Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I sometimes handle trucking accident claims in which the client sues the trucking insurance company directly, in addition to or instead of suing the trucker and trucking company. Until recently, this was only possible in Wisconsin when the trucking insurance policy in question was issued for delivery within the state of Wisconsin. But in Casper v. American International South Insurance Co., the state Supreme Court overruled that precedent and allowed the Casper family to sue American International. The court also ruled that plaintiffs in general may sue corporate officers for non-intentional actions, though it did not allow a claim against the trucking company’s COO in this case.

The Casper family’s minivan was stopped at an intersection in 2003 when a tractor-trailer driven by Mark Wearing rear-ended it at 40 mph. All four Caspers and passenger Sara Janey were injured. Michael Casper, a minor, was rendered a quadriplegic; Janey suffered a traumatic brain injury and lost the use of one kidney. Investigators found that Wearing was abusing three prescription drugs at the time of the crash. Wearing also testified at trial that his employer, Bestway Systems Inc., had given him a route he had objected to as too long to fit federal hours of service restrictions, but a supervisor had told him to lie about his hours or face firing. Bestway’s COO, Jeffrey Wenham, allegedly approved a route that the Caspers’ expert later said was illegally long. The Caspers sued Wenham as an individual for negligent training and supervision and violations of federal trucking laws.

In trial court, Wenham successfully moved for summary judgment, arguing that he could not be held personally liable for actions at work. After consideration, the trial court let stand only a claim that Wenham should not have approved the route Wearing took. Wearing was co-employed by another trucking company named TLC, whose insurance company the Caspers sued directly. In a separate cause of action, that insurer, National Union, successfully moved for summary judgment because its policy was not issued for delivery within Wisconsin. Both sides appealed and the appeals court affirmed, giving rise to the instant appeal.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court first dispensed with a procedural question, then turned to the issue of whether National Union could be sued directly under Wisconsin law. The law says parties may sue insurers for “all insurance policies … delivered or issued for delivery in this state, on property ordinarily located in this state, on persons residing in this state when the policy or certificate is issued, or on business operations in this state.” A previous Court of Appeals case had interpreted this to mean the policy must be delivered or issued for delivery in Wisconsin. But the Supreme Court, construing a long legislative history, unanimously held that the law applies to any liability insurance policy “so long as the accident or injury occurs in this state.”

It next examined whether Wenham could be held personally liable for negligently approving the allegedly illegal route taken by Wearing — and decided that he could. The Supreme Court noted that employees and officers can be personally liable regardless of whether their employers are also liable. It dismissed an argument by Wenham that finding him liable would create bad public policy that would hold any corporate officer of a trucking company responsible for any accident based on any negligence claim. This is overstatement, the court said. However, it agreed that the facts of this case — Wenham never even met Wearing — make holding Wenham responsible against public policy. Thus, it upheld the circuit court but made new law in Wisconsin on both issues.

As a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I am pleased by this ruling. Trucking accident attorneys in Wisconsin have been handed two powerful new tools to help their clients recover damages. Making insurance companies directly liable may do no more than suing their insureds would do, but it skips the middle man. And having the ability to hold corporate officers personally responsible helps expand the pool of potential defendants. This matters in a case like Michael Casper’s and Sara Janey’s because they have suffered permanent, severe disabilities that will require a lifetime of treatment. In addition to changing their lives forever, practically and emotionally, this will require a lifetime of expensive medical care. That’s why, as a St. Louis 18-wheeler accident attorney, I work hard to get my clients the maximum possible compensation for their injuries.

Continue reading "Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Trucking Accident Victim May Sue Insurer With Out of State Policy – Casper v. American International South Insurance Co." »

New York State Police reported on Friday, July 22, that at least twenty people had been hospitalized following a collision between a semi truck and a tour bus near the city of Waterloo, New York.

The collision happened around 1:30 a.m., and according to local news reports, the vehicles caught fire shortly after the collision as well. The injured people were taken to a number of local medical facilities after the incident, and no word is yet released about their identities or medical conditions even several days later.

A particular incident of note is that a soldier from New York's Fort Drum saw the scene and the fire, and stopped to help. He entered the burning bus and helped pull several injured people to safety before rescue crews arrived, an example of outstanding heroism and good Samaritanism.

The crash caused a temporary shutdown of both directions of traffic, but as of Saturday the road had been cleared and traffic was moving normally.

