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Hurdles You Will Encounter

Many of the clients who we represent at our Law Office are very business-savvy and sophisticated. They could easily pick up a book or do some Internet research and learn the law. However, there is much, much more to emerging successful in a truck accident case than just having an understanding of the law. If you choose to pursue legal action on your own, you can almost guarantee that you will either get nowhere close to the compensation that you deserve, or you will leave that courtroom with nothing at all. That could be the worst mistake you’ll ever make in your life – you will be on your own in paying for your crushing medical and other expenses. And you will not get a second chance. More info on this website

Here are a few of the obstacles that injury victims who choose to represent themselves often fall prey to in trucking accident litigation.

Truck Drivers Who Lie
Defendants always have a reason to lie, no matter the kind of litigation in which they are involved. However, truck drivers have even more motivation than normal to lie, because their livelihood will likely depend on them doing so. If a trucker is found responsible for an accident, that is the kind of black mark that can force them into another line of work. They will not only lose their job – in all likelihood, but they also will not be hired by another trucking company. So, if given the choice between lying or losing their job and not being able to provide for their family, many truck drivers will try and shift the blame for the accident to the injury victim. And if you cannot prove that the truck driver is indeed lying, then you will have no chance to win your case.

The trucking accident attorneys with our Office know how to get through the lies truck drivers tell and get to the truth. There are many times where we can gather immense amounts of evidence and expose the driver’s lies. When we produce witness statements, forensic test results, and video surveillance footage that all corroborate your account of the events that took place, the truck driver will likely lose all credibility in the eyes of a judge or jury. Many times, we can get to the truth through witness depositions. A deposition is where the attorney of the plaintiff is allowed to ask questions of the defendant’s witnesses. We have taken thousands of such depositions over the last two decades, and have developed extremely effective questioning techniques that will often compel a truck driver to tell the truth – often long before a trial is even scheduled to begin.

Policies of Large Insurance Companies
Trucking companies are required by law to have insurance on their vehicles. The value of these policies can dwarf those of typical automobile policies – often being worth 50 times as much. Therefore, an insurance carrier could lose 50 times more money in the event of a trucking accident than it would after a “normal” automobile accident. It only follows logically, then, that the carrier would devote 50 times the resources and fight 50 times harder to defend such a policy in order to avoid having to pay. It should be evident, then, that it can be far tougher to get just compensation from a truck insurance policy than it would be an everyday automobile insurance policy.

So since they have such a vested interest in protecting this kind of policy, they will do whatever they can to keep you from winning your case. They will employ high-powered insurance adjusters for just this reason. These professionals are not the kind of adjuster you may have encountered after a small fender-bender. They are seasoned, ruthless, and view you as the enemy. Typically, they only respect a seasoned and experienced trucking accident attorney.

This kind of adjuster will initially seem very nice to you. They’ll just want to ask you a few seemingly innocuous questions regarding the accident. Be very, very careful – their only true intent is to trick you into admitting the accident was your fault, or get you to otherwise say something that could be used against you in court. They will record the conversation, and then take whatever you say out of context in order to kill your claim. Basically, it is best that you simply refuse to talk to them. The attorneys at our Law Office make sure their clients are shielded from adjusters and their badgering, often intimidating tactics. We take those calls instead so that your words can never come back to hurt your case in court.

Large insurance carriers also employ highly trained and expert defense lawyers to protect their policies. These lawyers know insurance law like the back of their hand, and are intimately familiar with all the legal technicalities that can lead to your suit being thrown out of court should you either represent yourself or rely on an inexperienced attorney. Our lawyers have dealt with large insurance companies for 20 years, so we know the kinds of tactics they use and the kinds of tricks they like to try and play. We know how to defeat them, and defeat them handily.

Self-Insured Trucking Companies
There are some instances where a trucking accident will not include an insurance carrier. Sometimes, trucking companies choose to simply insure themselves, and they do so by setting aside some of their assets should they have to pay a plaintiff through either an out-of-court settlement or after losing a lawsuit. Should the trucking company involved in your accident be a self-employed company, you will likely not encounter the kind of insurance adjuster mentioned above. Rather, you will be probably dealing with an officer of the trucking company. If you thought insurance adjusters were bad, they’re nothing compared to an officer of a self-employed trucking company.

