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Truck drivers are charged with hauling important cargo across the state and the country. When these trucks cause accidents, many other drivers on the road might be seriously injured.
If a semi truck hits you in Indiana, you can often file a lawsuit for your injuries. A truck accident likely falls under the broad legal umbrella of personal injury lawsuits. In most personal injury lawsuits, you must prove the defendant’s negligence caused the accident and your injuries. In many cases, you can sue the truck driver alongside the trucking company they work for.
For a free case review, call our Indiana truck accident attorneys at Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.
After being hit by a semi truck, it is crucial that you speak to an attorney about your legal options. Depending on how the accident happened, you might be able to get a significant damages award to cover your various expenses.
After a semi truck accident, you can file a lawsuit against the person or people responsible. Lawsuits involve filing important paperwork, gathering evidence, developing legal strategies, and presenting your case to a judge and jury.
Lawsuits are significant undertakings, but you should not be intimidated or dismayed. A lawsuit is a good way for you to hold the defendant accountable for their grievous actions and get compensation.
When pursuing a lawsuit, many plaintiffs and their attorneys will also prepare for a settlement. A settlement is an agreement where the defendant pays the plaintiff’s damages. In exchange, the plaintiff agrees to drop the lawsuit and waive their right to file the lawsuit.
Ideally, a settlement should save you time and money by avoiding a trial and getting compensation faster.
While there may be insurance to cover your injuries, it is often best to simultaneously pursue damages through court. Getting the insurance company to pay your damages in full will be the goal of settlement negotiations, but it is also the insurance policy that pays if we win at trial.
Your own insurance might also have coverage to pay for some of your injuries and damages, especially if you have medical payment coverage or collision coverage.
Filing a Lawsuit After Being Hit by a Semi Truck in Indiana
People often talk about filing a lawsuit as if you simply must drop off a letter at the court, and suddenly you have a lawsuit on your hands.
Personal injury cases need to be filed within the statute of limitations. Under I.C. § 34-11-2-4, this is 2 years.
Your case only needs to be filed within that time period; there is nothing requiring you to finish the entire claim within that 2-year limit.
Filing your lawsuit for a truck accident begins with a complaint. The complaint is a formal document that contains crucial information about your case, including details about yourself, the defendant, the truck accident, and your damages.
Even simple details like the defendant’s name and address are so important that the complaint might be considered incomplete without them.
You also need enough details and evidence from the truck accident to prove that it is necessary to allow the case to move forward. This means having at least some evidence to show that a cause of action exists.
However, this does not mean you must present all possible evidence in the complaint. You must also show some proof of your injuries and damages and explain what kind of relief (e.g., monetary compensation) you want from the court.
Truck accident cases are usually based on a claim that the defendant committed “negligence” rather than a claim that they hurt you intentionally. To prove negligence, you need to prove four elements:
You must show the defendant owed you a legal duty to hold them responsible. In auto accident cases, this often means looking at traffic laws to say that the defendant cannot drive drunk or speed, for example. Trucking companies and drivers are also required to follow many additional state and federal trucking regulations.
Alternatively, you can show that the defendant should have acted in a reasonable way given the circumstances, even if there is no actual legal violation.
Showing that the defendant violated a legal duty can involve proving unreasonable actions in the given circumstances or an explicit traffic or regulatory violation.
If that breach of duty caused the accident, we can hold the defendant responsible for their share of the damages. Damages are often divided among multiple parties, especially in multivehicle collisions.
You cannot sue if you did not suffer damages. Damages typically include the injuries themselves, along with any economic harm you faced from the injuries, plus vehicle damage.
As mentioned above, you need evidence to file your complaint and start your lawsuit.
A lot of important evidence will come directly from the truck accident scene. For example, physical evidence (e.g., your vehicle, skid marks, the damaged truck) can shed light on how the accident happened, the direction from which your vehicle was hit, rates of speed, and more.
If physical evidence is very large, photographs and videos of the evidence may be admitted as evidence instead.
Witness testimony is also important to your case. Other drivers, passengers, or passersby can testify in court about what they saw.
Not all witnesses need to have seen the accident unfold. For example, a witness might not have seen the accident firsthand, but they can testify that they saw the truck driver drinking before getting on the road the day of the crash.
The following evidence can all be helpful to your case:
Our Indiana truck accident attorneys can help you with evidence collection, but you should save any documentation, communications, or other evidence that comes into your possession.
You and your lawyer must sit down and determine the extent of your damages before filing the lawsuit. Many damages are economic in nature and include financial expenses like medical bills or lost wages from missing work because of your injuries. Other damages are non-economic and far more subjective.
All costs of treatment for your injury should be covered, from emergency hospital stays to physical and mental health therapy bills. Any care that is reasonable or necessary for your recovery should be covered.
Lost wages can come from medical treatment and hospital stays that eventually allow you to return to work at full capacity. If you are back to work, then we can look at pay stubs and financial records to show what income you missed in the interim.
With permanent injuries and disabilities, your wages can be affected in two ways:
To calculate lost wages, we look at what you were expected to make before the injury and what you are expected to make now (which might be $0), and we claim the difference.
Pain and suffering are commonly claimed as non-economic damages. Their overall value is based on how significantly they impact your life and the level to which they hinder daily functioning.
Along with pain and suffering, you can also seek damages for emotional distress, disfigurement, lost ability, mental anguish, and more.
Under I.C. § 34-51-3, you can claim punitive damages for some accident cases. These are extra damages paid to the victim to punish the defendant for bad actions.
Under these laws
Knowing the full extent of your damages before our Hammond truck accident attorneys file your case is important because if any damages are mistakenly left out or overlooked, they might be lost forever. It is not always possible to amend complaints to include forgotten damages. When it is possible, it might not be easy and could cost you precious time and effort.
