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Settlements In 18-Wheeler Accident Cases

When a settlement takes place, the defendant offers a certain amount of money to a plaintiff to compensate the plaintiff for his or her injuries, without being compelled to do so by a judge or jury. The plaintiff, in return, then agrees not to file any other lawsuit against the defendant to try and get any more money in the future. Accepting a fair settlement offer is of great benefit to a plaintiff, because it allows him or her to get their compensation quicker, and without having to go through the uncertainty of a trial. Make no mistake, uncertainty is always a part of the trial process; especially when a panel of randomly selected jurors is charged with deciding the fate of a claim. More info on this website

Defendants are well aware that they are under no obligation legally to offer payment to a plaintiff. Because of this, it can be extremely hard to get a just settlement offer without the help of an experienced trucking accident attorney working for you. Such an attorney will make sure a crystal clear message will be sent to the defendants – settle with us, or you will be taken to court and you might lose a lot of money. When defendants become nervous, they are more apt to offer a plaintiff a fair settlement amount rather than risk losing a great deal more money in a trial.

Whatever you do, you have to be on the alert for a bad settlement offer. In fact, you’ll probably get one before you even hire a lawyer. A defendant knows that, should you accept their offer to settle out of court, you will not be able to enlist legal help to take legal action against them for more money at a future date. Defendants are notorious for preying on confused, frazzled plaintiffs – plaintiffs who may be crying out for a quick infusion of cash. Those plaintiffs face an ever-increasing pile of bills for medical expenses, to repair automobiles, etc., and they are also likely facing the stress of lost work wages since they haven’t been able to return to their job due to their injury. Therefore, it is an all too common occurrence for defendants to dangle a carrot of easy, quick cash in front of an injury victim, and those victims, all too often, accept. As a result, the defendant is getting off extremely lightly, and will basically be off the hook from a legal standpoint. Again, if you receive one of these offers and accept it, it will be legally binding. If the defendant in your trucking accident case has offered you an out-of-court settlement, please do not accept it until an experienced trucking accident lawyer has had the chance to look it over. The attorneys with our Law Office know the true monetary value of your case and can tell you whether or not the defendant’s settlement offer is a fair one.

Trials
There are a variety of reasons that cases do not settle out of court. When that happens, a plaintiff’s only way of getting the just restitution he or she deserves is by taking the case to a trial. Because the injury victim bears the burden of proof in litigation involving a trucking accident, he or she will have the more difficult task of the two sides in a trial. In order to have a chance at winning in a trial, you have to provide compelling evidence to prove each of the four elements of every claim involving a truck accident. These elements, explained in detail below, are duty, breach, causation, and damages.

Duty – In order to establish duty, you, the plaintiff has to prove that the defendant in the case owed that plaintiff a duty to behave in a cautious enough manner so as not to bring harm to you. This is typically a fairly straightforward element because nearly all people owe other people the duty to act as would a reasonable person in regard to not harming others. This could mean not performing unreasonably dangerous actions, or taking distinct precautions in order to protect others from experiencing harm.

Breach – The next thing you must prove is that the conduct of the defendant resulted in a breach of the duty of care that was owed to you. Should the “reasonable person” duty of care apply in regard to your case, then proving breach means proving the defendant performed some sort of action that a reasonable person would not have performed. In order to establish that a breach occurred, you have to provide evidence to show the court exactly what the defendant either did or did not do. A judge or jury will then consider all of the circumstances surrounding your case and then decide whether or not the actions of the defendant can be considered a breach of the duty of care that you were owed.

Causation – The third element you must prove is causation. It is not adequate to merely prove that the defendant was in breach of the duty of care you were owed. You must also prove that the actions of the defendant caused the injury you are suffering from. To prove this element, however, you have to have a great deal of rock-solid, compelling evidence. There are multiple entities that play a role in preparing a truck for any kind of trip. An error on the part of any one of them could result in an accident. Because there are so many potentially responsible parties, many defendants will commonly attempt to sway a judge or jury that another party, or even the plaintiff, was to blame for causing the accident. You will have no chance of winning your lawsuit if you do not produce compelling enough evidence that can put the blame squarely on the defendant.

Damages – This fourth and final element refers to the monetary amount that you will collect from the defendant should you be successful in establishing the other three elements of your case. Plaintiffs can be compensated for a variety of damages, including loss of earning capacity, lost wages, medical expenses, pain and suffering, and other financial losses incurred due to the accident. However, you must accurately calculate the amount of money that is owed to you, and provide evidence that supports those calculations, in order to be able to win damages. More than likely, the defendant will also calculate how much you are owed, and that number will be significantly smaller than the one you come up with. It is imperative that you present compelling proof that your calculations are correct, and you’re not merely looking for a handout. And you must also prove that the defendant’s calculations are nothing more than, basically, a desperate attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the accident that injured you.
The process by which damages are calculated can often be an incredibly intricate and complex one. Should you still be receiving ongoing medical care, it can be very tough to, on your own, be able to estimate how high your medical expenses will ultimately get. It is even more difficult to put a “price tag,” so to speak, on the more subjective types of damages such as pain and suffering. And it can be even more difficult to try and accurately calculate your long-term losses such as loss of future earning potential because you have to consider the value of money over time, potential merit raises, possible raises you may get for taking certain educational courses, and other factors. However, the trucking accident attorneys with our Office are very familiar with how to calculate damages, since we’ve been doing it for the last two decades. We know how much a judge or jury will likely decide how much your case is worth, and can make sure you do not get shortchanged.

Our trucking accident lawyers are here to help you, whether your case reaches an out-of-court settlement or it goes to trial. We know how to compel the defense into making our clients settlement offers that are fair, and also know how to devise strong strategies should the case wind up in court.