These people are normally paid through their trucking company’s profit-sharing program, so they make more money when the trucking company makes more money. If that company loses an accident lawsuit, that obviously cuts into the profits. It follows, then, that the company officer would lose money as well. This person will be highly motivated to deny your claim. That officer will be much more concerned with his or her financial well-being than yours, so he or she will be personally motivated to make sure you don’t get a dime.

Even though insurance adjusters can be intimidating and harassing, at least they are licensed, and as a requirement of that license, they are required to follow a code of ethics. Officers with self-insured trucking companies are under no such obligation, so their behavior is not governed. Clients often turn to us for help after suffering the harassment of these people. Not only are they known for employing harassing tactics to try and bully injury victims, but many of them also are not above altering evidence or employing other unethical schemes to defeat your case. If you need relief from these unethical actions, please call the trucking accident lawyers at our Law Office. We will put a stop to that nonsense immediately.

How Our Law Office can Help You
There are many things that a seasoned and skilled trucking accident attorney can do to help you obtain the just restitution you deserve for the injury you have suffered. One of the things we do immediately is to make sure that our clients get the medical assistance they need. Even if you do not have insurance, or you are under-insured, we can help you find the necessary medical care. We have excellent relationships with several medical professionals in Texas, and we can often get you the help you need at no cost to you. These medical practitioners will do this because they know our track record for success, and thus know they will most likely be reimbursed for the treatment they provide to you.

The next thing we do is quickly launch a detailed investigation in order to uncover the evidence you need to prove your case. Not only that, but we also take care of our clients’ cases every step of the way and keep them informed as well. We take the litigation off of your plate so you can focus on recovering from the injury or injuries you incurred in the accident, and get your life back on track as soon as possible.

Here are just some of the services we offer our clients in every trucking accident case we take:

Launch an investigation into the cause of the accident
Collect the vital evidence you need to satisfy your burden of proof
Put our reputation for winning cases to work for you by compelling defendants into offering a fair settlement offer
Develop a rock-solid trial strategy
Put our knowledge of court procedures to use in order to ensure your case is not dismissed by a judge
Take all calls from insurance adjusters so you are not exposed to their intimidating, badgering and harassing tactics
Expose the lies truck drivers will tell in an attempt to save their job by shifting blame to you
Shield you from the oftentimes unethical methods used by officers of self-insured trucking companies to defeat your case.

These are just a few ways that the trucking accident lawyers with our Law Office help our clients. We want to take all the stress involved with litigation off of your plate so you can focus on getting well and getting back to a normal life. If you would like to find out more about how we can help you or get a free and confidential consultation concerning the specific circumstances surrounding your case, please call us as soon as possible toll-free. We are on hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we will gladly answer any questions you may have.

Motor Vehicle Accidents Overview

Motor Vehicle Injury Attorneys – CALL TOLL-FREE FOR FREE CONSULTATION

If you were involved in a motor vehicle accident of any kind, you may have two serious challenges:car accident attorneys

You are faced with injuries and the need for costly medical care to help you recover your health as fully as possible.
You are faced with an insurance company that wants to give you as little money as possible for your injuries.
Immediately after any serious motor vehicle accident with injuries — whether it was a car accident, a truck accident, a motorcycle accident, or an SUV rollover — the insurance company will have an investigator at the scene to gather evidence and to determine who caused the accident. They will have the police report and they may talk to witnesses.

Soon after an accident, an insurance claims adjustor will call to ask you about the accident. While claims adjustors act helpful, they are looking for ways to resolve your claim as quickly and cheaply as possible. They may find a way to deny your claim altogether.

Don’t agree to a settlement or give a taped statement before you understand your rights to compensation. Talk with an experienced car accident attorney before you say something that could result in claim denial. Contact our Law office toll-free. Your consultation is free.

When you hire a lawyer, that lawyer works for you and only you — not the stockholders of a large insurance company. Your attorney’s only goal is to ensure that you receive the maximum amount of compensation you are entitled to so you can cover your current and future expenses.

Our personal injury lawyers are zealous in protecting our clients’ interests and aggressive in the courtroom if the insurance company refuses to be fair.

