Have You Suffered Injuries from a Truck Accident in Los Angeles?
Large trucks are constantly on the move, driving from city to city or cross-country carrying cargo. Truck drivers are supposed to be carefully chosen and trained for their ability to drive, and they are expected to follow specific rules and regulations. However, drivers sometimes fall short and fail to live up to their duties, leading to very serious accidents.
If you or a loved one were harmed in an accident with a semi-truck or 18-wheeler, Omega Law Group Injury & Accident Attorneys and its team of Los Angeles truck accident lawyers can help you obtain the compensation you deserve.
With decades of combined legal experience, our personal injury lawyers in Los Angeles have recovered millions of dollars on behalf of our clients in California. Let us fight for you.
When to Call a Los Angeles Truck Accident Lawyer
You have the right to hold commercial truck drivers liable for your losses when you can prove that negligence contributed to your accident. Even then, you’re working on a tight timeline. All of California’s personal injury cases must abide by its statute of limitations. California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 limits your actionable time to two years.
This means that truck accident victims like you have two years from the day your accident takes place to bring together the evidence they need to meet California’s burden of proof. If you miss your deadline, Southern California’s civil courts may deny your attempt to demand a settlement for your losses.
Fortunately, there are experienced truck accident attorneys in Los Angeles who can help you make the most out of the two-year filing period you’re forced to contend with. Our team can take the reins and make sure you can recover from your injuries without compromising your right to a personal injury claim.
The Sooner You Get in Touch With a Lawyer, the Better
You are not required by law to work with a personal injury lawyer if you want to recover financial compensation from the at-fault parties involved in your truck crash. Working with a lawyer can make your fight for maximum compensation simpler, though.
If you’re contending with severe injuries, like traumatic brain injuries or broken bones, a lawyer will ensure you stay on top of your investigation without forcing you to return to an accident scene. Our legal team will also put its extensive professional network to use, calling in expert witnesses whose testimony can help you elaborate on why you deserve compensation.
Our truck accident law firm doesn’t make you commit to legal action right off the bat. We want you to get to know our team before we take your commercial truck accident claim to civil court. You can book a FREE case evaluation with our personal injury attorneys to learn more about the services we offer.
Holding the Responsible Party Accountable
Many people often assume that they can’t do more than file an insurance claim after a semi-truck crash; however, Omega Law Group Injury & Accident Attorneys will pursue your right to legal action with compassion. We will meet with you in the days following your accident to outline your right to civil action before discussing how you’d like to proceed with your recovery.
Moreover, we can identify unexpected parties that may bear the blame for your auto accident.
Possible liable parties in a truck accident lawsuit include:
- The truck driver
- Truck companies and trucking agencies
- The truck manufacturer
- The truck mechanic
- A trucking company’s packing crew
All of these parties owe you a duty of care when preparing a truck and hitting the road. If you can prove that these parties or any others put you in harm’s way, you can hold them financially accountable for the losses you endured.
Contracts and Your Right to Hold a Negligent Party Accountable for Your Losses
Evidence tends to be the foundation on which truck accident litigation gets built. That’s why our qualified truck accident attorneys in Los Angeles prioritize an investigation into your losses. We need to meet California’s burden of proof if we want to fight for your right to a rig accident settlement in civil court.
That said, we also have an obligation to consider the contracts that may play a role in your case. For example, commercial vehicles can be driven by one of two parties: company employees and independent contractors.
If you are in a traffic accident with an independent contractor, you may not have the right to sue the trucking company for your property damage or other expenses. The independent contractor’s contract does not place that driver under the corporation’s protection.
Matters change, though, if you get into a semi-truck accident with an employee. Employees working through commercial companies often benefit from protection from both the company’s legal team and its insurance company. This means that you may have the right to sue a company for your post-truck accident financial support.
Our experienced truck accident lawyers can help you assess the role contracts may play in your efforts to hold drivers accountable for your losses.
Proving a Trucking Company Liable
To get the compensation you deserve for your injury or other damages, you may need to prove that the trucking company was negligent and at fault for the accident in some way. This could include anything from improper hiring practices to inadequate vehicle maintenance and repair procedures.
Any proof of negligence related to the truck accident must be collected as soon as possible, as accidental evidence could get lost over time and complicate your case when it is taken to court.
Truck Accidents Caused By Fatigued Driving
When truck drivers neglect to take breaks during long driving shifts, they put themselves, their cargo, and other motorists in danger. Trucking companies must provide ample opportunities for truckers to rest before it gets dangerous on the roads, or else truck driver fatigue may put you and your loved ones at risk.
Unfortunately, if an accident results from fatigued driving, the case can become more complex. Trucking companies may send their own investigators to the scene to throw an investigation into driver fatigue into question. Likewise, an insurance company’s claims adjusters may come to the scene, crowding an investigation into your losses.
Fortunately, our commercial trucking accident lawyers can handle a busy accident scene. We’ve overseen distracted driving, reckless driving, and fatigued driving cases for hundreds of clients like you. Neither a commercial trucking company nor an insurance provider can intimidate us out of our effort to discover the truth behind the negligence that resulted in your truck accident injuries.
