In a few hours I will fly home to Atlanta after speaking at the American Association for Justice Interstate Trucking Litigation Group continuing legal education seminar. The faculty at these national seminars form an invaluable nationwide network of knowledge, contacts and resources. If you are a lawyer seeking to handle…
As a trucking trial lawyer in Georgia, I often encounter defendants seeking to exclude evidence of corporate misconduct by just admitting that that they are responsible for the driver. Rather than letting into evidence the whole story of the corporation’s systemic disregard for safety for years, they try to focus…
As a trucking accident trial lawyer in Georgia, I find myself spending a lot of time in conference rooms for the depositions of truck drivers and trucking company owners. Since I sometimes represent truck drivers who are injured by the negligence of other truck drivers, it is not uncommon to…
Individuals and families who suffer catastrophic loss due to trucking accidents always face hardship. In the midst of a the worst recession in a generation, the hardship is often even greater. Responding to that harsh reality facing our potential clients, I have adopted a new fee schedule that cuts average…
A Kansas federal court jury has awarded a $23.5 million verdict for a serious spinal cord injury arising from a 2006 wreck in New Mexico, according to a news story by Ron Sylvester of the Wichita Eagle. The judge reduced the amount to $15.3 million because the jury decided the…
A tractor trailer driver going too fast to see his way through dense fog Monday morning in Fresno, California killed a young woman on her way to work. According to a report by Jim Steinberg and Vanessa Colón of The Fresno Bee, a big-rig drive Martin Nelson, 22, of Fresno,…
In my trucking litigation law practice, I all too often see fatal truck accidents that happen in bad weather Despite a federal safety regulation requiring “extreme caution” in hazardous weather, and instructions in the Commercial Drivers License Manual to slow down by at least one-third, truckers under economic pressure from…
As a lawyer handling catastrophic trucking accidents, I have repeatedly seen the deadly effects of driver fatigue as truckers are pushed beyond their physical limits by trucking companies and shippers. Now the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday recommended that trucking companies and the government place increased emphasis on making…
As a truck accident trial lawyer in Atlanta, I’m puzzling over how the falling dominoes in the current crisis on Wall Street will impact the trucking and insurance industries. High fuel prices, hurricanes, dependence on foreign oil, the subprime mortgage mess, the economic rise of China and India, the cost…
As a trucking accident trial lawyer, I occasionally see trucking companies try to evade responsibility for their driver. Generally, that is covered adequately by 49 C.F.R. § 390.5 which in the interstate trucking context defines “employee” to include “an independent contractor while in the course of operating a commercial motor…