damages can include the following:
- Your emergency medical expenses
- The cost of repairing or replacing your damaged property
- Rental fees
- Long-term medical attention, physical therapy, and at-home aid
- Compensation for wages lost throughout your recovery
We then factor in your non-economic losses. These include any emotional or mental trauma you endured as a result of your accident. We can also find the dollar value of your pain and suffering. Once we know the value of these losses, we combine them with our estimate of your economic damages and present the total to a presiding judge, jury, or insurance company.
Berry Law Can Get You Back on Your Feet
Don’t let a truck driver’s roadway negligence dictate how you have to spend the next several years of your life. Contact Berry Law and take action against those responsible for your injuries and losses. Our freight truck accident lawyers can meet with you, discuss the nature of your accident, and initiate an investigation into your losses.
If you have questions about the legal process or want to compare a settlement offer against the real value of your case, get in touch with our team members. You can reach us by calling our office or through our online contact form. Your first case consultation comes free of charge and obligation so you can consider your next steps with as little stress as possible.