Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

A major traffic accident near the Chicago neighborhood of Highland Park claimed the life of a semi truck driver. 51-year-old Richard Stolt of Cleveland, Minnesota, was driving through the northern side of the suburb around 10:30 on Wednesday night when the accident happened. The collision ended up involving another semi truck and four other vehicles on the road. Stolt was severely injured in the impact and died as a result of the trauma to his body.

All the drivers of the other vehicles, including the other semi truck driver, were injured in the collision, as well, though the injuries appear to be minor and everyone is expected to recover in time.

Authorities still aren't sure what caused the accident.

Regardless of cause, the truck accident was apparently very difficult to clean up. According to reports from authorities in the area, traffic in Highland Park was still experiencing delays and backups as late as Thursday morning. Whether this was due to wreckers or recovery vehicles being unable to get to the scene or some other cause is unclear at this time.

More than anything, the extent of the accident and the lack of details even days later show how chaotic these accidents can be. This was very near a suburban residential area, and yet there are few witnesses who can explain just what happened in the accident. There is as yet no official report despite several days of investigation.

Despite the lack of details, the case still shows what we have been arguing all along: Semi trucks are dangerous for other drivers to be around. Even the driver of another semi was injured in this collision, as were four other drivers. Few accidents involve five other vehicles besides the first one, but multiple vehicle accidents sometimes seem like the rule when a semi truck gets involved.

A two-truck accident on Indiana's Interstate 70 left one driver dead. Police still are trying to figure out what caused the August 17 accident.

According to witnesses and officials, both semi trucks were moving through a construction area on Wednesday. Traffic was reportedly coming to a stop, with the lead Volvo semi slowing down accordingly. At that time, the truck behind the Volvo crashed into the lead truck, crushing into the towed box trailer on the first vehicle, apparently at some speed.

Emergency crews arrived quickly on scene and attempted to free the driver of the second truck. However, tragedy struck within a few moments as the cab abruptly caught fire. The fire spread so quickly and became so intense that the rescue crews were forced to retreat before they could get the driver out of the vehicle. Firefighters had to spend two full hours constantly fighting the inferno to bring it under control, and the driver of the second rig was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.

The deceased driver was not identified, pending notification of his family or next of kin, apart from police confirming he was from Ohio and driving for the Tennessee-based company Averitt Express Inc. The driver of the Volvo semi was one Kundan S. Randwaha, a 57-year-old native of Ontario, Canada. Randwaha was surprisingly not injured in the collision or the subsequent fireball.

As said above, police are still unsure what caused the accident. The damage to the second vehicle was extensive, and it may be some time before they can figure out if it was driver error or some manner of mechanical failure that kept the unidentified driver from stopping in time. There is also no word yet on why the cab suddenly combusted following the accident, though a fuel leak is suspected.

Because commercial truck drivers are almost always at work when they get into serious crashes, I am accustomed to workers’ compensation issues being involved in my work as a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney. But it’s much more rare to have a multi-vehicle accident in which two victims were at work for the same employer in separate cars. That situation raised an unusual workers’ compensation defense in McDaniel v. Lee and PP Trucking, Inc., a decision of the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey. Jeffrey McDaniel and Fernandino Devers were both working for Sprint/Nextel when they were involved in a chain-reaction crash caused by Man Wai Lee, a truck driver who failed to brake in time for a red light. Lee appealed to the court for an opportunity to sue Devers for alleged negligence contributing to the crash.

McDaniel was driving a Sprint/Nextel vehicle when he stopped at a red light in Newark. Devers was stopped directly behind him in another Sprint/Nextel vehicle. Lee, in an eighteen-wheeler, approached from behind but did not stop in time, so it rear-ended the vehicle driven by Devers, which was pushed into McDaniel’s vehicle. McDaniel and Devers testified that they suffered a second impact as well. Devers was taken to the hospital in an ambulance; McDaniel drove himself. They both made successful workers’ compensation claims and also filed separate claims against Lee and his employer, PP Trucking. The two suits were later consolidated for trial. In McDaniel’s case, Lee also filed a third-party complaint against Devers, arguing that Devers was negligent and contributed to McDaniel’s injuries. McDaniel’s attorney, who also represented Devers, moved to dismiss on the grounds that it was frivolous and sought sanctions. Lee moved to disqualify the attorney, arguing he had a conflict of interests. The court denied both motions and both were appealed.

