The minimum liability insurance required for large trucks in interstate commerce was set at $750,000 forty years ago in 1981 at the beginning of the Reagan Administration. Everything else has gotten more expensive in the past forty years. Nothing costs the same since then–not the truck, the repairs, the gas, or the tolls, so it is completely unrealistic for the truckers to have the same insurance as they did forty years ago.

If adjusted for the Consumer Price Index, it would be $2,203,415.84 today. People who are injured by trucking negligence need to pay their medical bills so trucking safety

Ken Shigley of Shigley Law LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia, recently earned his third national board certification, in Truck Accident Law, from the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Certification is based upon exhaustive testing, documentation of extensive experience in the field of trucking accident litigation, writing samples, and professional recommendations from lawyers and attorneys familiar with the applicant’s work.

The National Board of Trial Advocacy operates under authority of the American Bar Association.   “There is no dispute about the bona fides and the relevance of NBTA certification…. Disclosure of information . . .  both serves the public interest

When a family member is killed or seriously injured in a crash with a tractor trailer, a normal human instinct is to wait a decent interval before consulting an attorney. Then one may be inclined to take one’s time talking with a hometown lawyer who handles an occasional car wreck case along with divorces, criminal cases and real estate closings.  Meanwhile, trucking companies and their insurance companies are busy burying incriminating evidence.

A recent case in our office illustrates the importance of striking hard and fast to preserve evidence. While a truck crash victim was in ICU at the

You are a great lawyer in your area of practice. You are also smart enough to know when a big case may require prompt action outside your comfort zone.

Just as a trial lawyer may not feel comfortable handling a complex real estate, divorce or estate planning matter, a great lawyer in those fields may not want to risk a client’s rights by trying to figure out how to handle a catastrophic truck crash case.

When you get a call from a friend or client that a family member has been killed or seriously injured in a crash with a

In catastrophic truck crashes that kill or catastrophically injury innocent people, the root cause of the tragedy is often not the momentary carelessness of a truck driver. Rather, the root cause is very often the systemic mismanagement by a company that puts behind the wheel of an 80,000 bomb a person who never should have been driving it. The driver may be a good guy who because inadequate training or experience, bad driving record, or physical incapacity was not well-fitted for the job. That can result in a claim for negligent entrustment.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Georgia

negligent hiring warning signOften in a catastrophic truck crash, the trucking company admits that the truck driver was negligent and was in the course and scope of employment. That is a smart tactic to attempt to focus all blame on two seconds of driver negligence rather than months or years of corporate conduct including negligent hiring of the driver. They may get by with it because of a Court of Appeals decision that bars claims for the company’s corporate negligence that are “merely duplicative” of respondeat superior agency liability for negligence of an employee. Hospital Authority of Valdosta/Lowndes County v. Fender, 342

An approaching driver’s view of a tractor trailer pulling from breakdown lane into traffic in the dark

A tractor-trailer pulled from the highway shoulder in front of an approaching SUV on I-95 in Jasper County, SC, just north of Savannah, about 9:30 PM Wednesday night, August 8, 2018. The impact killed Raymond Jackson, Jr., driver of the approaching vehicle, a 1999 Ford Expedition. This happened about 3 miles north of the Georgia-South Carolina line, between the Savannah River and Hardeeville.

Initial news reports  of this crash involving vehicles emerging from Georgia do not identify

Much of our Atlanta-based litigation law practice is based upon referrals from other attorneys around Georgia and North America for catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in Georgia. Most of these are not simple, slam-dunk cases. Often we have to contend with a rat’s nest of convoluted, multi-layered liability defenses. Among those is often the “independent contractor” defense. The company that is the prime mover in an activity may cloak itself behind an “independent contractor” shell game, capturing most of the profits while trying to outsource all the risks of harm to others.

Here is a paper I presented on

A chain reaction crash involving four big rig tractor trailers on I-285 near Camp Creek Parkway in south Fulton County, GA, killed a woman in a passenger car on June 19, 2018.

According to the Georgia State Patrol, A tractor-trailer was traveling northbound when it struck three other big rigs and the rear of a car, pushing the car underneath another tractor-trailer.

News photos showed that at least one truck’s cab was badly crushed and the roof of the passenger car was caved in.

In addition to the one fatality, five others were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. It

A young truck driver from California lost his life on the side of I-16 in Laurens County, Georgia, on March 2nd. This  tragedy highlights how truck drivers are in one of the most dangerous occupations.

According to news reports, a 22-year-old California truck driver was killed when he sideswiped a disabled semi in predawn darkness on the shoulder of I-16 in Laurens County, Georgia.

Shortly after 5 a.m., an 18-wheeler loaded with tangelos from Delano, California, sideswiped a disabled tractor-trailer on the right shoulder on I-16. The California citrus truck then went off the right side of