Car Accidents

Texas Car Accident Lawyer – FREE CONSULTATION

A car accident can happen in an instant, but the injuries and disability that result can last a lifetime. If you’ve been in a car accident, you have a lot of questions:

Personal Injury

Will you be able to get the medical care you need?
When — and how — will your medical bills get paid?
What if you can’t work? What if you can never do the work you used to do again?
You don’t have to face this difficult time alone. At our Law Office, we stand up for the rights of car accident victims and their families. Our goal is to ensure you get full and fair compensation for your injuries, lost wages, and other expenses and that you receive the medical care you need to recover from your car accident injuries.

If you’ve been injured in a car accident, contact our law office toll-free for a free initial consultation.

TENACIOUS AND AGGRESSIVE REPRESENTATION

Our injury attorneys pursue every claim tenaciously. Our determination to ensure our clients get the medical care they need means we never settle for less money than they deserve. We will take a case to court if the insurance company refuses to be fair.

THOROUGH INVESTIGATION OF EVERY PERSONAL INJURY CASE

We personally ensure every case is thoroughly investigated for evidence and witnesses who can prove who was at fault. We also look for every possible source of compensation, including the injured person’s own insurance company in cases involving uninsured and underinsured motorists.

Our firm has handled hundreds of car accident cases such as:

Rear-end collisions causing whiplash and lower leg injuries
Rollover accidents causing head injuries and spinal cord injuries (paraplegia and quadriplegia)
Collisions with trucks and commercial vehicles, which have often resulted in death to the car occupants.
Hire a lawyer you can trust to pursue fair compensation. Call our law office toll-free for a free consultation.

Personal Injury Lawyers » Failure to Yield Right of Way

Theory of Liability: Failure to Yield Right of Way

All car accident cases have to be based on a theory of liability. In order to cast a wide net, we will generally site a predominant theory of liability as well as tertiary theories. In this article, we will discuss the most common theory which is known as failure to yield right of way.

What is the Right of Way?

Essentially, this term means to let the other person go first. These signs are very common on all types of roadways and they are intended to give the driver notice that another driver is to be favored. Usually, these signs are present in order to protect the other driver who is especially susceptible to being involved in an accident if the driver’s given the yield sign do not act with extra caution.

Personal Injury

Common Ways That a Defendant Can Fail to Yield the Right of Way to You

Defendants will frequently ignore yield signs which you find on off-ramps for highways. Anytime you are driving on an access road adjacent to the freeway you will inevitably pass a yield sign. They are typically a red and white-colored triangle instructing you to yield to the traffic exiting the freeway. Often defendants will ignore these signs and cause you to be involved in a car accident while you are trying to exit the freeway. If this has happened to you, you likely have a strong claim against the negligent driver for your injuries sustained in the accident.

The defendant failed to yield the right of way when they turned from a parking lot into your path. How many times have you been driving down a roadway when a careless driver suddenly turns out of a parking lot directly into the lane in which you are traveling causing you to suddenly slam on your brakes? If this happened to you and you suffered an injury because of it, the negligent driver has broken the law and should be held accountable for your damages.

If a defendant has run through a stop sign they have ignored an express sign to yield and are responsible for your damages. While a stop sign is not a traditional yield sign, its intent is to have drivers use caution and yield to you as you pass. Many times two roads will cross and one of them will have the right of way while the other must yield as mandated by a stop sign. If you are hit by a car that did not obey the stop sign, then they will likely be liable for your resulting damages.

There are also certain parking lot scenarios where you can be injured by a car that failed to properly yield. The general rule of thumb is in the absence of signage in a parking lot, whichever road is connected to the main road has right of way. Generally speaking, any time someone has to turn on another road they are required to yield right of way.

For example, when you shop at a Mall you have probably encountered this situation. There is the main access road coming from the Freeway access road. There are several pathways in the parking lot that cross this road, but there are not always stop signs denoting that the other driver must yield to you. However, if you are traveling on this road you are inherently given the right of way since it is the main path connected to the major roadway.

One of the most common accidents caused by drivers failing to yield involves yield left-hand turn signals. This is often found when you are attempting to turn left onto an intersecting roadway, but instead of a green arrow that gives you complete authority to turn, you are simply given a green light with the instruction to yield to oncoming traffic. Countless drivers are given this yielding green light, but they fail to pay adequate attention to the traffic flow, or they intentionally drive thinking that they can essentially beat you to the intersection. Whether the driver causes you to be hurt in an accident due to their carelessness or intentional recklessness, that negligent driver will be responsible for your damages because they failed to yield the right of way.

How Do I Prove the Defendant Failed to Yield Right of Way?

Proving any personal injury matter is based on the preponderance of the evidence showing that it is the more likely scenario. This causes us to rely on our persuasive abilities and whatever evidence we can find. Typically this is determined by first learning what roads and direction each of the parties are traveling on. We must prove where the cars were and where they were coming from. These two facts often shed a great deal of light on the accident and give clarity to the events that actually occurred. We can also assess the situation and details leading up to the accident by analyzing the damage to both vehicles. Through damage analysis, we can determine the speed and direction each car was traveling.

For example, you were driving down a road, you got in a car accident and the defendant is claiming that you rear-ended their car and therefore you are liable. However, via accident analysis, we can show that the defendant’s car clipped the right front side of your vehicle while they were changing lanes. If there is damage to the right from side of your car, this could not have been caused by you rear-ending the vehicle. They clearly changed lanes without using proper caution and checking for cars in surrounding lanes. As a car traveling in that lane, you have the right of way and any car changing lanes to move into your path must yield and give you the right of way.

The attorneys at our law office have various techniques for proving negligence and establishing the defendant’s liability in a failure to yield right of way claim. To further discuss how we might specifically prove your damages, contact our law office.