Hurdles You Will Encounter

Many of the clients we represent at our Law Office are very business-savvy and sophisticated. They could easily pick up a book or do some Internet research and learn the law. However, there is much, much more to emerging successful in a truck accident case than just having an understanding of the law. If you choose to pursue legal action on your own, you can almost guarantee that you will either get nowhere close to the compensation that you deserve, or you will leave that courtroom with nothing at all. That could be the worst mistake you’ll ever make in your life – you will be on your own in paying for your crushing medical and other expenses. You will not get a second chance.

Here are a few of the obstacles that injury victims who choose to represent themselves often fall prey to in trucking accident litigation.

Truck Drivers Who Lie

Defendants always have a reason to lie, no matter the kind of litigation in which they are involved. However, truck drivers have even more motivation than normal to lie, because their livelihood will likely depend on them doing so. If a trucker is found responsible for an accident, that is the kind of black mark that can force them into another line of work. They will not only lose their job – in all likelihood, but they also will not be hired by another trucking company. So, if given the choice between lying or losing their job and not being able to provide for their family, many truck drivers will try and shift the blame for the accident to the injury victim. If you cannot prove that the truck driver is indeed lying, then you will have no chance to win your case.

The trucking accident attorneys with our Law Office know how to get through the lies truck drivers tell and get to the truth. There are many times where we can gather immense amounts of evidence and expose the driver’s lies. When we produce witness statements, forensic test results, and video surveillance footage that all corroborate your account of the events that took place, the truck driver will likely lose all credibility in the eyes of a judge or jury. Many times, we can get to the truth through witness depositions. A deposition is where the attorney of the plaintiff is allowed to ask questions of the defendant’s witnesses. We have taken thousands of such depositions over the last two decades, and have developed extremely effective questioning techniques that will often compel a truck driver to tell the truth – often long before a trial is even scheduled to begin.

Policies of Large Insurance Companies

Trucking companies are required by law to have insurance on their vehicles. The value of these policies can dwarf those of typical automobile policies – often being worth 50 times as much. Therefore, an insurance carrier could lose 50 times more money in the event of a trucking accident than it would after a “normal” automobile accident. It only follows logically, then, that the carrier would devote 50 times the resources and fight 50 times harder to defend such a policy in order to avoid having to pay. It should be evident, then, that it can be far tougher to get just compensation from a truck insurance policy than it would be an everyday automobile insurance policy. More on this website

Since they have such a vested interest in protecting this kind of policy, they will do whatever they can to keep you from winning your case. They will employ high-powered insurance adjusters for just this reason. These professionals are the kind of adjuster you may have encountered after a small fender-bender. They are seasoned, ruthless, and view you as an enemy. They got to where they are by saving their company millions of dollars by denying claims just like yours. Typically, they only respect a seasoned and experienced trucking accident attorney.

This kind of adjuster will initially seem very nice to you. They’ll just want to ask you a few seemingly innocuous questions regarding the accident. But be very, very careful – their only true intent is to trick you into admitting the accident was your fault, or get you to otherwise say something that could be used against you in court. They will record the conversation, and then take whatever you say out of context in order to kill your claim. Basically, it is best that you simply refuse to talk to them. The attorneys at our Law Office make sure their clients are shielded from adjusters and their badgering, often intimidating tactics. We field those calls instead so that your words can never come back to hurt your case in court.

Large insurance carriers also employ highly trained and expert defense lawyers to protect their policies. These lawyers know insurance law like the back of their hand, and are intimately familiar with all the legal technicalities that can lead to your suit being thrown out of court should you either represent yourself or rely on an inexperienced attorney. Our Law Office lawyers have dealt with large insurance companies for 20 years, so we know the kinds of tactics they use and the kinds of tricks they like to try and play. We know how to defeat them, and defeat them handily.

Self-Insured Trucking Companies

There are some instances where a trucking accident will not include an insurance carrier. Sometimes, trucking companies choose to simply insure themselves, and they do so by setting aside some of their assets should they have to pay a plaintiff through either an out-of-court settlement or after losing a lawsuit. Should the trucking company involved in your accident be a self-employed company, then you will likely not encounter the kind of insurance adjuster mentioned above. Rather, you will be probably dealing with an officer of the trucking company. And if you thought insurance adjusters were bad, they’re nothing compared to an officer of a self-employed trucking company.

These people are normally paid through their trucking company’s profit-sharing program, so they make more money when the trucking company makes more money. If that company loses an accident lawsuit, that cuts into the profits, obviously. It follows, then, that the company officer would lose money as well. So this person will be extremely highly motivated to deny your claim. That officer will be much more concerned with his or her financial well-being than yours, so he or she will be personally motivated to make sure you don’t get a dime.

Even though insurance adjusters can be intimidating and harassing, at least they are licensed, and as a requirement of that license, they are required to follow a code of ethics. Officers with self-insured trucking companies are under no such obligation, so their behavior is not governed. Clients often turn to us for help after suffering the harassment of these people. Not only are they known for employing harassing tactics to try and bully injury victims, but many of them also are not above altering evidence or employing other unethical schemes to defeat your case. If you need relief from these unethical actions, please call the trucking accident lawyers at our Law Office. We will put a stop to that nonsense immediately.