Often times, following an accident with a large commercial truck, a negligence lawsuit will take place. Negligence lawsuits are very complicated and involve complex legal theories. In many cases, proving a truck driver or a commercial trucking company were negligent can be a difficult, time-consuming and intricate process.

Generally it involves a lengthy evaluation of all the facts surrounding the accident, taking into account things like the truck driver’s actions, the other driver’s actions, conditions on the road and other factors present at the time of the accident. In addition, things like the maintenance records of the truck and trailer and the driver’s log book recording the hours he had driven prior to the accident all need to be examined.

While the interplay of all these factors can lead to extremely complex cases, sometimes the facts of a case can lead to an inference of negligence, making for a much easier case. Finding an inference of negligence depends upon showing that the type of event or accident does not naturally occur absent negligence on the defendant’s part. The classic case concerning an inference of negligence, or negligence per se, involved a person walking below a building under construction. As he walked along the sidewalk he was killed when a huge crate of bricks fell on him from above.

The court found an inference of negligence on the construction company’s part because large crates of bricks don’t just naturally fall from buildings absent negligent behavior.
In the field of commercial trucking law, certain circumstances lead to inferences of negligence. Some examples include: (1) where a skidding semi was on the wrong side of the road when the accident occurred; (2) where an accident occurred when a truck crossed into the wrong lane of traffic and hit a car traveling in the correct lane; (3) where a truck skidded on a wet road, lost control, hit a curb and flipped over; (4) where a trailer full of peanuts broke loose from the truck and collided with a gasoline tank; and (5), where the metal cement chute fell from a cement mixer and injured a motorcyclist riding behind the truck. In these types of cases, an inference of negligence was found on the defendants’ part.

Having an attorney that can recognize the circumstances that would lead to an inference of negligence can save a huge amount of time, money and effort. In addition, where an inference of negligence is guaranteed to be found the truck driver will lose the case. If an attorney is aware of this and communicates this to the truck driver or the trucking company, the victim will almost certainly get a large settlement offer without ever having to go to court.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Large Commercial Trucking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.