The Courts Don’t Favor Crash Victims — Hire a Lawyer Who Will Fight

Many recent Supreme Court rulings have come down against personal injury victims. Car accident victims are having a harder time than ever getting the compensation they need to pay their bills. That makes it all the more important to talk to a lawyer early on and to hire an experienced lawyer to bring your case.auto accident attorneys

Learn more about how attorneys can help you after a car accident, bicycle accident, pedestrian accident, or any other collision. Call our law office toll-free for a free initial consultation. You can also contact us online and we’ll get back to you shortly to discuss your car accident.

Determining Fault & Theories of Liability

Importance of the Police Report in a Truck Accident

Personal Injury Lawyers » Importance of the Police Report in a Truck Accident

How Important is a Police Accident Report When Determining Fault in an 18 wheeler Accident?

If you have ever been in an auto accident you probably spoke to the police and they made a report of the accident. The police report can be useful for identifying potential witnesses, getting the preliminary facts of the accident, and obtaining preliminary witness statements. However, the police reports actual effect in determining who is at fault in an accident is extremely overrated. In a court of law, the opinions expressed by the officer who made the report are essentially meaningless with some context provided by attorneys for either the plaintiff or defense. Therefore, it can be said that the real value of the police report is its ability to aid your attorney in illustrating to a jury what occurred; not that the police report itself is entirely meaningful or significant on its own.truck accident attorneys

As such, the most important thing you can do is hire an experienced personal injury attorney to protect your rights and make sure that the police report alone does not determine the factor of your case for better or for worse.

Police Reports are Not Automatically Admissible in Trial

The reason why a police report’s value is generally overrated is, in the unlikely event that your case made it to trial, the police report is not inherently admissible into court without being properly “proved up“. Getting a document (ANY document) admissible can be a complex matter that must be executed in accordance with the Texas Rules for Civil Procedure. If you hope to prove your side of the story simply by showing up with a police report in hand, you will be disappointing. If the police report is helpful to your side, your attorney will need to take several steps in order to ensure that a jury will ever be able to see it. Then your attorney must explain the relevance of every important fact contained in the report. Again, without context, the report is essentially ineffective.

Police Officers are Often Not Trained in Traffic Accident Analysis

Another reason why you can’t simply rely on the police report to be your star witness is that police officer are not viewed as “experts” for the purposes of civil court proceedings. Police officers are not always adequately trained to analyze an accident scene. Furthermore, for the report to be scientifically valid, the measurements and summaries must be based on some standard and the instruments used must be properly calibrated.

In some rare cases, the police officers investigating the accident scene will document and record the meticulous manner by which they calibrate their measurement equipment as well as show all of the formulas and calculations used with regard to deriving speed, braking force, etc. Such police reports are very credible. But most police officers do not go through such lengths, and the reports they make are dubious in nature. After all, how reliable is a police report when the officer can’t swear under oath that he knows his tools were undoubtedly working properly? How reliable is a police report when the conclusions are not backed by verifiable mathematics?truck crash lawyers

Often times a police report contains little more than party names and other information such as insurance and witness statements, however, the actual analysis of the accident is lacking. If you were on a jury, how much stock would you put in such an understated report?

Police Do Not View Accidents in Light of Civil Liability

This is arguably the most important point of this article. Police officers are not judges nor juries. They cannot determine civil liability and the evidence that they look for and then document in a report is only coincidentally similar to the evidence used in a truck accident case in some instances and completely irrelevant in other instances.

Police reports are not always the best indicator of fault because the police analyze the accident from the view of criminal liability, rather than civil liability. There is a large variance in civil and criminal law, including what constitutes criminal liability and civil liability. Police often do not possess the requisite knowledge and training to recognize the differences that may be important in determining civil liability over criminal liability. Reasons such as these are the reasons that it is important to contact your lawyer as soon as possible, rather than risk relying on an unfavorable police report.

Do you have a legal issue or question? Call us now.

The Best Thing You Can Do At the Scene of the Truck Accident

You do not have to wait and rely 100% on the police report to record all parts of the accident. You can take steps to protect your interest in the accident claim. There are many things a person in an accident can do to assist in their traffic accident case, such as take digital photographs of the traffic scene immediately after the accident. Photos at the scene of the accident can be the best to accurately recreate the scene of the accident. Taking notes about the accident immediately following the accident can also be beneficial; as time passes you may forget minor details that may be vital to your claim.
The attorneys at our law office are trained and experienced in all areas of personal injury law, we are able to analyze an accident scene and find the facts that will be important in making your claim, please contact them to schedule your free consultation and discuss the facts of your case.