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Large trucks, often called eighteen-wheelers or semi trucks, can be seen crisscrossing the state every day. These trucks are important parts of our economy and distribute goods where they are needed. These trucks are very large and very dangerous, and accidents can cause significant injuries to other drivers.
If you were involved in a truck accident, you might be dealing with extreme bodily injuries on top of the loss of your vehicle. As the debts related to your recovery begin to mount, you might need help paying for everything. You can file a personal injury lawsuit against the person responsible for causing your truck accident and claim the compensation you need.
After a truck accident, the last thing you probably want is to deal with a complex court battle. Our Milwaukee truck accident lawyers are here to help ease your burden. Call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 for a free evaluation of your case to get started.
With so many eighteen-wheelers on the highways, truck accidents are an unfortunately regular occurrence. A truck accident can be caused by several factors. Some factors are related to driver error, while others have more to do with the truck and its equipment. Our Milwaukee truck accident attorneys can help you determine the cause of your truck accident and how that will affect your case.
Driver error involves mistakes made by the trucker behind the wheel. Common examples of driver error include traffic violations like speeding, failing to use turn signals, and making sharp turns. Some errors occur because of poor driving choices by the trucker. Other errors happen because of things like distractions or inattention. In any of these circumstances, blame often falls squarely on the truck driver.
Driver fatigue has been a common issue with truck drivers for years. Truck drivers often haul cargo across very long distances and have strict deadlines. This means very long hours behind the wheel with minimal breaks and sleep. Regulations designed to prevent tired driving are often ignored. A tired trucker is a hazard to all drivers on the road and should be held accountable for accidents caused by drowsy driving.
Equipment failures are also common causes of truck accidents. Trucks are much larger than cars and SUVs, and they require much more equipment to operate safely. Most issues with equipment failure involve lighting malfunctions, tire blowouts, brake failure, and other similar safety issues.
Accidents can also involve specialized truck equipment. The low-hanging bar at the back of the truck is called the rear underrun protection system or the Mansfield bar. It prevents cars behind the truck from getting trapped under the trailer in case of a rear-end collision. If this bar is not on the truck or otherwise fails, the results could be deadly, and the trucker or trucking company could be liable.
Your damages related to a truck accident may be severe and very costly. Damages can include bodily injuries, property damage, pain, suffering, and more. It is important to speak with our Milwaukee truck accident lawyers about your damages so you do not overlook anything and miss out on compensation.
Physical Injuries from a truck accident are often extreme. Many injured accident victims find themselves with long-lasting or permanent injuries. Common physical injuries from truck accidents often include the following ailments:
Your damages are not limited to bodily harm. Property damage is also likely in truck accident lawsuits. The cost of repairing or replacing your vehicle is often very expensive. You can also make claims for lost personal belongings inside your vehicle during the crash.
On top of everything, you should think about the pain and suffering you endured. This can include physical and emotional suffering. These damages are intangible and open to interpretation. We will need evidence to support our estimation of these damages.
When considering a lawsuit, our Milwaukee truck accident attorneys can help you decide who the defendant is. One might assume that the trucker is the only possible defendant, and in some cases, this is correct. However, there are numerous possible defendants to consider before proceeding with your case.
The truck driver tends to bear a lot of responsibility for truck accidents. If your accident resulted from driver error or fatigue, the trucker is likely your defendant. When suing a trucker, we can often also sue their employer. Under the legal doctrine of respondeat superior, employers can be held vicariously liable for the negligence of their employees. The employee’s negligent behavior must have occurred within the scope of their employment for you to sue their employer. Negligence that occurs outside an employee’s job parameters cannot be imputed to employers.
In some truck accident cases, the trucker is not the person at fault. Instead, another negligent driver is to blame. This might happen if a car cuts off a trucker who cannot brake in time and ends up swerving into traffic. If the trucker did everything they reasonably could to stop safely, but was unable to keep from hitting other cars, the trucker might not be liable. Instead, the car that caused the trucker to crash can be sued for damages.
Additionally, other parties which might not be obvious at first, or even known to you, may have contributed to the accident. If the trailer was improperly loaded, for instance, the shipper could bear partial responsibility for the accident or others involved in the cargo shipment. These are issues that need to be fully investigated as soon as possible after the semi-truck accident and require lawyers who are knowledgeable about these types of cases, which are often very technical in nature.
Your case needs evidence. Without evidence, there is almost no chance of success. You might feel like you are fighting an uphill battle if your case has very little physical evidence in your favor, but our Milwaukee truck accident attorneys have experience handling many cases with varying degrees of evidence, and we will fight for your compensation.
Photos and videos might be crucial to your case. Truck accidents often occur on highways and freeways, and there might not be any surveillance cameras in the area to catch the accident on film. Most people carry cell phones equipped with high-quality cameras nowadays. If you are able to do so safely after the crash, exit your car, snap pictures, and record videos of the accident scene. Once the authorities have cleared away the accident scene, your photos and videos might be all we have to recreate the scene.
Witness testimony may be extremely important in your case. Witnesses may include anyone who actually saw the accident happen, such as passengers, drivers in other vehicles, or pedestrians. You and the truck driver are also witnesses. Witness testimony combined with photos or videos of the accident scene can make for very powerful evidence.
Very often we will also bring in some of the nation’s leading experts to assist in proving your claim. This may include accident reconstructionists who can use scientific methods to reconstruct what happened in your accident and create detailed visual depictions of the cause of the accident. It may also include experienced experts in the regulations that govern truck drivers and motor carriers and the technical standards that apply in these cases.
We also need evidence to prove the extent of your damages. This can include your medical records, testimony from doctors, and more. For intangible damages like emotional suffering, we can get expert opinions from mental health professionals. Beyond this, however, skilled life care planners are often retained to provide a medical and economic analysis of what would be beneficial to help you live your best life following the accident and even where you have permanent injuries and impairment.
In appropriate cases, we will bring in vocational experts and economists that can thoroughly analyze the impact of the accident on your ability to work and lost wages. In cases of serious injury, we often will produce “day in the life” videos that allow experts to show how the incident has dramatically impacted your life so that a jury can understand your injuries. We also often produce documentary videos interviewing you and your loved ones regarding the impact of the accident on your life, which is extremely powerful in proving your case where there are permanent injuries. All of these things can have a dramatic impact upon how much you recover in your case. Experience and skill in building your damage case and presenting it effectively matters.
If you or a loved on was harmed in an accident with a large semi truck, you might be in dire need of help. Call our Milwaukee truck accident attorneys for advice and guidance. Call Wruck Paupore Injury Lawyers 24-hours a day at (219) 322-1166 for a free case evaluation by an experienced member of our legal team.
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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