Can You Talk about the $3,850,000 Trucking Crash Case You Worked On? What Challenges Did You Face?

So in 2023, we represented a couple that was driving down the highway, you know, wintertime, inclement weather, you know it’s snowing kind of raining but to the point that you’re finally sleet and snow. And they’re slowing to a stop because of traffic ahead of them; there’s either a crash ahead or just people slowing because of the inclement weather. And a trucking company had a guy; it was a car hauling company. So the driver loads that up in the bad weather by himself,  and he gets in his truck, and he leaves, hits the skills, and he’s overweight. And so he’s a car too heavy. He’s got too many on and so he’s got to go back to the loading zone all by himself yet again out in the bad weather, pull the car off, re-strap everything, get everything set up, climbs in the rig goes passes the scale and off he goes onto the highway. Before he gets in his truck this time he takes his overalls off and he sets them on the seat next to him. He’s got his defroster on, but it’s not working. And the reason it’s not working great, isn’t just the inclement weather outside,  but now you’ve got, you know, what’s akin to a soak and wet pile of towels on your seat. And so he’s not only having defrost issues external but he’s getting all of the internal, you know, water and moisture on his window. And so he’s one of those guys that gets a phone call from dispatch, where are you you’re late, you know, loading issues and so he’s on his phone, defroster is not working, and so he’s got a towel or a rag and he’s you know wiping the inside of the window on a handheld phone, you know, doing one of these things where he’s driving with a knee and doesn’t notice you know traffic ahead slowing to a stop. And creams into the back end of our clients and,  you know, six or seven other vehicles that he blows through in this, you know, 80,000 lb loaded tractor trailer and causes, you know, severe injury. That case went to the doorsteps of trial,  you know, ended up with over $3 million, you know, result for our clients. Our target in that case,  in almost every case that involves, you know, trucking companies, is the company itself. But back to really drilling down on preventability and root cause, you know, is your equipment up snuff,  and if companies aren’t ensuring that and training on that day in and day out,  that’s a problem, right. They need to make sure they do their part to keep us all safe on our  roadways and that means you hire a qualified guy, you make sure he’s qualified through all your training protocols and programs, and you supervise to see if indeed what he was trained  and taught is what he follows. And so, that was a suit where we did not even name the defendant driver as a party, we named the trucking company only and ended up with a a good result.