Recovering Compensation in a Truck Injury Suit
The size and weight of today’s trucks can cause passenger vehicle drivers to fall victim to catastrophic accidents. Those accidents tend to get worse if a truck carries heavy-duty cargo.
The losses you sustain in these accidents can leave you with a mountain of bills, not to mention life-changing injuries. You have the right, in the face of those losses, to demand compensation for the economic and non-economic losses you sustained due to a truck driver’s negligence. How do you calculate the value of your case, though?
Our team of experienced truck accident lawyers in Los Angeles can help you gather the evidence you need to establish your right to economic and non-economic damages following a traffic accident. We aim to recover damages that can cover the following losses:
- Emergency room bills
- Hospital bills
- Medical expenses
- Recovery expenses, including physical therapy
- Rehabilitation, including pain management and medications
- Lost wages
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of consortium, if applicable
You can count on our team to elaborate on your right to include certain losses in a commercial vehicle accident claim during a free case evaluation.
If a recent truck accident resulted in your loved one’s wrongful death, you have the right to request legal representation. Our team can spearhead a wrongful death claim on your account. These claims can allow you to demand the loss-based damages you need to recover from a loved one’s unexpected passing.
Punitive Damages and Truck Accident Injury Claims
Some judges opt to award truck-related accident survivors like you punitive damages in the face of gross negligence or roadway recklessness. You may not include a request for punitive damages in the personal injury lawsuit you submit for consideration. Instead, it is up to a judge to determine whether or not your case warrants the inclusion of this support.
Finding Evidence to Establish Your Right to Loss Recovery
You can’t complete a truck accident compensation claim if you don’t have evidence proving your right to economic support. Fortunately, trucking accident victims like you can often use the same evidence that established liability for your losses to determine those losses’ value.
Our team can sit down with you while investigating your case to outline what forms of evidence may best prove your right to a reasonable settlement. We make every effort to ensure you get a fair settlement for your losses, often by considering losses that you may not have heard of before.
The evidence we use to prove your right to these various forms of support can take different forms. For example, if you want to argue that a liable party owes you compensation for your medical expenses, you can use a combination of medical invoices and doctors’ opinions to tie your recent injuries to a truck wreck.
Other forms of evidence that could be included in our calculations include the following:
- Property damage and repair invoices
- Vehicle rentals
- Pay stubs from before and after your accident
- Legal precedent establishing the value of non-economic damages
Our team has a record of success in helping survivors like you win maximum compensation for common types of truck accidents. Let’s work together to hold negligent drivers accountable for your post-accident financial stress.
What to Expect After You File a Truck Accident Claim
Say you choose to move forward with a personal injury claim after a devastating truck accident. It’s difficult to know what to expect from the civil process if you’ve never interacted with civil justice before.
This process does not allow you to force a liable party to endure criminal consequences for their misconduct. Only the state can take law-breaking truck drivers and related parties to criminal court. Instead, the civil court system in Southern California allows you to determine how you demand fair compensation from the party deemed liable for your losses.
You can approach a conversation about your due truck accident settlement from a few different angles. All the while, you can count on our Los Angeles truck crash attorneys to prioritize your right to the most possible accident compensation.
Negotiating for a Fair Settlement
You do not commit to a trial the moment you send a personal injury claim to a civil judge. If you so choose, you can meet with a liable party out of court to discuss your right to accident compensation.
Settlement negotiations tend to resolve more quickly than arbitration, bench trials, and jury trials. That said, they involve a lot of groundwork from you. You have the chance to meet face-to-face with the party responsible for your losses as well as their representatives. This means that you need to be prepared to civilly discuss the value of your case and the cause of your accident.
Managing these conversations can prove challenging for even the most level-headed of survivors, particularly if a negligent party acts disrespectfully during your conversations. That’s why it’s in your best interest to have an attorney in the room with you. Our law firm can help mediate these conversations while emphasizing your right to comprehensive financial support.
Discovery and the Trial Process
Unfortunately, truck accident settlement negotiations don’t work for everyone. Sometimes, a liable party may refuse to meet with you. Other times, a liable party may refuse to recognize losses that you think are essential to your recovery. If this is the case, you may have to move into discovery and prepare for a civil trial.
Discovery looks a lot like a truck accident investigation, except it allows the prosecution and defense to share the information they’ve found about the negligence that led to your accident. After both parties conclude discovery, your attorney can prepare their opening statements and take your case before a judge and jury.
The civil trial process tends to take a considerable amount of time to resolve. However, the rules established by the court system ensure that a jury of your peers can bring an objective eye to your case. Moreover, a judge can punish a liable party if said party refuses to acknowledge your case’s value or otherwise behaves inappropriately.
You can discuss which of these courses of action suit your truck accident recovery during your FREE truck accident case evaluation.
Our Los Angeles Truck Accident Lawyers Are Ready to Help
No matter what type of injuries you have suffered in a recent commercial truck accident, it is in your best interest to file a lawsuit against the responsible party. Not only can you hold them accountable legally, but you can also recover compensation.
Omega Law Group Injury & Accident Attorneys work on a contingency basis to ensure you do not have to worry about your bills while you are recovering from a semi-truck accident in Southern California. Don’t let the statute of limitations on your case expire. Contact our Los Angeles truck wreck attorneys today to learn more about your right to fair compensation.