Trucking Accident Attorney Blog

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I was very interested to read a decision out of Connecticut that restored the full amount of a jury verdict that was reduced by the court. In Saleh v. Ribiero Trucking, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that a Hartford-area trial court had abused its discretion when it ordered a remittitur that reduced a trucking victim’s award by more than $500,000. Ghassan Saleh sued Ribiero Trucking after its truck driver caused a chain-reaction crash that ended in a rear impact to Saleh’s sedan. In post-trial motions, the trial judge set aside most of the non-economic portion of the damages awarded to Saleh as excessive. The Connecticut appellate court reversed this, finding the decision was an abuse of discretion, and the state’s high court agreed.

At trial, a jury awarded Saleh $12,132 in economic damages and $687,838 in noneconomic damages, for a total of $700,000. Ribiero made post-trial motions to set aside the verdict, order a new trial and order a remittitur for the noneconomic damages. The trial court ordered a remittitur of $508,608 after a hearing, reasoning that the jury could reasonably have awarded $191,392 for economic damages, permanent injury and pain and suffering until Saleh’s injuries were rated for permanency. Saleh was given the choice of remitting the $508,608 or having a new trial ordered, and he declined to remit the money. Instead, he appealed to the Connecticut appeals court, which reversed. The appeals court found that the trial court improperly attempted to apply a formula to the award, and improperly ignored life expectancy and pain and suffering after the permanency rating. Ribiero appealed, arguing that the appeals court should have shown more deference to the trial court’s finding that these were exceptional circumstances.

The Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed, siding with Saleh. In its decision, it said the case balances two basic legal principles: the broad authority of the trial court and the right to trial by a jury. Under Connecticut caselaw, remittitur should be ordered only in exceptional circumstances, such as when the jury was prejudiced or corrupt, or ordered a result contrary to the facts, law or its own instructions. In fact, one case expressly says trial courts should not set aside judgments merely because they would have awarded less. The high court took the opportunity to rule expressly what it said was previously implicit: Trial courts ordering a remittitur should set forth “clear, definite and satisfactory reasons” for their decisions, in a memorandum of decision, to aid reviewing courts in their work. In this case’s memorandum, the court found the jury’s award so excessive as to shock the conscience. But when reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the existing verdict, the high court disagreed. The jury’s award did not fall outside the limits of reasonable given the evidence presented, it said. Thus, it upheld the appellate court.

This decision is interesting to me as a Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyer because it’s very common for trucking accidents to create serious injuries. Commercial trucks are many times the size and weight of a Nissan Altima like Saleh’s, which means they can do substantial damage just by virtue of size, even in an indirect rear-end crash like this one. The opinion notes that Saleh’s car was badly deformed by the crash and that he continues to take pain medication throughout his day in order to function, yet cannot do many of the things he previously enjoyed. This kind of soft tissue pain is unfortunately common among people who have suffered serious rear-end accidents, but may not be appreciated because there’s no objective way to measure it like there is with a motion disability. That’s why, as a southern Illinois big rig accident attorney, I’m pleased the high court laid down clear standards for revoking jury decisions.

Continue reading "Connecticut Supreme Court Restores Original Jury Verdict After Reduction by Judge – Saleh v. Ribiero Trucking" »

While many trucking accidents do take people's lives, the fact is that a number of these are ruled accidents for various reasons, and they do not always see those most responsible put in prison. However, in the case of a man from Wallingford, Connecticut, this is not the case.

On December 19, 2010, Angel Alvarado was driving a dump truck while high on PCP, commonly and ironically referred to as Angel Dust. A powerful drug known for altering perceptions, it is absolutely not safe to take while operating any vehicle, let alone one of the heaviest classes of semi truck.

Alvarado plowed into a vehicle containing Sharon and Dale Wilson. Amazingly, the accident did not kill them -- it did however severely change their lives.

Once a happy and engaged young woman, and her daughter's best friend, Sharon does not remember a single thing about her life before the accident. She struggles with forming new memories, and her entire life up to the current point is a blur that she cannot sort through. She has had to rebuild her relationships with her daughter, husband, and son.

Dale did not have it quite that badly, but he has suffered all the same. He suffered extensive body and head trauma as a result of the accident. Once an outgoing and active superintendent of schools in his area, he is now undergoing extensive physical and mental rehabilitation, and is in bed every evening by 7 pm according to his son.

The judge in the case, saying that society has enough problems without adding in people who drug themselves up so much as to not be able to control their own actions, sentenced Alvarado to 5 years in prison, with the sentence to be suspended after two and a half years have been served. Sharon and Dale's children agreed to the reduced sentence as part of a plea bargain so they could spare their parents the ordeal of a full trial.

