At JUSTICENTER Personal Injury Lawyers, we understand how you must feel after enduring a truck accident in Sherman Oaks, CA. We also recognize the importance of retaining an experienced Sherman Oaks truck accident lawyer to fight for your right to compensation. Contact us today at 833-852-3600.
Commercial truckers are often very well-insured, but insurance companies want to pay accident victims the least compensation possible. They are for-profit businesses that make money by accepting premiums and lose money by paying claims. You can expect to have to fight to squeeze every dime out of an insurance company.
We understand trucking regulations in Sherman Oaks, California inside and out. Our legal team will guide you every step of the way to schedule a free consultation and learn more about your legal options.
How JUSTICENTER Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help You with Your Sherman Oaks Truck Accident Claim
You might be suffering anxiety as your medical bills mount along with lost work time. Fear not because we’re ready to lace up our gloves and fight for you. Our Sherman Oaks, CA personal injury lawyers enjoy the benefit of decades of experience winning multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts for our clients.
Our Sherman Oaks truck accident lawyers can offer you the following services, among many others:
- Liability Analysis: Investigate the accident to determine liability by considering evidence such as truck maintenance records, driver logs, and violations of trucking regulations.
- Federal and state law expertise: Utilize knowledge of federal and state trucking regulations to establish negligence by the truck driver or the trucking company.
- Accident reconstruction: Coordinate with experts to reconstruct the accident and assign liability. Not all experts are created equal. We have relationships with experts we have been working with for years.
- Trucking company negotiations: Deal directly with trucking companies and their insurers, who often have robust legal teams and aggressive insurance adjusters on their side.
- Complex litigation: Manage the complexities of the extensive litigation that often accompanies truck accident claims.
- Insurance claim maximization: Ensure that you don’t settle for less than what your claim is worth by comprehensively calculating your losses, including anticipated future medical expenses and diminished earning capacity.
- Multi-party representation: Address the involvement of multiple parties, which is common in truck accidents. These parties might include trucking companies, contractors, employers, and insurance companies.
- Healthcare coordination: Assisting you in finding and coordinating medical treatment with appropriate healthcare providers. Good healthcare is essential to your legal, medical, and financial well-being.
- Settlement and trial preparation: Prepare for settlement negotiations and trial so that we will be ready for anything.
- Documentation and filing: Handling all paperwork, filings, and documentation for truck accident claims. This may include settlement agreements and lawsuit complaints.
Take the first step toward justice today by scheduling a free initial case review with our Sherman Oaks truck accident lawyer.
Types of Truck Accidents
Most truck accidents can be divided into a few main categories, as described below:
- Head-on collisions: Head-on collisions are the most destructive type of accident because two vehicles colliding at 60 mph are like one hitting a tree at 120 mph. Many such accidents involve fatalities.
- Rear-end accidents: Rear-end accidents occur as heavy trucks have long stopping distances. Some truckers also tailgate the drivers ahead of them.
- Underride accident: An underride accident occurs when a vehicle with a low center of gravity rear-ends a larger vehicle and keeps on going. The rear vehicle ends up under the front vehicle.
- Jackknife accident: A Jackknife accident occurs when a truck’s trailer swings perpendicular to its cab. Such an accident can block off an entire highway and cause accidents in other lanes.
- Rollover accident: Rollover accidents occur when the truck capsizes. A truck in a rollover accident can crush nearby vehicles. Fatalities are common.
Remember that if someone dies in a truck accident, a loved one can file a wrongful death claim.
Common Causes of Truck Accidents
It is possible to identify hundreds of conditions or events that have caused truck accidents at one point or another. Most, however, can be grouped into a few distinct categories.
The following are common causes of truck accidents:
- Driving under the influence: A substance abuse accident occurs when a driver uses alcohol, amphetamines, a prescription drug, or another substance that affects driving ability.
- Driving while fatigued: A driver fatigue accident occurs when a driver dozes off or falls asleep at the wheel. Truckers often work long hours, and nothing is more dangerous than a big rig truck with a sleeping driver at the wheel.
- Oversized vehicles: Overloaded cargo can result in a high center of gravity and a rollover accident. Rollover accidents combined with cargo spills often result in massive vehicle pileups.
- Truck malfunctioning: A tire blowout can cause an accident. A blowout may or may not be the driver’s fault, depending on whether the tire was defective and who was responsible for truck maintenance.
- Speeding: A speeding accident can occur when a trucker with a busy schedule exceeds the posted speed limit or drives too fast for the conditions. The driver may then lose control of the truck, resulting in an accident.
In many cases, you can trace the cause of an accident to the violation of a trucking regulation.
Truck Accident Injuries
Truck accident injuries tend to be serious, and the death rate is very high.
The following are some of the most common types of injuries caused by truck accidents:
- Back and neck injuries: These can be difficult to prove if they are less serious, and they can be debilitating if they are more serious.
- Spinal cord injuries: Injuries to the spine frequently cause lifelong paralysis.
- Traumatic brain injury: (TBI) can result in lifelong disability and difficult-to-predict medical expenses.
- Internal injuries: Internal injuries and organ damage can be difficult to detect and treat.
- Broken bones: Broken bones and fractures occur frequently in truck accidents because of the overwhelming momentum of a speeding truck.
Seek medical attention immediately after a truck accident, even if you do not believe you were injured. Some injuries take time to manifest symptoms, and any delay in seeking medical attention could jeopardize your claim.
What Damages Are Available After a Sherman Oaks, CA Truck Accident?
Personal injury compensation can include three types of damages: economic damages, noneconomic damages, and punitive damages.
Economic damages are easily counted losses such as medical expenses, lost work time, and out-of-pocket expenses arising from the injury (such as child care while you are in the hospital).
Non-economic damages are psychological losses such as emotional distress and pain and suffering. These damages can amount to two to five times the amount of economic damages.
Courts sometimes award punitive damages as an extra amount to punish the defendant for particularly culpable conduct.
An experienced Sherman Oaks truck accident lawyer can help determine anticipated future losses.
California Wrongful Death Claims
In California, the surviving spouse, domestic partner, or children have the first option to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Other parties, such as heirs and financial dependents, can file such a claim under the right circumstances.
Damages for a wrongful death claim might include:
- Lost financial support
- Lost gifts and benefits
- Reimbursement for funeral and burial expenses
- Lost household services
- Loss of guidance, intimacy, love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society, and moral support
California distributes damages among the parties entitled to file a lawsuit. Not every party receives the same amount. Only a dependant can receive compensation for lost financial support, for example, while only a spouse or domestic partner can receive compensation for loss of intimacy.
Trucking Regulations and Negligence Per Se
California truckers are governed by two layers of regulations:
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCA) regulations; and
- California state commercial trucking regulations.
If you have a personal injury or wrongful death claim, you can use the principle of negligence per se to establish your claim. Using negligence per se, you can establish negligence far more easily if you can prove that the defendant violated a safety law or regulation. To provide liability, however, merely proving negligence is not enough. You must prove that the defendant’s negligence actually harmed you.
Contact a Sherman Oaks Truck Accident Lawyer to Schedule a Free Consultation
The Sherman Oaks truck accident lawyers at JUSTICENTER Personal Injury Lawyers are compassionate toward our clients. You can hire us without paying a dime upfront. You won’t owe us legal fees unless we win your case. If your case is won, your legal fee will equal a pre-agreed percentage of the compensation that you receive.
If you were injured in a Sherman Oaks, CA truck accident, contact us today to schedule a free case consultation by calling 833-852-3600 or reach out online.