The Appellate Division ultimately found that Lee’s third-party claim against Devers was barred by New Jersey’s Workers’ Compensation Act. Under most circumstances, that Act bars lawsuits by injured employees against both their employers and their colleagues. No precedent existed on whether it also bars third-party actions against a colleague, but the court applied precedent on third-party actions against the employer. In those cases, courts found that under workers’ compensation law, the employer cannot ever be lumped in as a tortfeasor by a third party. The same, it found, is true of a colleague. It rejected claims that workers’ compensation law does not apply because the two men were in separate cars. The court also briefly addressed the merits of Lee’s claim that Devers contributed to McDaniel’s injuries. Lee made several speculations, the court noted — that they staged the accident, Devers was drinking, the two were not at work or Devers was negligently entrusted with the vehicle. All are without factual basis in the record, the appeals court said. In fact, Lee acknowledged that he had no facts to support a third-party claim. Thus, the third-party claim was dismissed. And because Devers and McDaniel may not sue one another, the court found no conflict for their attorney.

As a St. Louis big rig accident lawyer, I’d be pleased to see a similar ruling in Missouri. From the information contained in the opinion, it seems likely that Lee had no case against Devers and was merely trying to escape liability for a crash that he allegedly caused. (Though the case was not decided when the opinion was written, most officers will apportion 100 percent of the fault to the party who fails to stop for a signal and causes a rear-end crash.) Workers’ compensation law, by design, allows injured workers to collect payments regardless of fault, in exchange for not suing their employers. However, those workers may still sue a third party whose actions directly caused their injuries — and as a southern Illinois semi truck accident attorney, I’m happy to say that trucking companies and truckers are no exception.

Continue reading "Workers Compensation Law Bars Claim by Negligent Trucker Against Victims Colleague – McDaniel v. Lee" »

As a Missouri tractor-trailer accident attorney, I was interested to read a Nebraska opinion reminding us that insurance companies are uninterested in paying financial recoveries to anyone, including injured truckers as well as people from smaller cars hit by trucks. In Devese v. Transguard Insurance Company of America, the estate of a trucker killed in an accident was granted a chance to recover from the trucker’s occupational accident insurance policy. The trucker, Stephen O’Bryant, was driving with a suspended commercial driver’s license at the time of the crash that killed him, and Transguard denied any recovery. Sylvia Devese, the personal representative of his estate, sued Transguard for breach of contract and bad faith, and the trial court granted summary judgment to Transguard. But the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed, holding that Nebraska law requires a connection between the breach and the loss.

O’Bryant was an independent truck driver participating in a group policy with Transguard. The policy expressly excluded coverage for “any loss occurring while the Insured Person… is operating a vehicle without a valid [CDL].” Separately, O’Bryant’s license was suspended for failure to pay a judgment from an auto accident. Two months later, while driving on the suspended license, he got into the trucking accident that caused his death. His beneficiaries made an insurance claim, but Transguard denied it for breach of the CDL provision, so Devease sued, arguing that Transguard was required to show a connection between the lack of a valid license and the accident. The trial court granted summary judgment to Transguard based on the contract provision, and Devease appealed to the Nebraska Court of Appeals, which affirmed. Because a controlling precedent, Omaha Sky Divers Parachute Club v. Ranger Ins. Co was overturned in the interim, the Nebraska Supreme Court took up the case.