Semi trucks carry all sorts of cargo on their journeys across the highways and byways of the world. Meaning that sometimes an accident leads to a spill of some rather unusual supplies. Previously we reported about several tons of Coors Light being distributed all over an offramp, for example. This time, Lexington Kentuky's I-64 was the site of a crash that involved 85 large hogs.

While there is a certain humor in the situation, there is the tragic fact that some of the hogs, the exact number is yet to be determined, were killed. However, no one else on the highway was injured, not even the driver of the semi truck.

It appears that around 3am near the exit for the towns of Waddy and Peytona, the driver lost control of his vehicle and overturned it, leading to the porcine spillover.

The crash was so extensive that, despite no one being hurt, police had to set up a detour to route people around the scene of the accident. As of 8:15 am, when the story was first reported on local news, road crews had still not managed to get the accident completely cleaned up, and traffic was still being held up by the detour process.

This kind of accident illustrates just how disruptive even an accident with no human fatalities can be. Semi trucks are very heavy vehicles, and can be difficult to move once they turn over. It isn't always as simple as righting the truck and driving it off - oftentimes the wheels, driving mechanism, and frame are so warped and damaged by the collision that the truck instead has to be towed away, or in the worst of cases, broken up and pulled away bit by bit.

In any case, the accident will certainly join the spillover of Coors Light as another tale of strange lost cargo on America's highways.

As a Missouri semi truck accident attorney, I remember a very serious crash that took place in our state last year. In this accident, a young man in a pickup rear-ended a tractor-trailer, likely because he was texting instead of paying attention to the road. This set of a chain reaction that ultimately killed that driver, Daniel Schatz, and 15-year-old Jessica Brinker, who was on one of the two school buses involved in the crash. This was a highly preventable tragedy, so I wasn’t surprised to see it cited by federal safety regulators when they announced a controversial new recommendation. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Dec. 14, the National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that states uniformly adopt laws against any cell phone use by drivers.

The NTSB made its announcement after announcing the outcome of its investigation into the St. Louis-area crash, which happened outside Grays Summit. Schatz had sent or received 11 text messages in the 11 minutes before the crash, which started when he rear-ended a semi cab with no trailer. The truck had slowed for construction, but Schatz didn’t notice. A school bus taking students to the Six Flags in Eureka then rear-ended Schatz, and another bus rear-ended the first bus. The crash crushed Schatz’s pickup between the two larger vehicles and left the first bus on top of the truck’s flatbed and the pickup. In addition to Schatz and Brinker’s deaths, 38 people were injured. The NTSB recommendation singled out phoning and driving as an area of special concern in all types of transportation. It also found problems with the maintenance of the lead school bus, the bus drivers’ driving and the small amount of sleep Schatz had gotten.

As the Associated Press noted, the NHTSA reported 408 accidents caused by cell phone use in 2010, and 3,092 blamed on any kind of distraction. Nine states ban hand-held cell phone use by drivers and 35 and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving. Others have prohibitions just for younger drivers. Because the NTSB’s recommendation extends even to the use of hands-free devices, it goes further than any current law. The AP reported that the recommendation will be a hard sell in many states, in part because lawmakers are skeptical that cell phones are more distracting than other common behind-the-wheel distractions. They are also concerned that enforcement won’t be practical. Their constituents are not eager to give up the convenience of talking on the phone while driving, and the article noted that many people believe they can police themselves — they believe other people are the problem. Here in Missouri, an attempt to broaden the ban on texting after the Grays Summit crash was filibustered.

I am disappointed that states are so far from adopting the NTSB’s recommendations. As a St. Louis big rig accident lawyer, I’ve seen research showing that at least in those particular studies, talking on the phone is indeed more distracting than talking to someone physically in the car. That research concluded that a passenger is more likely to understand and forgive pauses in conversation or attention — but driving challenges can’t be detected over the phone. None of this is intuitively obvious, however, so it’s not hard to see why lawmakers and ordinary people might believe it’s wrong to single out cell phones for a ban. It’s also important to realize that the wireless industry actively lobbies against cell phone bans, though it now supports texting bans. As a southern Illinois tractor-trailer accident attorney, I wish the loved ones of people killed in this kind of crash had the same influence.

Continue reading "NTSB Cites Missouri Semi Truck Crash As Reason to Ban Cell Phone Use Behind the Wheel" »

As a southern Illinois semi truck accident attorney, I was interested to read about a case of a trucker claiming to be injured by a company’s negligence. Most of my cases involve negligence that harms innocent drivers and passengers who just happen to be in the way of an out-of-control truck. However, the same negligence that causes truck accidents can put truckers themselves, who are the trucking company’s own employees or contractors, in harm’s way. In Swearingen v. Momentive Specialty Chemicals, truck driver Paul Swearingen of Illinois suffered permanent injuries after falling from the top of the truck, where he was trying to follow directions to unload the cargo. He alleged that Momentive negligently failed to provide a proper harness and failed to warn him about hazards waiting at the top, but the Seventh Circuit disagreed.

