Dangerous Trucks
Despite the fact that large trucks and tractor-trailers
have a low percentage of highway accidents, this small number includes an
overwhelming rate of catastrophic accidents leading to serious injuries
and fatalities. This can be attributed to the simple fact that a tractor-trailer
normally outweighs a passenger vehicle 30 to 1, so the chances of survival
in a collision with one of these "immovable objects" are slim at best. Unfortunately,
even the people who are lucky enough to survive these accidents are most
often left with severe permanent injuries or career-ending disabilities.
Every year, Fonvielle Lewis Foote & Messer handles several cases in which large trucks or tractor-trailers are responsible for causing accidents that end up costing our clients their lives or the life of a loved one. The damages in these cases are usually substantial, so trucking companies and their insurers do not hesitate to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend the actions of their company or their employees. This can prove to be an insurmountable burden to someone who is not familiar with the proper procedures or experts necessary to prevail in any trucking case.
This type of case should never be approached with a "let's wait and hope they settle" attitude because the only way to maximize the client's potential recovery is to fight fire with fire from the very beginning. Fonvielle Lewis Foote & Messer has been successful in resolving several large truck cases, and the following stories will illustrate how our firm has been able to "rescue" lives that were destroyed by "dangerous trucks."
The Case of Kathy G., Handled by
Firm Partner Hal Lewis
On a dark September night in 1993, our client
Kathy G. and her husband were driving east on Interstate 10 just outside
of Madison. They left their teen-age children home with family in
Oklahoma, and they were on their way to Tampa for a business convention. As
Kathy was driving through dark and unfamiliar surroundings, she had no idea
that a large flatbed trailer truck had jackknifed up ahead due to negligence
and inattention on the part of its driver. Unfortunately, this flatbed was
fully loaded with steel pipes, so it was not going anywhere for some time.
As Kathy crested an overpass and stared down the highway, she could see for the first time a pair of headlights to the left of the road that she thought were either headlights from an oncoming car or from a car parked facing her in the median. What she could not see, and what she certainly could not anticipate, was that these headlights were from the cab of a tractor that was still attached to a 40-ton flatbed trailer that was currently sprawled across the highway and blocking both lanes of traffic.
Unfortunately for Kathy and others like her, the headlights of a normal passenger vehicle such as hers will not illuminate objects in the darkness until they are only a few hundred feet away. When traveling at highway speeds, this leaves a driver with only a second or two to see a danger, perceive it for what it really is and then act to avoid the danger. Given the average braking distance for a passenger car at highway speeds, it is virtually impossible to stop in time without striking whatever dark object is blocking the road. In Kathy's case, the glare from the headlights of the tractor probably increased her inability to see the danger up ahead, and her last memory before smashing into the "immovable object" was of finally seeing the trailer and thinking that her life was over.
Kathy was eventually cut out of the car with the "jaws of life" tool and then air-lifted to Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center for emergency treatment. The CAT scan taken at the hospital showed that Kathy had a large hemorrhage in her brain, and Kathy's life as she had known it would never again be the same. When she eventually returned to Oklahoma, Kathy did not even recognize her own son when she was wheeled off the plane towards him.
Fortunately for Kathy, she made great strides
in recovering from her brain injury, and she had strong support from her
family at home. Kathy still had significant memory deficits, however,
and there was no doubt that this licensed securities broker would never
again be able to hold any type of gainful employment to help support her
family. Therefore, it was obvious to us (and the trucking company) from
the beginning that the damages in this case would be substantial. We knew
that a full-scale investigation would be absolutely necessary.
As we suspected, the defendant blamed the accident on Kathy by claiming that she had not been paying attention, and that she should have seen this large trailer across the highway. Our investigation showed from the start however, that the primary reason Kathy was unable to see the flatbed trailer across the road was because it was not equipped along the sides with red and white reflective tape. This has since become standard on all such trucks and trailers. Such reflective tape was not required by any rule or regulation, so we knew that we would eventually have to convince a jury that the trucking company knew about the existence of such tape and was negligent for not putting it on their trucks regardless of whether it was required or not.
We hired experts in several different fields to testify on her behalf and paid to have computer animation created. We went out to the scene at night with our experts to prepare a videotape of what our client would have seen if the trailer had been equipped with reflective tape — and the difference was remarkable! Still, we knew it might take more than this to convince the jury, so we dug even deeper and finally discovered the "smoking gun" that helped settle this case once and for all.
After searching for months, our investigator was able to locate a former employee of the defendant trucking company who had once been the head of their safety department. In his deposition, this individual admitted that the defendant trucking company had not only known about the benefits of reflective tape, but had actually made the decision to start equipping their trailers with this tape several years before the date of Kathy's accident. However, even though many years had passed and other similar accidents had occurred, the defendant trucking company had still not executed this decision and retrofitted all of their trailers with this reflective tape. They themselves had admitted it would make their trucks many times more visible than an unmarked truck!