On appeal, Devease argued that the appeals court erred in upholding the trial court and in holding that Omaha Sky Divers was controlling. Omaha Sky Divers was a dispute over insurance in a plane crash; the high court found that the insurance company was not required to show causation between a breach of a medical fitness clause and the accident. It also held that the exclusion did not constitute a warranty or condition under a Nebraska law requiring insurers to pay unless the breach contributed to the loss. However, the court recently overturned this with D&S Realty v. Markel Ins. Co., which found that insurers wishing to deny coverage are required to show a causal connection between a breach of contract condition and the loss. Applying the same principles to the instant case, the Nebraska Supreme Court found that Transguard may not deny coverage unless it can show a connection between the breach — failure to have a valid CDL — and the crash. Transguard was attempting to foreclose liability for accidents caused by unqualified drivers, the court noted, but O’Bryant’s license was suspended for failure to pay a judgment, not bad driving. Transguard was trying to apply an overly broad condition without connection to the loss, a situation it said Nebraska law remedies. Thus, the court reversed and remanded the case to trial court for further proceedings.

Importantly, this opinion does not simply give Devease the insurance judgment she was seeking. Rather, it instructs the lower court to consider whether O’Bryant’s lack of a CDL was connected to the crash. That is, Devease and the estate will get their day in court, but they are still not guaranteed a payout. As a St. Louis big rig accident lawyer, I certainly appreciate it when my clients win big judgments — it’s my goal to win them for injured people — but it’s even more important to establish that injured people have a right to pursue justice in the first place. By establishing judicial scrutiny of contract conditions like Transguard’s, the Nebraska Supreme Court has made it unlikely that victims will be denied insurance for spurious technical violations. As a southern Illinois semi truck accident attorney, I think that’s an important victory for injured people across the state.

Continue reading "High Court Finds Nebraska Law Bars Insurance Contract Provision Requiring Valid CDL – Devese v. Transguard Ins. Co. of America" »

Many people understand that a semi truck accident is always a serious incident, but they aren't always aware of the sheer magnitude of what happens in one. Even with stories of multiple deaths and day-long road closures that follow major accidents, people just don't realize that sharing the road with a semi truck is sharing the road with an inherently dangerous and deadly machine.

Consider a recent accident in Wisconsin as an example of the forces involved here. Last Friday a semi, being driven by a 24-year-old man, flipped over and went into a ditch. Both the truck and its cargo trailer were destroyed by the accident. Not damaged, not broken, but destroyed. Authorities say that the truck was going around a curve in the road on the highway when the driver lost control and rolled the vehicle down the embankment. The vehicle and its cargo trailer were both deemed a total loss after the accident due to the damage done in the rollover. Amazingly, the driver was not hurt in the incident.

So, if a semi truck has the ability to tear itself apart in a rollover, to the point that the vehicle cannot possibly be salvaged, what chance does a smaller passenger vehicle have? What can someone in a family car expect if there is an accident involving them and a tractor-trailer?

These trucks aren't just big, they're orders of magnitude larger than the cars around them, outweighing them by more than the total weight of the other vehicles nearby. What if someone had been in between the semi truck and the side of the road as it began to roll over?

Trucking accident victims have a very real case to make in incidents like this. This was not an unavoidable fault in equipment, and no one else was driving recklessly — the whole case was driver error, and it isn't hard to imagine how much worse it could have been for other motorists.

As a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident attorney, I was interested to read an Illinois appeals court decision affirming that a trucking company can be found vicariously liable for injuries caused by the truck driver for its contractor. In Sperl et al. v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., et al., C.H. Robinson (CHR) was not the trucking company; it is a freight broker that finds trucking companies for customers that need shipping services. CHR had contracted with trucking company Toad L. Dragonfly Express for delivery of a load of potatoes. The driver working for Dragonfly, DeAn Henry, caused a multi-vehicle accident in 2004 near Plainfield, Ill. The crash killed Joseph Sperl and Thomas Sanders, and caused serious injuries to William Taluc. All three families sued Henry, Dragonfly and CHR in Illinois court. CHR admitted no liability, but the jury and the Third District Court of Appeal both disagreed.

Henry owned her truck and leased her trailer from Dragonfly, for whom she worked. However, she was working directly for CHR when she failed to notice stopped traffic ahead on Interstate 55 and caused the accident. Henry and Dragonfly admitted liability, but CHR did not. At trial, Henry testified that she was working for CHR and in frequent contact, per its instructions; she also testified that CHR’s schedule left her without enough time to make the delivery while also following federal hours of service regulations. A dispatcher for CHR agreed with this at trial. After the judge denied CHR’s motion for a directed verdict on agency, the jury found that Henry was an agent of CHR, making CHR vicariously liable, and awarded a total of $23.775 million between the three families. After losing a post-trial motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial, CHR appealed.

