Other issues in a trucking law injury case : Liability is just one issue in a trucking law case. There are many other factors involved in how much a case is worth. Often a case is settled out of court based on what the insurance company, the trucking accident lawyer and the client think a jury will award. Trucking accident settlements are like car accident settlements in that they are based on a number of factors besides liability.

See our article on car accident settlements to get an idea of how our attorneys can help you maximize your truck accident lawsuit or settlement.
Our attorneys are licensed in Oregon, Washington State, California, New York, and Florida. Trucks often cross state boundaries during long hauls and have offices in many states.

The new school zone law which was passed by the Oregon State Legislature (July 2006) makes the speed limit 20 mph or less in school zones in any of the following situations (1) Anytime a yellow light on a school speed sign is flashing (2) Between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. on school days and (3) Crosswalks near school grounds when children are present.

Under the Oregon school zone safety law “children are present” means when school kids are in the crosswalk, waiting on the curb or roadway shoulder at a crosswalk or when a crossing guard is present. Slowing done in a school zone is common sense but the law is much needed and at fault drivers will now face a ticket that could cost as much as $679.00 in addition to facing a much stronger civil injury claim against them.

If your Portland Public School or other Oregon School District age child suffered an injury by a car at or near their school call for a free injury case evaluation so that your child’s rights can at least be protected.

Injuries from accidents involving large commercial tractor-trailers and trucks usually result in lawsuits. Often times the truck driver, or perhaps the truck’s owner or mechanic, or the shipper that packed the truck are either directly or indirectly responsible for the accident and the resulting injuries to everyone involved in the accident.

These lawsuits are many times based on finding that the truck driver or someone else connected to the truck, was negligent. Negligence cases depend on establishing five factors. The defendant must have had a duty to conform to a standard of care necessary to avoid risking injury to others; the defendant must have violated this duty; the violation of this duty must have been the factual cause of the accident and injuries; the violation must also have been the legal, or what’s called the proximate cause of the accident and injuries; and the violation must have caused actual, calculable damages and injuries to the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s property. All five factors must be proven in order to win a negligence lawsuit.

The first element, the “duty” element, can be established in different ways. Sometimes duty is based on common law, or legal tradition, and other times a duty can be created through statutes and safety regulations. Imagine an accident involving a large truck. In the resulting negligence lawsuit, if duty is based on common law principles, it requires a judge to balance two major factors. First, the judge must determine whether it was foreseeable that the truck driver’s actions would cause the accident and the related injuries. Second, the judge must determine whether it would be beneficial or harmful to society to say that the truck driver had a duty to act in a certain way and to require all future truck drivers to conform to a certain level of behavior or risk being sued for negligence.

Two cases illustrate this point nicely. Shaw v. Soo Line Railroad Co, (1990) concerned two large truck trailers parked on private property near a railroad crossing. A judge held that the owner of the trailers had no duty to guard against the risk of injury due to obstructed visibility of the crossing. This was because it would have been harmful, in terms of cost to society, to allow people to be sued for the way they park their trailers (or any other vehicle for that matter) on their own property. Similarly, Beck v. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co, (1987) held that the owner of a lawfully parked truck had no duty to prevent injury to a jaywalking pedestrian.

Aside from the fact that this sort of injury was not foreseeable, there would be no benefit to society to allow a truck driver who had parked legally to be sued by a jaywalker who was hit by a car while crossing the street illegally after jumping out behind the truck.

When a person has been in accident involving a large, commercial truck, a number of factors must be considered before commencing a lawsuit. Negligence suits can be extremely complicated, and for that reason an attorney can be enormously valuable.

Other issues in a trucking law injury case: Liability is just one issue in a trucking law case. There are many other factors involved in how much a case is worth (link to trucking law directory page).