Once again, this is an incident that highlights the danger of sharing roads with semi trucks and tractor trailers. A tour bus is a large vehicle in and of itself, though usually not quite as massive as a tractor-trailer, and this one was hit so hard that it burst into flames following the impact.

The exact cause of the truck accident is unknown, and there could be many reasons for it. Driver error on the part of the trucker, mechanical failure, intoxication, fatigue from long hours of driving — there are numerous ways that this event could have occurred. But the fact of the matter is, however it happened, this semi truck caused twenty people to suffer injuries serious enough to force them to be hospitalized. Drivers must understand that they are sharing the road with highly-dangerous machines when semi trucks are nearby.

Tragically, there was a fatal accident last week on Nebraska's Interstate 80 involving a semi truck and an RV.

Both vehicles were traveling westbound on I-80 when the tractor-trailer hit the back of the camper five miles east of Gothenburg. The impact caused both vehicles to go out of control and jackknife, colliding with a Platte River bridge railing on the highway.

Shortly after the collision, both vehicles were covered in flames, and multiple people were injured in the accident. A passenger sleeping in the truck's resting compartment was killed in the impact. The victim was Andrzej Piaszczynski, 56, of Rolling Meadows, Ill. The driver, Bogdan Kaszuba of Des Plains, Ill., was taken to a nearby hospital.

In the camper were six passengers, all of whom suffered assorted injuries as well. Two of the passengers were children, ages 12 and 15. The 12-year-old eventually had to be taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries received in the accident. The driver of the RV suffered a broken leg. Complete details on the nature of the injuries suffered by everyone involved are not available, but according to police reports from the scene, no additional fatalities are expected.

The accident shut down traffic on the westbound lanes for several hours, with roads not reopening until about 7 a.m. Even then, traffic was not moving normally until about 3 p.m.

The accident highlights the potential severity of collisions with semi trucks. Almost immediately, both vehicles were on fire, and someone was killed outright in the impact. Both vehicles went out of control and jackknifed off the road. Had the accident taken place at a later hour or in stiffer traffic, the situation could easily have been much more dire, involving more motorists and other cars in a chain-reaction from the original collision.

As a southern Illinois big rig accident attorney, I was interested to read a Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on insurance coverage in a fatal trucking accident. Clarendon National Insurance Company v. Medina et al stems from a jackknifing incident that sent a trailer across a highway and killed driver Michael Walter Schulman. Schulman’s parents sued the driver, Guillermo Medina; his employer, Town Trucking Company; and his wife, Maria Medina, who was the legal owner of the truck. The lawsuit eventually settled with a $2 million consent judgment against Town and the Medinas, with $1 million coming from Town’s trucking insurance and $1 million coming from insurance for Guillermo Medina.

Medina’s insurer, Clarendon, refused to pay because the language of its policy said the coverage does not apply to “a covered auto while in the business of anyone to whom the auto is rented.” The Medinas, Town and the Schulmans argued that Guillermo Medina could not have rented the truck to Town because he did not own it. A federal trial court disagreed and ruled in favor of Clarendon. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the Seventh was skeptical of the claim that Guillermo Medina could not have rented the truck to Town. Guillermo Medina signed his contract with Town with his wife’s knowledge and encouragement, used the truck with her knowledge and deposited his pay in a joint account, the court said. Furthermore, federal law defines an “owner” more broadly than the holder of the title of the truck; for regulatory purposes, an owner can be someone who has exclusive use of the truck even though he or she may not have the title. Town was not aware that Maria Medina was the true owner of the truck, the court said, but this doesn’t mean Guillermo Media could not have been acting on her behalf when he signed his agreement with Town. Finally, the court ruled that their agreement did indeed constitute “renting” or “leasing” the truck within the meaning of the insurance policy. Thus, the Seventh upheld the trial court’s decision that Clarendon need not pay.

This decision, despite its length, is fairly simple; it relies on the plain wording of the insurance policies and the law. As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I appreciate that the ruling must be disappointing to the Schulmans, who are unlikely to get the full value of their claim. The Medinas are unlikely to have $1 million in personal assets with which to satisfy the judgment, so the Schulmans will almost certainly have to drop their efforts to collect the full $2 million. This is one reason truckers carry their own insurance, as well as the trucking company’s insurance: They simply cannot afford to pay these kinds of damages as individuals. Commercial truck accidents are so serious and deadly that the damages will almost always be large. That’s why, as a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney, I do my best to maximize the damages coming from insurance, rather than individuals or small businesses.