Swearingen delivered a truck full of chemicals to Momentive in March of 2010, and employees there asked him to open the dome lid on the top of his truck. He testified that when he climbed the ladder on the side of the truck, he noticed low-hanging fire-extinguisher pipes near the top of the truck, but “had been in these kind of situations before” and knew that even if he complained, he was “going to have to do it in the end anyway.” He wished for a safety harness but did not have one, and Momentive employees did not offer any or stay around to assist or supervise. As Swearingen attempted to open the lid, he hit his head on the pipes, fell and suffered what he said were serious permanent injuries. He sued in July of 2010, but Momentive moved for summary judgment. The district court found for Momentive, ruling that the hazards Swearingen encountered were open and obvious and that the deliberate-encounter exception did not apply.

In Swearingen’s appeal to the Seventh Circuit, he argued that there was a genuine issue of material fact in the case as to whether the deliberate-encounter exception applies. The open and obvious doctrine says defendants are not liable for hazards that are open and obvious; the deliberate-encounter exception says the defendant can be liable if it can reasonably foresee that the plaintiff will deliberately encounter the hazard at issue, and should warn or provide him with mitigation like a safety harness. The district court had found no evidence suggesting that Momentive knew Swearingen would climb on top of the truck, and the Seventh Circuit agreed. Swearingen’s employer had trained him to open the truck from the ladder and maintain three points of contact with the truck at all times. He said he violated this rule because the lid was secured too tightly to open from the ladder, but the Seventh said Momentive had no reason to foresee this or indeed, that any driver would climb on top of his truck. Thus, the court agreed that the deliberate-encounter exception did not apply and upheld the summary judgment ruling.

This case is disappointing for Missouri tractor-trailer accident lawyers like me because it continues a trend toward low regulation of the trucking industry. Like all businesses, trucking companies are in business to make a profit. When no one is watching closely, this can mean cutting corners on safety in order to speed things up and protect profits, especially since payment often depends on the delivery date. For truck drivers, the result can be an unsafe work environment and unsafe trucks that are missing out on basic maintenance. For the people who share the roads with truckers, this means a deadly risk they cannot control or even anticipate. As a St. Louis tanker truck accident attorney, I routinely look at the safety choices of the trucking company in the cases I handle.

Continue reading "Trucker May Not Sue Company for Injuries Incurred Opening Truck, Seventh Circuit Rules – Swearingen v. Momentive Specialty Chemicals" »

Trucking accidents often don't get much coverage on the local news. Stories covering such accidents are so common, they often are only mentioned in passing. This is partly because of their frequency, but also because details are often scarce at the time of the accident. For example, consider the following two stories, each reported in only small press-release style stories in their respective areas.

Near Goshen Township in Ohio, a semi accident left two people dead on Sunday, Dec 11. At 11 am that morning, at the intersection of Ohio's State Routes 165 and 45, the driver of a Toyota Rav4 failed to yield and was struck by a semi truck. According to a state highway patrol officer, the driver of the semi "indicated he did see the vehicle in the intersection, pull into the intersection. He tried to take evasive action by hitting his brakes and he then swerved to the left to try and avoid the collision. But after impact, both vehicles were forced off the west side of the road."

The two passengers in the Rav4 were killed, and the driver of the truck was injured. Names have not yet been released.

In the second story, a semi truck accident near Bozeman, Montana, a woman died. Happening in late November, the accident took place on State Highway 2 in the early afternoon. This accident is a bit unusual in that it involved no other vehicles, yet still involved a passenger death. The driver and a passenger were in the cab of the vehicle, when a strong gust of wind pushed the truck into the guard rail on the side of the road. The truck overturned a moment later, and the 40 year old passenger was killed in the crash.

This case illustrates that a semi truck is even a danger to itself if the driver is unable to control it properly.

Again, both cases have relatively few facts and barely got a mention on the news, but both illustrate potential dangers around semi trucks and similarly sized vehicles.

As a Missouri semi truck accident lawyer, I was interested to see a case out of Idaho that allowed a lawsuit against the employer of an allegedly negligent truck driver. In Nava v. Rivas-Del Toro, Beatriz Nava and her minor daughter, Sarai Victorino, sued truck driver Christian Rivas-Del Toro as well as his employer, Cranney Farms. Nava alleged not only that Cranney Farms liable because Rivas-Del Toro was a permissive user, but that they failed to adequately maintain the truck. The farm successfully moved to be dismissed because Rivas-Del Toro was outside the scope of his employment during the crash, but the Idaho Supreme Court reinstated the farm as a defendant, finding that this is not a defense against Nava’s allegations. It also reversed a grant of summary judgment on negligent maintenance.

