Despite representing just 2.5% of vehicles on California roadways, heavy trucks are involved in nearly 10% of all fatal traffic accidents in the state. When these accidents occur, it is almost always someone other than the truck driver who is killed. In addition, tens of thousands of people are injured in large truck accidents in California each year. Whether someone is killed or injured in an accident with a heavy truck, the costs should be paid by the trucking company when they are partly or fully to blame for the accident.

If you have lost someone or were injured in a heavy truck accident, there are many reasons to seek compensation. First, it can help your family deal with all the bills related to the accident or due to a loss of income. Second, your truck accident lawsuit can make the roads safer. Heavy commercial trucks are an essential part of our economy, but it’s important that they operate as safely as possible. There is big money in trucking, and there’s a temptation to skimp on safety measures that cost time or money. Holding the trucking companies responsible when they cause accidents makes them less likely to cut corners for profit. 

At Fisher & Talwar, we have experience helping people across the country get compensation when a heavy truck hurt them or led to the loss of a loved one. Contact us today to learn how we can help you.

What to Do After a Truck Accident

After a truck accident, it’s important to follow these steps to protect your rights and make sure you can get compensation for your injuries.

  • Contact the authorities: Immediately contact the authorities following your truck accident. Report any injuries you know about or suspect.
  • Exchange information with other drivers: If you are able to get up and walk around after your accident, go to the other drivers and get their names and insurance information. Give them yours, too. If other drivers won’t share information with you, take their pictures and take pictures of their cars’ license plate numbers. When drivers leave the scene before police arrive, do what you can to document them, but don’t put yourself at risk by blocking their exit.
  • Give a brief, factual account of the accident to the authorities: You are required to give a statement about the accident to the police. Keep it factual and describe just what happened. Don’t try to guess what other drivers were thinking, and keep your own thoughts and emotions to yourself. You are not required to give an immediate statement to any insurance company, and if you’re hurt, even your statement to the police can wait.
  • Document the scene: If you are well enough to walk around, take pictures of the accident scene. All evidence at the scene is important and could make a difference in your case. Plus, evidence will often vanish if not documented right away. If you aren’t able to get documentation yourself, ask a trusted friend to get it for you.
  • Get medical care: Even if you don’t think you were injured in the accident, seek medical care. Injuries from a truck accident might not be visible immediately. Getting medical care can help document your injuries. A doctor can also tell you what to watch out for in terms of delayed injuries, such as traumatic brain injury. 
  • Contact your insurance company: Your insurance policy typically requires you to report accidents within 72 hours. If you don’t report it promptly, you risk having your claim denied. Try to make your report as close as possible to your official report. Again, don’t speculate about other drivers’ thinking and don’t talk about your thoughts or feelings. Your insurance agent will act as if they are on your side–and often they are–but in some situations, it might be in their best interest to turn against you. Don’t give them any excuse to deny your claim. 
  • Contact a truck accident lawyer: If another driver was at fault or your bills aren’t going to be fully covered by your insurance, a truck accident lawyer is your best method for getting the compensation you need. They can help you pursue the compensation you deserve after your accident.

You Need to Act Quickly to Preserve Your Rights

Typically, you have two years to file a lawsuit over injuries or other losses due to a truck accident. However, there are some situations where the time limit to file might be less. In addition, there are other reasons why you should act as quickly as possible:

  • Evidence begins to vanish immediately: Skid marks, broken car parts, and other evidence of how the crash happened will begin to disappear immediately after the accident. Cuts, bruises, and other signs of injury can start healing right away. Behind the scenes, trucking companies might also take steps to make it harder to prove liability. 
  • You must report to your insurance company within 72 hours: If you want to preserve your right to make a claim with your insurance company, you must report the accident within 72 hours. Other insurance companies will want a report soon, too. 
  • You must report your accident to DMV within 10 days: Report any accident with injuries or at least $750 in vehicle damage to the Department of Motor Vehicles. 
  • Failure to report your accident can downplay its severity: If you’re not getting medical care or taking steps to deal with the accident, it can make your accident seem as if it’s not important, and perhaps you don’t deserve compensation.

We understand that it can be hard to balance all the complications of your truck accident. That’s why it’s often good to contact a truck accident lawyer. They can help you by taking the necessary steps to protect your rights and pursue compensation on your behalf.