Continue reading "Insurance Policy Excludes Claim by Family of Driver Killed by Semi Truck, Seventh Circuit Rules – Clarendon National Insurance v. Medina" »

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I’ve written here many times about the importance of strong regulations and strong enforcement to keep unsafe drivers off the road. So I was interested to see a July 7 article about a woman in North Carolina who is suing the agency responsible for those regulations, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, for allowing a known law-breaker to continue driving. Jackie Novak lost her son, Chuck Novak, last October when a truck driver slammed into a line of cars on Interstate 26 in western North Carolina. After the crash, Jackie Novak’s claim says, it was revealed that driver Rouman Velkov had multiple safety violations.

Velkov worked for Globe Carrier Co. when he slammed into nine cars last Oct. 24, killing Chuck Novak, 22, and four others. At the time, he was not medically cleared to drive a commercial truck. He also had a record of safety violations, including going over the maximum allowable hours of driving per day as well as falsifying his hours of service logs. A safety audit conducted Nov. 9, after the crash, found that he had violated HOS rules that day as well. Jackie Novak’s claim against the FMCSA faults the agency for failing to take Velkov off the road despite Globe Carrier’s record of safety violations. She asked for a panel at the FMCSA to review truck safety policies, and also for $1 million, but told the newspaper that she would rather have the panel, because “They could pay me $20 million and I would never get my son back.”

This is a sentiment I commonly hear in my work as a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident lawyer. Grieving families know all too well that a lawsuit will not bring their loved ones back, but hope to make the roads safer. In most cases, they sue the trucking company responsible for the safety violations. Jackie Novak’s case is unusual in that it asks the FMCSA to better enforce its own rules and, as an afterthought, for money. She and her attorney know very well that they will not be able to sue the FMCSA in court (because of a legal doctrine called sovereign immunity), which means this claim is essentially a cry of protest against the FMCSA’s lax enforcement. I strongly agree that the agency can do better than it did with Globe Carrier.

At Carey, Danis & Lowe, we represent clients who were seriously injured or lost a loved one in a trucking accident that was no fault of their own. Not every driver is unsafe, but when drivers are allowed to drive without a valid license, speed, ignore drug tests and more, they put everyone around them in unnecessary and unreasonable danger. In many cases, the trucking companies know about or even create the unsafe situation, but allow it to continue because breaking the law is less expensive than complying. Our St. Louis 18-wheeler accident attorneys represent people who suffered injuries, permanent disabilities or a death in the family because of these policies. We help victims claim financial compensation for their losses, pain and suffering and all costs of the accident, especially high medical bills.

Continue reading "North Carolina Mother Files Wrongful Death Claim Against FMCSA for Keeping Unsafe Driver on the Road" »

A semi truck driver was hospitalized following his truck overturning in Florida near the intersection of State road 19 and US 17 on Tuesday.

Cpl. Pete Young of the Florida Highway Patrol reported that the driver, one Gregory Terry Williams, overturned his truck and was transported to a Gainesville trauma center just after noon local time. His injuries were reported as serious, but not life-threatening, at the time he was admitted. According to Young, "It looked like he took this turn a little sharp and too quick and rolled it on the side."

The crash threw Williams' cargo, a load of road asphalt, all over the highways and into the median. Fortunately the impact did not injure anyone else, nor did it cause any additional accidents. A police helicopter was dispatched to survey the extent of the accident shortly after the truck overturned.

What is striking about this is that the driver was injured in the impact. Semi trucks are huge vehicles, as has been discussed before. Controlling them is difficult, as is evidenced by the failure of Williams to control his vehicle when making a sharp turn. Add in the pressure on these drivers to quickly get their cargoes to the specified locations as quickly as possible, and you can easily see how readily safety concerns are set aside. And clearly no one is safe — the driver himself was hurt as his vehicle turned over. If these large vehicles cannot protect their own drivers, how safe are others in collisions with a semi truck?

Further, the cargoes of these trucks are extremely large. They can carry hundreds of tons of payload, and when such a truck is in an accident, the cargo often is sent just about every which way. Imagine if instead of asphalt, the truck had been carrying massive concrete pipes for sewer lines, or a cargo of smaller cars? Would the accident have only injured one?

