Trucking Accidents

Published on: June 12, 2016

Texas Property Owner’s Responsibility to the Traveling Public

In Hoke v. The Campbell Group, LLC, the plaintiff appealed the granting of summary judgment to defendants The Campbell Group, LLC and Crown Pine Timber 1, L.P. in a premises liability lawsuit. The case arose when the plaintiff’s car crashed into a logging truck while they were both traveling on Highway 96.

The plaintiff was in the right lane, and the logging truck was in the left. The truck tried to turn onto a private logging road that was owned and managed by the defendants. It turned in front of the plaintiff and hit the brakes, thereby stopping in the road. The plaintiff hit the back of the truck and suffered injuries.

She sued, alleging that (1) the defendants failed to use adequate signs to warn the public of any unusual commercial activity, (2) the defendants failed to inspect the site for possible hazards that would interfere with those traveling through the area, (3) the defendants failed to use a safe worksite plan to reduce hazards to the public, and (4) the defendants failed to provide a safe entrance for logging trucks trying to get onto their property. The petition didn’t reference negligence per se, negligent activity, or any statute.

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Published on: March 20, 2016

Single-Vehicle Accident in Texas

By Carabin Shaw

In Homman v. Kugler, a husband and wife involved in a single-vehicle accident sued a retail outlet and its owner, who was also the man who loaded their trailer. The plaintiff worked for David’s Patio, and on the day of the accident, he was driving a pickup and trailer for the defendant retail outlet to pick up angle irons. The owner of the retail outlet used a forklift to put the loan on the trailer. The plaintiff used only a single strap to secure the load and then drove back to his company.

The plaintiff started to get onto the freeway, but the trailer began swaying, pushed forward, and lifted the back wheels of the pickup. The pickup spun, balancing on two wheels on its side, and then the trailer broke off and rolled away. The pickup sat back down on its four wheels. The plaintiff wasn’t cited for the accident and did not see a doctor right away.

He went back home feeling sore. The next day, when he woke, he felt sore from his upper buttocks to his skull. He went to the doctor and was diagnosed with herniated and bulging discs. The doctor prescribed physical therapy and epidural steroid injections. He was also told he needed fusion surgery on his lower back, but he hadn’t gotten this surgery at the time of trial.

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Published on: March 20, 2016

Unavoidable Motor Vehicle Accidents in Texas

By Carabin Shaw

In Gomez v. Cooke, a Texas appellate court considered a case that arose when a couple was on a cross-country road trip, traveling through Houston. The husband was driving the pickup, which was towing a camper.

Before the accident, the wife was looking at her GPS and instructing her husband to take a right turn. The truck moved toward the left, and the wife looked over to see her husband’s head had dropped and he was totally unresponsive. She tried to move his foot off the gas, but it was too late, and the truck and camper crashed into six vehicles, including a car driven by the plaintiff.

When they arrived, the emergency medical services personnel noticed that the left side of the husband’s face was drooping, and that side of his body was weak. At the hospital, the doctors determined the husband had suffered a stroke, causing him to lose consciousness.

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Published on: August 9, 2015

Drug Withdrawal and Expert Testimony in a Texas Truck Accident Case

By Carabin Shaw

In Cady v. Cargile, a Texas appellate court considered a tractor-trailer crash. The decedent was visiting a friend’s house and borrowed his pickup. Two miles away, he crashed into a tractor-trailer that was stuck, blocking all lanes of traffic, and he died. His mother sued the driver of the tractor-trailer and the trucking company for wrongful death. The jury found that the death arose out of the decedent’s own negligence and awarded no damages. The trial court ordered that the plaintiff take nothing on her claims.

The plaintiff appealed on the grounds that the trial court shouldn’t have admitted the trucking company’s expert testimony because it was irrelevant. The plaintiff contended that the expert’s methodology was unreliable and that there was too big a gap between the data and the opinion proffered. The appellate court explained that there is a two-part test that covers whether expert testimony is admissible. First, the expert needs to be qualified, and second, the testimony must be relevant and based on a reliable foundation.

The trial court has broad discretion to determine whether expert evidence is admissible or not. However, in examining whether the expert’s testimony is reliable, the court is not allowed to determine the correctness of conclusions. The expert testimony may be unreliable if the expert draws conclusions based on flawed reasoning or methodology. If there is too big a gap, as argued by the plaintiff here, the opinion may not be reliable.