When suing for a truck accident, you must know who the defendant is.
While many plaintiffs know exactly who the defendant is because they exchanged information at the crash site, others are not so lucky. Sometimes drivers flee the scene or refuse to identify themselves out of fear of repercussions. In such cases, our Indiana truck accident attorneys can help you identify the defendant and start your case.
We may also be able to rely on uninsured motorist coverage to pay for hit and run damages as though the driver was uninsured. These policies are mandatory in Indiana under I.C. § 27-7-5-2, so you should have this coverage.
Many truck accident lawsuits are filed against the truck drivers who caused the accident. Truck drivers owe a duty of care to drive with reasonable safety under the circumstances and to follow traffic laws.
When truckers breach this duty, they may be deemed negligent, and if their negligence is the direct cause of the accident, they can be held liable.
Sometimes the trucker is only part of the cause, and another driver on the road was also liable. Even truck accident claims can be brought against other drivers, especially if the trucker was a victim, too.
If both drivers were partially liable, we can hold them each responsible for their share of the damages.
You might also sue the trucker’s employer.
Trucking companies can be held vicariously liable for their employee’s negligence. If the truck driver was on duty at the time of the accident and performing work substantially in service to their employer, their employer can be held liable for the accident.
The employer can also be sued for its own negligence, such as negligent vehicle upkeep and inspections. However, not every driver works for a trucking company, so sometimes the trucker is the only party to sue.
Sometimes shippers are put in touch with motor carriers/trucking companies/drivers through a freight broker or freight forwarder. They must take reasonable care when selecting an appropriate carrier for the freight, and negligence in that process could make them at least partially liable.
They are not the trucker’s employer, though, and cannot be sued in that role.
Failing to reasonably maintain roads can cause crashes, and this can make the government or a contractor of theirs responsible for the crash. This could mean suing cities and other local governments, the state, or the federal government, depending on who owned and maintained the roadway.
Sometimes problems with vehicles can be traced to the manufacturer. For example, defective brakes or tires could be the cause of a crash, and the manufacturer could be liable for that.
Trucking companies and drivers are required to follow many different trucking regulations. Failing to follow these laws that are meant to keep people safe could result in liability for the crash.
Some common trucking regulations that get violated come from these regulations:
Crashes can be blamed on trucking companies in two ways:
If the trucking company did something dangerous that contributed to the accident, it can be held directly liable for that. This often comes up in the following ways:
Otherwise, trucking companies can also be held liable for what their employees do within the scope of their job duties. This requires three elements:
This principle can also make the trucking company liable for something another employee did, e.g., if negligent maintenance or inspection by their mechanics caused the truck to crash.
When someone dies because of a truck accident, you can sue for their death.
Wrongful death claims are brought by the victim’s family (spouses, children, or parents), or by their personal representative, under I.C. § 34-23-1-2. Those family members must be dependents, or else they cannot sue or benefit.
The damages in these claims are paid into the victim’s estate if there are no dependents; otherwise, they go directly to the dependent heirs who suffered damages.
The exception is medical and funeral expenses, which always go to the estate.
You can claim damages for
You cannot claim
Damages for medical and funeral expenses go straight to the estate.
Lost love and companionship damages are capped at $300,000. If the jury awards more, the damages are reduced to that cap.
The victim’s will will establish how the estate is distributed, which will affect some of the distribution of these damages. Otherwise, damages are paid specifically to the person who suffered them, so those would not be affected.
The will may also name a personal representative who can file the claim.
Often, you do both! Lawsuits can be filed when we start your case. That forces the insurance company to negotiate in good faith, knowing that they could end up in court if they do not settle for a fair value.
If we are unable to get your case paid through negotiations and settlements, we have trial on the horizon where we can get the judge and jury to order payment.
Yes! All kinds of trucks are used in commercial driving, from box trucks to smaller combination trucks. You can sue these drivers and their employers for crashes. You can also sue for crashes with delivery trucks and vans, garbage trucks, and any other commercial vehicles.
Do not wait until the statute of limitations has already run or you run into trouble getting the insurance company to settle your case. Instead, call our Indiana truck accident lawyers as soon as you can after a crash. We can focus on building your case and collecting evidence, then file as soon as we can to cut down on delays in damages.
If you have first-party coverages on your insurance, you can receive those damages without interfering with your claim against the at-fault driver. However, it can be hard to know which insurance companies work for whom, so never do this without a lawyer.
You cannot settle with the defense’s insurance and then take them to trial; you only get one shot at damages from the defendant. If you do get some money from your own insurance, your insurance company may “subrogate” your claim against the defendant(s) to get paid back for the money they already paid you and avoid you getting compensated twice.
If there is an issue with the truck from the factory floor, the manufacturer might be liable. However, truckers and trucking companies often need to inspect their trucks, so they might take on liability if they miss problems.
If you settle your case, there may be no actual determination of liability. It is up to the insurance company to figure out if they are liable or not, and for how much money, and their settlement offer will be based on that investigation. However, settlements often skip any actual admission of fault.
If the case goes to trial, the jury decides liability. The judge is responsible for deciding legal questions, not factual questions and damage amounts.
Under I.C. § 34-51-2-6, fault can be assigned against one defendant or multiple. Each defendant gets assigned a percentage of the damages, but you might also be assigned a portion of the blame.
As long as your whole-number percentage of the blame is equal to 50% or less, you can still recover the defendants’ share of damages from them. You lose out on your percentage of the damages.
Contact Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 for a free case review with our experienced Indiana truck accident lawyers.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
Contact Us:
Wruck Paupore P.C.
Injury Lawyers
275 Joliet St. Suite #250
Dyer, IN 46311
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