How a Truck Accident Lawyer Can Help

A semi truck accident lawyer can help you protect your right to compensation after a truck accident. They can:

  • Make sure all legal statements are filed correctly and in a timely manner
  • Protect you from the strategies that insurance and trucking companies use to take away your right to compensation
  • Help you understand the long-term costs of your injuries
  • Demonstrate the connection between your injuries and the accident
  • Factor in non-economic damages like a reduced quality of life
  • Request and seek full compensation to cover your injury costs
  • Collect evidence and build a case to maximize compensation for your injuries
  • Help you manage bills until you get the compensation you are due
  • Fight for compensation in court if necessary

One of the strategies insurance and trucking companies will use to avoid paying you what you’re due is to offer settlements before you understand the full extent of your injuries. This means that they will quickly offer you a settlement that seems generous but is actually far short of your likely costs. They will also try to argue that your injuries aren’t serious or weren’t caused by your accident.

An experienced truck accident lawyer knows how to deal with these strategies. They help you connect your injuries to the accident and show how serious they are. In addition, they know how to build a case that demonstrates how the negligence of the driver and their trucking company led to or worsened the accident. This will help you get more compensation for your injuries.

Why Choose Fisher & Talwar After Your Truck Accident

At Fisher & Talwar, our partners will personally handle your truck accident. We never take so many cases that we can’t handle them personally because we believe your case deserves personal attention. 

Our experienced truck accident lawyers have won $1.5 million for one of our clients in a truck accident, as well as more than $10 million in other traffic accidents. See our personal injury lawsuit results to understand what we have done for our clients and may be able to do for you. We know how to build strong cases for our clients, and this can help you get better settlement offers and even win major victories in court when necessary. 

We are also dedicated to taking care of you and your family during and after the lawsuit process. We always work on a contingency basis, which means you don’t pay us a fee if we don’t win money for you. In addition, we don’t charge you for expenses in your case. It’s all rolled up in our fees, which means that it’s also on contingency–you don’t have to pay for expenses if we don’t get you money. Many lawyers charge separately for expenses, which can reduce your compensation. In some cases, lawyers will even expect you to pay expenses even if they don’t win your case. We don’t do this. 

Let’s make this as clear as possible: if we don’t win money for you, you don’t owe us anything: no fees and no expenses. Your family doesn’t need extra bills if you don’t win compensation. 

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Compensation Available After a California Truck Accident

What type of compensation can you get with a California truck accident lawsuit? Here are some of the more common types of compensation that you might be eligible for:

  • Damage to your car and other property
  • Medical bills
  • Rehabilitation expenses
  • Psychological therapy and any other necessary mental health treatment
  • Lost wages
  • Reduced earning ability
  • Long-term disability
  • Disfigurement
  • Emotional distress
  • Pain and suffering
  • Diminished quality of life
  • Wrongful death

Many of these categories of compensation can be hard for you to understand if you haven’t gone through the process of a truck accident lawsuit before. Our experienced truck accident lawyers have done this many times before, and they know what fair compensation looks like in your case, and they know how to pursue it from all liable parties. 

Liability in a California Truck Accident

You can only get compensation from those who are considered liable for the accident and/or your damages. Most of the time, liability in truck accident cases uses the negligence standard. Negligence means that a person didn’t do the things necessary to prevent an accident or injury. With something as complicated as a truck accident, there’s a dizzying number of steps necessary to prevent an accident. This can include the manufacturing of the truck, the loading of the truck, the setting of the truck’s schedules, as well as the actions of the individual driver. 

Although the number of steps can be very different, the same four standards are applied to each:

  • Duty: This means that the person in question owed you a legal obligation to consider your safety. 
  • Breach: This is proof that the person didn’t do what they should to protect your safety. 
  • Causation: Causation means proving that the person’s breach caused your accident injuries.
  • Damages: These are the harms that you sustained as a result of the accident, typically economic damages (like medical bills) or non-economic damages (such as diminished quality of life). In some cases where a person’s breach is especially serious, the court might award punitive damages to punish them and try to prevent others from acting in a similar way. 

An experienced truck accident attorney has gone through the process of establishing liability many times over, and they know how to handle each of these steps successfully. That’s why you need to look for a record of success from your truck accident attorney. Although these standards are only applied in court, insurers and trucking companies won’t offer valuable settlements if they don’t believe you can prove all these standards. 

Parties That Can Be Held Liable for a Truck Accident

Because of the complexity of a truck accident, many parties can be held liable. Depending on the factors that contributed to the accident and/or your injuries, this might include:

  • The truck manufacturer
  • The owner of the truck, trailer, or cargo
  • The company leasing the truck or trailer
  • The company responsible for truck or trailer maintenance
  • The truck driver
  • The driver’s employer
  • Government(s) responsible for maintaining the road

Tracking each element of a truck accident back to a liable party can be tricky and benefits from the knowledge of an experienced truck accident lawyer. 

California Comparative Liability

In California, liability operates according to what is described as pure comparative liability. This means that you can get compensation for your injuries even if you are partly responsible for them, and each liable party will pay for their share of the costs. 

