Trucking Accidents

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If we have a nearly unique niche in our law practice it is the search for vastly more insurance for catastrophic truck crash cases where the visible insurance coverage is terribly inadequate. Other law firms — in Georgia and elsewhere — call us in to handle that part of a wrongful death or catastrophic personal injury case resulting from a tractor trailer crash.

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The approaches to finding significant additional insurance coverage are not really legal alchemy or voodoo.  But they do involve a critical knowledge of subtle complexity gathered over 38 years in law practice that does not appear in…

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As Georgia faces the prospect of a winter storm this week, we also face the prospect of truck wrecks caused by violations of an important trucking safety rule. Last year, for example, a Georgia DOT spokesman was quoted saying that every major accident in Georgia’s “Snowmageddon 2014” ice storm involved a tractor trailer.

The safety rule throughout the United States is that trucking companies and their drivers are required to exercise “extreme caution” in conditions adversely affecting traction and visibility.

truck on ice Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation 392.14 which provides that, “Extreme…

In June, a Wal-Mart truck driver who had been awake 24 hours caused a deadly pileup in New Jersey. The Wal-Mart truck driver’s Twitter profile included the phrase, “move or get hit.”

Since that crash, most of the attention has been centered on comedian Tracy Morgan because he is most well-known. However he is not the only one that was affected by the incident.

The adult children of James McNair, killed in the June crash in Cranbury that injured comedian Tracy Morgan and others, are moving forward with their suit against Wal-Mart and its truck driver. Wal-Mart owned…

When a commercial truck driver is killed or seriously injured due to the negligence of the driver of a smaller vehicle, it is important to find out whether the insurance policy on the commercial truck includes uninsured / underinsured (UM/UIM) coverage. If so, that UM/UIM coverage would be available to compensate the truck driver or his/her family.

Getting that UM/UIM coverage information from the trucking company and its insurer prior to litigation can be tricky. Official Code of Georgia § 33-3-28 does require pre-suit disclosure of insurance coverage information by insureds and insurers. It provides, in part: “Every insurer providing

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Tractor trailer drivers are required to exercise “extreme caution” in snow and ice, including getting off the road when necessary. Their employers are required to make sure they do exercise “extreme caution.” However, I seldom see many who take that seriously. That was driven home in Tuesday’s winter storm.

When Atlanta’s winter storm (#snowjam2014 #snowcalypse2014) hit metro Atlanta on Tuesday, causing an epic icy gridlock, I was taking depositions in Macon on a truck crash wrongful death case. We finally got through to our judge’s office to get an extension of a deadline for completing depositions, then headed back to…

Handling tractor trailer accident cases on behalf of injured people and their families across Georgia, I often see reports in which I think, “there but for the grace of God” would be a catastrophe. This week there have been four news stories of metro Atlanta crashes involving  tractor trailers. I don’t know the causes at this time, but usual suspects include speed, space management, fatigue and distraction. There are other factors that can come into play but I will not speculate about them.

Interstate 75- Fulton County

An accident involving a jackknifed semi-truck and another vehicle blocked all lanes…

In our Atlanta personal injury and wrongful death law practice, which includes many accidents involving large commercial trucks, we sometimes encounter instances of parts flying off trucks and striking other vehicles. Fortunately, it is rare for cases like one in Texas that occurred in 2012. In that case, a South Texas jury returned a verdict for $281 million to the family of a man killed by a part breaking off a truck doing oil shale fracking work. The family was represented by Ron Rodriguez of Laredo, Texas, with whom appeared on Trucking Litigation Group seminar faculties.

On May, 29,…

The terrorist attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon this week was similar to a lot of IED (improvised explosive device) explosions in the Iraq War in that it produced catastrophic leg injuries requiring emergency amputations. To most of us, that is one of the most horrifying injuries we can imagine.

But in my personal injury trial law practice in Atlanta, I am continually inspired and encouraged by people with amputation injuries who not merely survive but overcome and thrive.

  • The Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, Carol Hunstein, lost a leg to cancer by the

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CW Transport, LLC is a four-truck garbage hauling company in metro Atlanta. Though small in size, it is large in vehicle maintenance and unsafe driving violations. That bad record culminated in an incident in which the transmission parts from a CW Transport truck flew off the truck, across the median of I-20 and through the windshield of a Chevy Blazer.

That flying transmission part sliced off the arm of a young mother, Jemeka Malone, and killed her 8-year-old son, Cameron McIlwain. Ironically, the husband and father, Quantaine Malone, is himself a long-haul truck driver. This incident was featured in the…

ABCO Transportation, Inc., a refrigerated freight haulder based in Dade City, Florida, has had for several years an unsatisfactory record of unsafe driving violations with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. When a trucking company has a record as bad as ABCO, often there are issues of management turning a blind eye to safety, in my experience as a trucking trial attorney.

ABCO’s poor safety record culminated July 2012 when an ABCO truck driver ran a red light on Thornton Road in Douglas County, Georgia, causing a tragic crash that took the lives of two AutoTrader.com employees and injured…