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Published on: March 16, 2015

Texas Supreme Court Reconsiders Ban on Seat-Belt Evidence

By Carabin Shaw

Over the past 40 years, evidence of a plaintiff’s failure to use a seat belt was inadmissible in Texas car accident lawsuits because, even though it could exacerbate the plaintiff’s injuries, it could not, in and of itself, cause a car accident. This rule was a way of protecting plaintiffs from the all-or-nothing effect of the contributory negligence doctrine. Under the contributory negligence doctrine, a plaintiff who was 1% or more at fault for an accident could not recover any compensation from the defendant. The rule originated with case law and was codified, and then the statute was repealed in 2003. In spite of the legislative repeal of the rule, the rule making seat-belt evidence inadmissible still stood, since the case law was still in effect.

In the recent, important ruling in Nabors Well Services, Ltd. v. Romero, the Texas Supreme Court reconsidered the rule banning seat-belt evidence. The case arose when a transport truck collided with a Chevrolet Suburban carrying eight passengers, including three adults and five children who were part of two families. When the transport truck slowed, the driver of the Suburban pulled into the opposite traffic lane and tried to pass. While the Suburban passed, the truck made a left turn and hit the Suburban, which rolled several times and killed an adult passenger and hurt the rest of the people in the car. There was conflicting evidence about who was belted into their seats. All of the occupants were ejected except the driver and one of the children.

The two families sued the transport truck company and its driver. At trial, the truck company tried to introduce expert testimony from a biomechanical engineer that seven out of the eight Suburban occupants were unbelted and that this failure caused their injuries and the fatality. The truck company also wanted to introduce a citation issued to the driver for failing to properly restrain child passengers.

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Published on: October 2, 2014

Tractor-Trailer Crashes Into Texas College Bus

By Carabin Shaw

Recently, four people died and over a dozen were hurt in a Texas college bus crash. The accident happened when a tractor-trailer crossed a median in Oklahoma and crashed into the bus, which was transporting a women’s college softball team.

The team was going home after a scrimmage in Oklahoma. Three of the women died at the scene, and a fourth died at a hospital. The sides of the bus were heavily damaged. The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to the site, and both the bus driver and the tractor-trailer driver had to take toxicology tests.

A major accident like this can be devastating both physically and financially. When multiple people are harmed, it can be difficult to sort out who should pay and how much should be paid. In general, the party at fault must pay. If the tractor-trailer driver in the situation described above was 100% at fault, its insurer will have to sort out multiple claims against the same policy. It may be possible to reach a global settlement. However, a knowledgeable personal injury attorney will also look into other sources of recovery because a single insurance policy does not always cover all of the injuries, physical and emotional, that arise out of an accident involving multiple fatalities.

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Published on: December 27, 2013

South Texas Jury Awards $281 million to family of man killed in Eagle Ford Shale Truck Accident

By Carabin Shaw

On December 7, 2013, a jury in South Texas found that Heckmann Water Resources Inc., an oil patch supplier near San Antonio, Texas, negligently failed to maintain a tractor-trailer truck that caused the death of Carlos Aguilar. The lawsuit stems from a May 2012 accident in which Aguilar, a U.S. Army veteran, husband, and father of seven, was doing work at the Eagle Ford Shale oilfield when a drive shaft broke off from under a Heckmann tractor-trailer traveling at 67 mph. The 20-pound part crashed through the windshield of the pickup truck that Aguilar was riding in, killing him.

Aguilar’s family filed suit against Heckmann and one if its employees, alleging that Heckmann failed to properly maintain the tractor-trailer. The jury ultimately found the company negligent and awarded Aguilar’s family (his parents, wife, and seven children) $281 million, which included $181 in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages against Heckmann. The jury did not find Heckmann’s employee negligent. Heckmann’s Scottsdale, Arizona-based parent company, Nuverra Environmental Solutions, plans to appeal the decision. The verdict is one of the largest verdicts in Texas history.

Texas is by far the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the United States. In addition, the Eagle Shale Ford area continues to grow. There are currently 265 oil rigs operating in Eagle Ford Shale, compared to only 158 operating rigs in 2010. This means more oilfield workers and likely more accidents both at the oilfield rig and in and around the area involving trucks transporting supplies. In fact, according to the Texas Department of Transportation, the largest recent jumps in fatal traffic accidents are those involving commercial vehicles.

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Published on: December 6, 2013

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Issues Updated Safety Ratings and Releases 2012 Traffic Fatality Statistics Revealing Texas as State With Highest Increase in Traffic Fatalities

By Carabin Shaw

Traffic Fatalities Increased in 2012

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently released its 2012 Fatality Analysis Reporting data. Unfortunately, after six consecutive years of declining fatalities on U.S. highways, the data indicates that highway crashes and deaths increased in 2012. Specifically, fatalities increased to 33,561 in 2012, which is 1,082, (or 3.3%) more fatalities than in 2011. In addition, the number of injured persons increased by 145,000 from 2011. Almost three-quarters of the fatalities occurred in the first three months of 2012, and most of those individuals involved in the fatalities were motorcyclists and pedestrians. For the first half of 2013, early estimates on crash fatalities reveal a decrease in deaths for the same time period in 2012.