This testimony was obviously an important part of our case and allowed us to resolve Kathy's case at mediation for a confidential settlement that will compensate Kathy for all of her medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering. No amount of money will ever replace what Kathy and her family have lost, but this settlement will allow Kathy and her family to live as comfortably as possible for the rest of their lives. At Fonvielle Lewis Foote & Messer, we often wish that we could simply turn back the clock and give our clients their normal lives back, but since we cannot, we take great pride making sure that our clients and their families receive full and fair compensation for the terrible injuries that come from large truck accidents. We are also proud that because of lawsuits like Kathy G.'s, most trucks now have safety tape, and other lives will be saved.
The Case of Joge F., Handled by
Firm Partner David Fonvielle
You want to talk about ambition? Dedication? A
hard-working, family-oriented woman? Then you must be talking about our
client Joge F.
Joge paid her way through college working full-time while earning a degree in biology with outstanding grades. After graduation, she immediately signed on to two full-time, 40-hour-per-week jobs as a biologist in two different hospitals, working a day shift in one hospital and the night shift in the other, so she could help support her parents and provide financial support for her sister to go to college. Her two jobs were working out so well that she found time to learn to sky dive, white water raft and travel around the United States and Europe during her spare time. Eventually, she decided to get a master's degree and, believe it or not, was working on the degree in addition to everything else she was doing.
It would take some unimaginable force to ever slow this young lady down with her passion for work, improving herself, helping others and enjoying life. Unfortunately, she met that unimaginable force in the form of a killer truck as she was driving to her day job one pre-dawn morning.
As Joge F. traveled on a familiar divided four-lane highway, her headlights illuminated a full-size semi-trailer positioned horizontally across the lanes in front of her. She studied the unusual situation carefully and observed there were no lights on the trailer, no tractor (cab) attached to the trailer to pull it, nor any indication of activity around the trailer. It appeared obvious to her that the trailer section was abandoned in the roadway, partially headed into a driveway on the right side of the road. Joge was alone in her car and did not want to stop on the roadway in the dark pre-dawn hours. She decided instead that since there was room on the roadway in the left-hand lane, she would slow down and pass the trailer on the left and be on her way.
Unknown to Joge, what she was looking at
was a trailer being backed by a tractor which was in the "jack-knifed"
position. As she approached the trailer, it was impossible for her to
see the connected cab, and likewise, it was impossible for her to see
the rear lights of the tractor because one of them was broken and the
other was invisible to Joge due to the angle of the cab. The result was
that the rear portion of the cab, although invisible to traffic behind
it like Joge, extended out into the left-hand lane, in the area that appeared
to Joge to be a clear path around the trailer. The last thing that Joge
remembers about passing the trailer is her air bag exploding in her face.
Fortunately, her air bag saved her life, but the resulting crunch of her
car when it hit the rear wheels of the tractor destroyed one of her knees
and injured her back, leaving her crippled for life.
As it turned out, the semi tractor-trailer driver was utilizing a backing procedure which is well known in the trucking industry as a "blind-side backing" procedure. The name comes from the fact that during this backing procedure, the truck driver's view of traffic approaching from behind his trailer is totally blocked by the angle of the tractor to the trailer. Likewise, the traffic's view of the tractor portion of the semi rig is totally blocked. All semi tractor-trailer drivers are taught not to use this procedure, but if they do, they should always use a flagman on the blind side of the trailer to the approaching traffic, such as Joge F.
The deposition of the Defendant's employee in charge of training its truck drivers in the safe operation of their semi tractor-trailer rigs revealed that all of the Defendant's drivers, including the one operating the semi involved in this accident, had been trained not to utilize the blind-side backing procedure. As it turned out, in order to avoid the use of this dangerous procedure, the building that the trailer was being backed into the morning of this accident had a circular driveway which was designed to avoid the necessity for this type procedure. There were also other co-employees of the driver available that morning to act as a flagman and warn oncoming drivers of the danger if this driver was going to insist on utilizing this forbidden procedure.
As we have learned to expect, the trucking company took the position that the accident was clearly the fault of our client. They maintained that when she saw the trailer blocking one and one-half lanes of the roadway at 5:30 in the morning, she should have stopped, gotten out of her car and inspected the situation before driving around the left side of the trailer. In any event, she should have slowed down more than she did, so she would not have hurt herself so much when she negligently ran into the back of their tractor which was impossible for her to see.
After two and one-half years of litigation and expenses of experts and exhibit preparation, the case settled, virtually on the courthouse steps, when the trucking company paid our demand.
We realize all we can do for our clients is compensate their physical losses with money. Joge F.'s situation, at 32 years of age, is clearly one of those where we would trade ten times the amount of her recovery if we could only give back her knee and the active portion of her life she has lost because of a dangerous truck.
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Fonvielle
Lewis Foote & Messer
3375
Capital Circle N.E., Building A | Tallahassee, FL 32308
Telephone: 850-422-7773 | Fax: 850-422-3449
Toll-Free: 877-ALL WE DO (877-255-9336)
Email: lawyers@wrongfullyinjured.com