On appeal, CHR argued that the evidence did not show an agency relationship between itself and Henry, because Henry was an independent contractor who CHR had no right to control. An agency, the Third District noted, is a consensual relationship in which the principal controls the agent’s actions and the agent can affect the principal’s legal relations. Nonetheless, it said, the labels given by the parties to a relationship are not dispositive of the issue; courts should look at multiple factors, most importantly the right to control work performance. Under that test, the Third District said, the jury’s decision was not against the evidence. Henry’s actions were closely controlled by her contract with CHR, and compliance was ensured with fines. Henry’s work as a trucker is closely related to CHR’s. And Dragonfly was not directly involved in the negotiations or work. It dismissed two previous federal cases finding CHR not liable, saying they were different because CHR owned the product and more closely directed Henry’s actions in this case. Thus, it could not find that the jury’s decision was against the evidence, and upheld the verdict.

This decision could be helpful to injured people and Missouri semi truck accident lawyers like me, because it opens another path to liability. As the cases CHR cited show, other federal courts have decided against holding it financially responsible for accidents involving its contractors. This case was decided differently, in a way that I hope will help trucking accident attorneys and their clients determine whether they should include transportation brokers like CHR in their claims. As a rule, it’s better for plaintiffs to include more parties, because more parties increases the chance of a payout that helps them get the medical care they need and make ends meet while they recover. Commercial truck accidents often leave victims dead or permanently disabled, so there’s a real financial concern. However, as a St. Louis 18-wheeler accident attorney, I know clients do not enjoy the expense and heartache of suing an inappropriate defendant.

Continue reading "Trucking Company Has Agency Relationship With At-Fault Trucker – Sperl et al. v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide" »

This past Saturday, a collision between a semi truck and a Ford Explorer left three people seriously injured and one dead.

The accident took place near Owensboro, Kentucky, around 2:45 p.m., on the bypass ramp to Highway 54. Traffic on the ramp and highway were shut down for nearly four hours due to the severity of the crash and its aftermath. According to police, traffic wasn't open for normal operation until about 7 p.m. on Saturday.

The Owensboro police department public information office says the semi turned left and came across the path of the Explorer, resulting in the crash. It seems that the Explorer may have run the red light as the truck was turning left.

Passenger Celvin Lopez was in the front passenger seat of the car, and was killed in the accident. The other occupants of the explorer, Angel Augusto and Teresa Cruz Augusto, were taken to nearby medical facilities for treatment of their injuries following the impact. The driver of the semi truck, Louis Love of Corbin, Kentucky, also was taken to a medical center for treatment of injuries he received.

The severity of the crash illustrates many of the consequences of collisions with semi trucks. An Explorer SUV is a reasonably large vehicle, yet the passenger of the car was killed outright in the collision. All the other passengers were injured as well, as was the driver of the semi truck. Further, four hours is a very long time for traffic to be shut down, and would have obviously caused significant backup in the traffic pattern.

Semis are large, dangerous vehicles to share the road with. Drivers must, of course, exercise caution when operating vehicles around semi trucks, and it is never advisable to run a red light. However, it is very much on the drivers of semi trucks to choose to operate safely and be aware of their surroundings.

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I represent people who were injured by truck drivers who slammed into their cars because of unsafe driving choices. In most cases, those truckers were acting within the scope of their employment, which means their employers, the trucking companies, also bear some blame for the crashes. A South Carolina appeals court found the opposite in Kase v. Ebert, a lawsuit against a trucker and his trucking company by another trucker. James Kase sued Michael Ebert and DMX Transportation Inc. over injuries he sustained when Ebert rear-ended his parked truck and engaged him in a physical fight. The South Carolina Court of Appeals found that Ebert was not acting as an employee, and thus Kase could not recover damages from DMX.