Rivas-Del Toro is a Mexican citizen in the United States illegally. In June of 2007, he asked for and received permission to replace two tires on the truck’s trailer before using it to haul bales of hay. The truck also had an inaccurate speedometer, and to avoid a potential stop for speeding, Rivas-Del Toro took local streets rather than the highway. During that trip, he failed to stop at a stop sign and hit a car driven by Nava, with Victorino as a passenger. Rivas-Del Toro contends that the brakes on the trailer malfunctioned. Nava sued over unspecified injuries and property damage, alleging that Cranney Farms permitted Rivas-Del Toro to use the truck and also had recklessly allowed the truck to become unsafe. The trial court found that because Rivas-Del Toro took a longer route for personal reasons (to avoid the police), he was acting outside the scope of his employment and Cranney Farms was not vicariously liable. It dismissed the farm from the lawsuit with prejudice. Both Nava and Rivas-Del Toro appealed.

The Idaho Supreme Court started by finding the trial court’s analysis of Rivas-Del Toro’s scope of employment erroneous. Idaho courts may find employers liable even when the employee deviated from the most direct route for personal reasons, and Rivas-Del Toro was on work-related business at the direction of his employer. However, it went on to say that this analysis is irrelevant because Nava did not allege causes of action to which it would apply. Her tort claims were not based on an employer-employee relationship, the court said, but on Rivas-Del Toro as a permissive user and on the alleged disrepair of the vehicle. Furthermore, the trial court’s summary judgment grant was incorrectly applied to the negligent repair claim as well as the claim for Rivas-Del Toro as permissive user — for which the defendants had not moved for summary judgment. The plaintiffs brought the issue to the trial court’s attention, the high court noted, but fruitlessly. For those reasons, the Supreme Court reversed the summary judgment grant and remanded the case.

I’m pleased to see that the plaintiffs in this case will get a chance to prove their allegations, despite apparent failures by the trial court. While a permissive user claim is not common for a St. Louis tractor-trailer accident attorney like me, Nava’s other claim, about negligence in allowing the truck to fall into disrepair, is quite common. Trucking companies have a legal responsibility to make sure their trucks are roadworthy, and in fact, must pass inspections by the federal government. Nonetheless, some of them choose to save money by failing to fix repair problems. The most serious resulting maintenance problems on large trucks include brake and tire problems, both of which can trigger a serious accident. In addition to putting innocent passenger car drivers in danger, these maintenance flaws can also endanger the company’s own employees. As a southern Illinois 18-wheeler accident lawyer, I aggressively research safety records when there’s an allegation that a big rig crash was caused by a maintenance flaw.

Continue reading "Idaho Supreme Court Resurrects Trucking Accident Lawsuit Against Driver’s Employers – Nava v. Rivas-Del Toro" »

I-80 was closed following a semi accident in early December. On Monday the 2nd, the Utah Highway Patrol reported that an accident had occurred around 7:55 pm. A semi had collided with the median near highway mile 172, and the impact caused a rollover. The crash killed the driver of the semi truck, Robert Carpenter of Caldwell, Idaho. Carpenter was 46.

The exact cause of the accident remains under investigation. Highway Patrol trooper Todd Johnson called in the initial report, saying that he suspected that Carpenter may have suffered a medical condition or event that caused him to lose control of the vehicle.

The truck's cargo was fortunately non-hazardous and did not spill onto the highway. However, the truck still crashed in such a way as to completely shut down Interstate 80's westbound lanes. Traffic had to be diverted onto a nearby frontage road until the truck and debris could be cleared from the highway.

Perhaps most unusually, this was the second such accident to close I-80 in Utah's Summit County in a week. In the earlier accident, a fuel-tanker was rear-ended by another semi truck while both were moving along the eastbound lanes where I-80 shares a route with US-40. The accident did not cause any fatalities, but it did close down traffic in both directions for four hours. Again, traffic had to be diverted onto frontage roads in order to avoid the closed-off area of the highway.

Each accident showcases a particular danger caused by semi trucks for other motorists on the highway. A semi truck driver can be driving in complete control of his vehicle and in full compliance with all safety directives. However, if the driver has a heart attack or stroke, losing control of his vehicle will still disrupt traffic and potentially hurt or kill people. And if a semi collides with another semi, the damage done can be massive, and the wreckage can take hours to clean up.