Notably, the increase in crashes and resulting injuries and fatalities does not appear to be associated with one particular issue, and crashes for some traditional risk factors, including young drivers, actually fell in 2012. Other notable statistics include:

• There were 10 times as many unhelmeted motorcyclist fatalities in states, such as Texas, without universal helmet laws (1,858 unhelmeted fatalities) as in states with universal helmet laws (178 unhelmeted fatalities). These states were nearly equivalent in total resident populations.

• Though fatalities from alcohol-impaired driving increased from 2011 to 2012, fatalities from crashes involving young drivers (16- to 20-year olds) and alcohol decreased by 15%.

• For the past decade, males have consistently made up about 70% of motor vehicle fatalities.

• There was a 3.7% increase in the number of people killed in crashes involving large trucks, and 61% of large-truck occupants killed in 2012 died in single-vehicle crashes.

Overall, while 13 states experienced decreases in overall traffic fatalities and eighteen states experienced decreases in drunk driving deaths, Texas was not part of either group. In fact, Texas had the largest increase in fatalities of any state, with an 11% increase in overall traffic fatalities and 6.6% increase in drunk driving deaths.

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Published on: November 27, 2013

California Jury Awards $150 Million to 13-Year-Old Girl in Wrongful Death Trucking Accident Case – Asam v. Ortiz and Bhandal Bros. Trucking

By Carabin Shaw

In early November 2013, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded over $150 million in damages to a 13-year-old year girl who witnessed three members of her family burn to death following a car accident on a Southern California freeway. This verdict could be one of the largest of its kind.
In this case, back in November 2009, the Asam family was traveling from California to Oregon for the Thanksgiving holiday when their SUV rear-ended a semi-trailer truck parked on the shoulder of a California freeway. The plaintiff (then 9-years-old) and her 11-year old brother managed to escape from their family’s SUV after it struck and got caught under a semi-trailer truck parked on the shoulder of the freeway. However, they witnesses the deaths of their parents and brother, who were burned alive when their family’s trapped SUV caught fire.
The lawsuit alleged that the driver of the truck, Rudolph Ortiz, pulled his truck over to the side of the road to sleep. In doing, he failed to use the emergency signals and ignored written warnings that stopping on the shoulder was allowed only in emergencies. Attorneys for the defendants argued that Ortiz stopped to take medication for a severe headache, which constituted an emergency. Defendants also alleged that the law was not broken as the semi-trailer truck was parked on the dirt road to the right of the shoulder. Finally, defendants alleged that plaintiff’s father was also negligent for attempting to stop the family’s SUV on the shoulder after the SUV allegedly struck debris on the freeway.

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Published on: August 17, 2013

The U.S. Department of Transportation Eliminates Truck Safety Inspection Report Requirement, While Enhancing Other Federal Safety Rules

By Carabin Shaw

On August 1, 2013, the U.S. Department of Transportation (“USDOT”) Secretary Anthony Foxx announced a proposal to eliminate the daily paperwork requirement for professional truck drivers. The move, which follows on the heels of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) elimination of a similar requirement for truck drivers operating intermodal equipment trailers used for transporting containerized cargo shipments in June 2012, is expected to save the industry an estimated $1.7 billion annually.

Currently, federal regulations require commercial truck drivers to conduct both pre-and post-trip equipment inspections. In addition, drivers must also file Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIRs) after each inspection, regardless of whether or not an issue requiring repairs is identified. According to the news release issued by the USDOT, under the proposed change, though commercial truck drivers would be required to continue conducting pre- and post- trip inspections, the truck drivers will no longer need to file DVIRs if their daily inspections do not yield any defects. Therefore, government officials, including Secretary Foxx, note that the proposal is a “win-win” because it simultaneously reduces the paperwork burden, saves the industry billions of dollars, and maintains the USDOT’s commitment to safety.

While the trucking industry is pleased with the elimination of the safety inspection report requirement, the industry is not as pleased with other recent changes. More specifically, on July 1, 2013,the FMCSA’s Hours of Service Final Rule took full effect. The new regulation is designed to improve public safety by reducing truck driver fatigue. Notably, only commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers are required to follow this new final rule. Generally, a CMV is a vehicle that is used as part of a business and is involved in interstate commerce and fits at least one of several other factors relating to gross vehicle weight, the transportation of passengers, and/or the transportation of hazardous materials.

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