Accident Lawyers Require Particular Experience for Auto

by: Ray Henke
The job of the accident attorney is often thought to be no more complicated than demonstrating who ran the red light. In fact, accident litigation can be highly complex, indeed every serious injury lawsuit is complex, involving numerous experts solely to demonstrate general and economic damages. Furthermore, very different factors may determine liability in motorcycle and bicycle accident cases, cases in which a party was engaged in cell conversation at the time, cases involving violation of the federal and state regulations governing large commercial and big rig trucks. Solving the "collect ability" problem to assure full compensation in serious injury litigation can involve a number of different strategies to establish vicarious liability upon others which the accident lawyer must adapt specifically for auto accident and big rig truck accident cases. Accident lawyers require a breadth of knowledge to effectively represent those injured in bicycle and motorcycle accident lawsuits, the latter often requiring experience with single track physics and the unique dangers of auto driver inattention to the smaller vehicles, particularly when entering or turning left at intersections, accounting for fully 2/3 of multi-vehicle motorcycle accidents without any negligence on the part of the motorcyclist. Bicycle accident attorneys must similarly be cognizant of the dangers posed to bicyclists as the result, for example, of not being able to "command a lane," and so their vulnerability to parked auto drivers who may open their doors into the path of a bicyclist or pull out into traffic without recognizing that a bicycle is approaching. Our accident lawyers have provided separate pages for"Motorcycle Accident Lawsuits" and "Bicycle Accident Lawsuits" where the reader can learn more about the unique challenges that accident lawyers face in single track vehicle accident litigation. Commercial and big rig truck accident lawyers also must have a breadth of specific knowledge to competently evaluate, prepare and prosecute truck accident lawsuits. Big truck accident attorneys need to become fully knowledgeable about the federal and state laws governing a broad host of safety requirements from the permissible weight of loads and how freight must be secured to the hours that big rig truck drivers may operate their vehicles between rest periods, the logs that must be kept, and the responsibilities of shippers. Because the driver will often have inadequate insurance to compensate the more seriously injured, and because most freight companies hire commercial and big rig truck drivers as "independent contractors" in order to attempt to limit their liability for the negligence of the driver, large commercial truck and big rig truck lawyers must establish the shipper's liability on legal theories such as "negligent entrustment," and "negligent supervision," as examples. Our big rig truck accident lawyers explain more fully these concepts on our "Commercial and Big Rig Accident Lawsuits " page, but the shipping companies may be liable, for example, for negligent entrustment, for their negligence in failing to screen out drivers who lack drivers licenses or who were inadequately trained or who have a history of accidents or alcohol abuse. Negligent supervision would include failures to adequately inspect the trucks or freight, the manner by which freight is secured, as well as failing to maintain logs of driver hours, all of which may involve violations of federal or state law. There are also investigative techniques that accident lawyers should follow including, for example, subpoenaing the cell phone records of the other drivers because all too often the other driver may not be seen to be using his cell phone while driving, and may not volunteer the information to the investigating police. Appropriately educated accident lawyers will be aware of the epidemiological and controlled experimental studies which have demonstrated that a driver while engaged in cell conversation is four times more likely to get into an accident. In a "he said, she said" accident, with no independent witness or where the independent witnesses are split, demonstrating that one party was under the influence of cell conversation may become persuasive evidence of liability. Often of crucial importance where the driver of the other car has insufficient liability coverage to compensate the victim, cell phone records identifying the other party to the call can provide the answer to the "collectability" problem. For example, if the driver was found to have been in conversation with his employer or secretary or a potential client or otherwise engaged in a business call at the time of the accident, the accident lawyer can assert "respondeat superior" liability to name the employer as a defendant in the lawsuit, permitting his client to recover against the employer's insurance and assets. Finally every serious injury case is complex litigation, involving the investigation and development of the evidence of the client's general damages, which some lawyers refer to as "pain and suffering," but which in most serious injury cases, in their largest part may be more accurately characterized as "loss of enjoyment of life" damages. Some injuries may be catastrophic, and our accident lawyers have provided specific information with regard to the presentation of "Traumatic Brain Injury Lawsuits" and "Quadriplegia, Paraplegia and Spinal Cord Injury Cases." The qualified accident lawyer will commonly present damages in a serious injury case first through the testimony of his client, family members and friends with regard to the types of activities that the client enjoyed doing before his accident, juxtaposed against a professionally produced "Day in the Life" film, in which the client is accurately shown courageously meeting the huge challenges presented even to do the simplest things in his post-accident everyday life. In serious injury litigation, the accident lawyer must also have extensive experience presenting past and future economic damages, including medical and loss of earnings claims. Our accident lawyers provide a "Serious Injury Damages" page in which we discuss more fully the preparation and presentation of catastrophic injury cases. In almost every serious injury case the accident lawyer will be required to engage a host of experts, from physicians to "life care managers" to "rehabilitation experts" to forensic economists to establish the present value of the future medical expenses and projected loss of earnings. So while the general public may have the impression that the accident lawyer's job is no more complicated than proving who ran the red light, the truth isdifferent. Accident litigation is as varied as the vehicles on the road, almost always complex, and can be particularly complex where the lawyer must learn single track vehicle physics, or assert the net of federal and state laws to trap a freight shipper despite its every effort to insulate itself from truck driver liability, as an example, or to assure that the seriously injured client is fully compensated for the full specter of his general and economic damages.
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