Kase was parked at a South Carolina truck stop in 2006 when he felt another vehicle bump into his. The accident itself was minor and did not injure Kase, but the two men got into a fight that injured Kase badly enough to keep him out of work for several months and eventually cost him his job. The court did not discuss who was the aggressor, but noted that Ebert fled the scene of the fight and was arrested later. Ebert had a troubled professional history that included a commercial driver’s license suspension for having too many citations in a short period; two written reprimands from DMX centered on Ebert’s hostility and performance; and a written citation in Wisconsin for speeding and inattentive driving. His personal history included a 22-year-old assault conviction arising from a parking dispute as well as failure to pay child support, requiring DMX to withhold it from his wages. Ebert continued to work for DMX for a few months after the incident, but was ultimately let go because of insubordination and too many speeding tickets.

Kase sued Ebert for assault and battery and gross negligence, and DMX for gross negligence and negligent hiring, entrustment, retention, supervision and training. DMX successfully moved for summary judgment, arguing that it had not been negligent and was not vicariously liable for Ebert’s actions because he was not acting within the course and scope of his employment. Kase appealed, arguing to the South Carolina Court of Appeals that DMX endorsed or encouraged its employees to use violence to protect DMX property. The court did not find this convincing. There is no evidence that Ebert was acting to protect DMX property when he fought Kase, the court said; he was fighting off a perceived attack. Nor did the court of appeals agree that there was enough evidence that DMX knew of Ebert’s potential for violence to put it on notice. The prior assault conviction was not enough to support a negligent hiring cause of action because it was more than 22 years old when Ebert was hired, the court said. And under South Carolina law, the situation did not meet requirements for negligent supervision and retention because Ebert was not on or using DMX property. For all these reasons, the appeals court ultimately upheld the trial court’s summary judgment order.

Because this case involves a dispute between two truck drivers, you might wonder why it would interest a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident lawyer who represents drivers of ordinary cars. Even though Kase was a truck driver himself, he was in a very similar position to many of my clients when he sued DMX for negligence and vicarious liability. The trucking company can be genuinely guilty of bad decisions when it hires bad or unqualified drivers, or when it encourages or orders law-breaking. And unfortunately, the trucker is far less likely than his or her employer to have the deep pockets necessary to adequately compensate victims with serious injuries. As a St. Louis big rig accident attorney, I want all of the information I can get that could help my injured clients get the financial compensation and medical care they need.

Continue reading "South Carolina Court Finds Trucking Company Not Vicariously Liable for Trucker’s Fistfight – Kase v. Ebert" »

Recently, a semi truck accident involving a semi and three other vehicles caused a closure on Interstate 71 in Kings Mills, Ohio.

But this post isn't specifically about the details of that crash. Rather, it's about considering the scale and scope of what such accidents frequently entail. Look at some of the terms mentioned in the first sentence: A semi truck and three other vehicles. A highway closure — an interstate highway closure, at that.

We have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating — semi trucks are huge. They outweigh every other vehicle that commonly uses the interstate highway system, and the interstate is their common means of transport. Drive any interstate highway in the United States for any distance whatsoever, and you will come across these vehicles, often several at a time. The interstate-semi truck relationship is a vital part of the American economy, and as such, when you drive on the highway you're going to see a lot of that relationship play out.

So, these trucks are the largest on the road, and they're on the highways all the time. Just by the law of averages, accidents will happen involving these trucks. Add in the fact that many truckers are unofficially pushed to drive much longer hours than is safe for them to do and still operate heavy machinery, and you have the perfect circumstances to create more accidents still.

And remember, a few weeks back a semi truck side-lined a train so hard that it killed a conductor in the engine room of the vehicle. Trains outweigh semi trucks by several orders of magnitude, and still an impact from a semi derailed and set fire to the train. Now consider that numerous smaller vehicles like passenger cars and minivans are frequently involved in semi truck crashes. They don't stand a chance.

Highway closures also cost the states a great deal of money. They cost motorists a lot of time as they wait, stuck in traffic, burning gas and being made late for work, until the closure is reopened. They cost businesses money as other trucks are held up by the collision.

The point of all this? Semi truck accidents are very serious, and should be viewed within the light of legal action for those involved and harmed, rather than as freak inconveniences.