Consider a case where you performed a maneuver that required a semi-truck driver to brake. However, the driver wasn’t paying attention and applied the brakes too slowly. In addition, the brakes were not well-maintained and the trailer was overloaded, so the semi couldn’t brake quickly enough. The court might decide that you were 25% responsible for the accident, the driver was 25% responsible, the maintenance company was 25% responsible, and the cargo owner who loaded the trailer was also 25% responsible. In this case, you would be eligible for compensation equal to 75% of all your expenses, paid by the driver, the maintenance company, and the cargo owner (or, more likely, each party’s insurance). 

Contact Fisher & Talwar for Help with Your Truck Accident

If you have suffered an injury or lost a loved one in a truck accident, you need the assistance of an experienced truck accident attorney to ensure you get the compensation you deserve for your injuries or loss. At Fisher & Talwar, we have extensive experience helping people get compensation after a truck accident. Let us help you. 
We offer a free consultation, and there’s no obligation to use us as your lawyers. Just get your questions answered confidentially. If you do work with us, there is no fee unless we win your case, and we never pass expenses on to our clients. Please contact us today to schedule your free consultation.

California has a strict statute of limitations for personal injury claims. In the state, you only have two years to take legal action. If you do not act within this time frame, you will likely lose out on your legal rights. There is a small exception for cases in which the injury was not discovered until well after the original incident. In those cases, California law allows one year from the date of the discovery of harm. Still, you do not want to mess with the statute of limitations. Please do not miss out on your opportunity to seek compensation simply because you waited too long to take action. You must protect your legal rights and financial interests. You owe it to yourself and your family to contact an experienced Los Angeles truck accident attorney as soon as possible.

FAQ’s:

What should I do after a truck accident in California?

First, make sure no one is injured. Call an ambulance if anyone is injured. Next, contact the authorities. Then, try to collect information from other drivers. Document the scene before leaving, if you can. Get medical attention even if you don’t think you’re hurt. Contact your insurance company and contact a truck accident lawyer if you worry that insurance might not cover all your costs.

Is there anything I shouldn't do?

Never say anything that implies you are responsible for the accident, such as “I shouldn’t have…” or “I didn’t see…” Don’t claim to be fine until you have gotten a clean bill of health from a doctor. Even simple apologies can be misconstrued. Stick to the facts of the accident, and only speak as necessary.

How can you find evidence that the truck driver or trucking company was negligent?

It can be hard for individuals to find the necessary evidence. However, lawyers experienced in big rig, 18-wheeler truck accidents know where to look and have access to information that can prove negligence. For example, in the past, we have looked at:

  • Electronic logs for the truck that show that the driver was fatigued and/or violated safety regulations, such as Hours of Service (HOS), by driving for too long.
  • Inspection of the truck to determine whether a failed part might have been defective, poorly maintained, or improperly installed.
  • Cargo paperwork to determine whether the truck was overloaded or improperly loaded.
  • Police reports to show that the driver was intoxicated or cited for unsafe driving. We have also looked at a driver’s record to see if they have a history of accidents. This might show that the company was negligent in employing them. 
  • Phone records to see if a driver was on the phone at the time of the accident. 

At Fisher & Talwar, we will handle your case personally, and that means taking the time to look at the circumstances of your case in detail. This helps us determine if there’s anything that doesn’t seem right, and then we will find the evidence that shows the truth of the situation.

When can a trucking company be held liable for an accident?

Trucking companies can be held liable when their actions contribute to the accident. This might be because they:

  • Didn’t screen drivers well enough
  • Didn’t test drivers’ health to see if they are currently fit to drive
  • Let drivers keep working despite poor safety records
  • Encouraged drivers to operate outside HOS rules
  • Didn’t maintain their fleet properly
  • Accepted overweight or poorly loaded cargo

Trucking companies often take these actions to save money, and they should pay the costs of cutting corners.

How do I document pain and suffering or emotional distress?

Non-economic losses can be hard to document and get compensation for. Use of painkillers can often serve as a proxy for your ongoing suffering. Similarly, the use of antidepressants might show emotional distress. Working with a therapist can also help you communicate how much your life has been impacted. You can also highlight activities that you used to enjoy but now can’t do. 

Keeping an honest journal can convey the severity and impact of your physical and emotional pain.

I need money badly, and the trucking company's offer seems generous. Should I just accept it?

Trucking companies know that you need the money, and they want to use that fact to get you to accept less than you are due. Although it might seem generous, it is likely less than you are owed. If you take the money now, it might help some, but you won’t be able to get more compensation when you are still struggling with ongoing injuries and disability. 

If you are having trouble making ends meet, an experienced truck accident lawyer can refer you to resources that can help you bridge the gap until you can get a settlement or verdict.