Here in Missouri, it’s been established for more than a decade that plaintiffs in truck accident cases cannot assert claims against trucking companies for both negligent entrustment and vicarious liability. So I was interested, as a St. Louis semi truck accident attorney, to see a similar ruling from the California Supreme Court. In Diaz v. Carcamo et al., the California high court reversed one of the state’s appeals courts for failing to follow precedent on the issue. It disagreed that the 1954 ruling in Armenta v. Churchill conflicted with California’s comparative fault system, and ultimately ordered a new trial in the case.

The plaintiff is Dawn Diaz, who was injured in a tractor-trailer accident on Highway 101. As she headed south on the divided highway, a northbound driver, Karen Tagliaferri, attempted to pass trucker Jose Caramo, pulled back into the lane, clipped Carcamo’s truck and flew over the divider. Diaz sustained permanent, serious injuries and eventually sued Tagliaferri, Carcamo and Carcamo’s employer, Sugar Transport. At trial, Sugar offered to admit vicarious liability if Carcamo was found negligent, but argued that admitting vicarious liability would bar Diaz from pursuing claims against it for negligence in hiring, entrusting and retaining Carcamo. The judge disagreed, and the jury eventually found that Sugar was liable for negligence as well as vicariously through Carcamo.

Sugar appealed, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. It acknowledged the Armenta decision, but noted that it did not involve an allocation of comparative fault, which was created in California in the 1970s. It also dismissed 2005’s Jeld-Wen Inc. v. Superior Court, in which a Court of Appeal dismissed a negligent entrustment claim after the defendant admitted vicarious liability, saying the case had not dealt with allocation of fault.

The Supreme Court disagreed with this. Under Armenta, it said, an admission of vicarious liability makes a negligent entrustment claim irrelevant. As a result, it said, the plaintiffs in this case should not have been permitted to introduce evidence in support of the negligence claims, including damaging evidence about Carcamo’s employment history, honesty and immigration status. The court disagreed that fault cannot be properly allocated if Sugar is removed under Armenta. Under Jeld-Wen, an employer that admits liability bears exactly the same amount of fault as the employee; thus, the employer should not even be a party that can potentially be at fault. To do otherwise could subject the employer to more fault than the employee has, which the court said was inequitable. Because the trial court failed to follow this rule and the jury may have been prejudiced by extra evidence about Carcamo, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial.

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer, I would prefer that the California and Missouri courts had come to a different conclusion. The theories of vicarious liability and negligent entrustment are similar. However, by admitting vicarious liability, trucking companies can stop the jury from ever hearing evidence about the negligence of the trucker or their own negligence. In fact, as a result of this kind of decision, trucking companies now admit vicarious liability just so they can keep juries from hearing about their bad decisions. This is not necessarily fatal to the case, but it keeps important information away from the jury. And as a southern Illinois big rig accident attorney, I think juries should have the fullest picture possible when they decide cases, even when it’s not especially flattering to the defendants.

Continue reading "Victim Cannot Sue Trucking Company for Vicarious Liability and Also Negligent Entrustment – Diaz v. Carcamo" »

Returning to the lighter side of highway incidents, an accident involving a semi truck and several other vehicles completely ruined the semi truck's cargo of apples.

As a result of the accident, Colorado's Highway 70 was shut down near the site of the accident for a number of hours. Initially one lane was open to allow vehicles through, but process was slow as a result of bumpy, sticky and slick road conditions resulting from the apple spill. Later, recovery personnel closed even this lane while they attempted to right the semi truck, which had overturned, and clear it from the road.

Despite the relative humor of a plague of apples descending on drivers, the trucking accident could have been very serious. Indeed, two people involved were injured, though apparently not critically.

More than anything, this accident illustrates the danger that semi trucks carrying large cargo can pose — even relatively innocuous cargo such as apples.

Further, semi trucks are massive vehicles, easily able to demolish other cars they come in contact with. It isn't difficult to imagine a semi truck overturning and instead of missing other cars in the end, landing atop one. Or knocking other vehicles off the road as it skids out of control.

Further, the cargo carried by these huge vehicles are correspondingly large. This accident only involved apples, but semis are seen carrying massive concrete structures, other smaller cars, flammable or explosive fuel and other dangerous supplies. An overturning vehicle could throw thousands of pounds of supplies into unsuspecting motorists' paths without so much as a how-do-you-do.

Drivers who are on the highway or even residential roads with semi trucks are advised to be aware of what the semi is doing at all times, without exception. These trucks require huge turning spaces, and can be dangerous even if they only forget to signal when changing lanes. Here's hoping that no one else is subjected to a rain of apples — or worse — the next time they come across a semi.