Introduction

The unthinkable has happened. You or someone you care for has been involved in a catastrophic accident with a large commercial vehicle, a semi tractor-trailer, or a box truck.

You are in shock, not yet able to wrap your mind around the fact that so many lives have been suddenly, permanently, and tragically altered.

In the midst of trying to make sense of this senseless and horrific turn of events, you are faced with the harsh reality that the worst of times do not necessarily bring out the best in people. While you and your family struggle with the confusion, anger, fear, and chaos in the aftermath of the crash, there are people hell-bent on turning your personal and family misfortune into their own financial gain.

Within hours of the accident, you may have been approached by underqualified and unscrupulous lawyers who are hoping to make a quick buck by rushing to settle a claim on your behalf. You also may have encountered trucking company employees and consultants, holding themselves out as someone you can trust, while telling you that you don’t need to hire an attorney. Their real mission? To convince you to take the trucking company’s low-ball cash offer and quietly drift away. If they play their cards right, the trucking company will escape the bulk of responsibility and the insurance company will save a lot of money.

At the same time that you are feeling overwhelmed and confused about what you should do, you may also be grieving the loss of a loved one. Or you’re grappling with heart-wrenching life-and-death decisions on behalf of your husband or wife, your mother or father, your sister or brother or, in the worst cases of all, your child.

Nothing in your life has prepared you for the challenges you are facing. You have no idea who to trust or what to expect. You have so many questions and so few answers.

You are the reason I decided to write this book.

Lessons from the Frontlines

For more than thirty years, I have walked into hospital rooms, living rooms, conference rooms, and courtrooms as a lawyer representing people just like you, people whose lives have been turned upside down because they or someone they love is the victim in a serious semitruck wreck.

My hope in writing this book is to help you understand your rights as a victim, survivor, or victim’s advocate after a catastrophic trucking accident. I want to provide the reliable and understandable information you need so you can make the best decisions possible under the worst circumstances imaginable.

In the chapters to come, I will answer your most pressing questions, including: Can you trust the trucking company? The short answer is no. Do you need a lawyer? Yes, but they must have specialized knowledge and experience with trucking accidents.

I will help you understand:

• How prevalent trucking accidents are, and how something like this could happen to you or someone you care for
• Why the first order of business has to be making sure the trucking company preserves evidence, and how a good lawyer should go about this
• What kind of experts and consultants you are going to need, and how to make sure you have the right people on your team
• How plaintiff’s attorneys in cases like yours get paid
• The questions you need to ask when selecting a lawyer to represent you and your family
• What factors to consider when deciding whether to settle a case or go to trial
• How the legal process works, including the different stages of litigation—from discovery to trial
• The role that mediation can play in resolving a trucking accident case
• How to address all the financial needs of the victims—including how bills will get paid pending conclusion of the case—and how to make sure the injured party’s needs are met for the rest of their lives
• How to cope with long-term care, and how to begin accepting a new normal after the case is closed

My hope is that I can show you there is a way to survive this tragedy, that you do not have to go through this alone, and that while life will never be the same, the future can be brighter and more secure than you can imagine at this moment.

Lessons from My Father

I handled my first commercial vehicle accident case more than thirty years ago, when I was a young attorney recently out of law school. At the time, I didn’t know that this was the case that would define my career; I just knew that I wanted to do something that mattered. I wanted to do something bigger than myself. I wanted to help people in a meaningful way.

I wanted to be like my dad.

I grew up in a working-class family in Richmond, Indiana. My mom, who was only seventeen when I was born, worked in a laundromat while my dad served in the Marines before obtaining a psychology degree and going to work for the welfare department. Both my parents were hardworking, salt-of-the-earth people who taught me to value people above everything else. Things can always be replaced, they taught me, but people can’t.

When I was seven years old, my dad took me to meet a recluse who lived underneath a bridge in Richmond, Indiana. The man was entitled to assistance and benefits, but he wouldn’t let anybody get close enough to help him. My dad, who had met him before, volunteered to try.

I was apprehensive when we approached the man, but my dad reassured me that this was just a person who needed some help. I watched closely to see how my dad interacted with him. I noticed how my dad treated him with respect and dignity. When we were getting ready to leave, this man, this hermit who didn’t like talking to or interacting with people, handed me a baseball. The fact that someone who had so little would give me a gift left a profound impression, as did the example my dad set for me.

From that day on, I understood that everybody has something inside of them that should be valued and that everybody is worthwhile.

This and other experiences with my dad made me want to champion the underdog, to serve people in need. That is what compelled me, I suppose, to accept that first commercial truck accident case as a young idealistic lawyer so many years ago.

Fighting for the Underdog

In that case, a dump truck had veered off the road, run into and through a building, and then struck my client, leaving him severely injured.

The driver and the trucking company claimed that the accident resulted from an unexpected tire blowout and was not their fault. They wanted to settle quickly and cheaply, and were hoping to capitalize on my inexperience and my client’s need for money. However, as I delved deeper into the investigation and the discovery portion of the lawsuit, I found out that the truck driver was epileptic and had no business driving that truck in the first place.

It turned out that his employer had been in a pinch and needed a driver. Even though they knew that this man should not have been able to get the required license to operate the truck, the company helped him get a falsified medical card through a doctor who agreed to just rubber-stamp his fitness to drive. The driver had had a seizure, and that was what caused the accident.

I wanted to win that case. I needed to win that case. The driver and others involved were lying; the trucking company was lying. By cheating the system and violating the safety regulations, they had caused irreparable harm to my client, forever changing his life and the lives of the people in his family. Once I discovered the truth, I prepared the case for trial. We demanded a fair resolution that would fairly compensate my client. We wouldn’t budge. On the first day of trial, they agreed to pay us what we demanded.

I learned valuable lessons handling this first case. I learned not to trust the trucking company. They lied and hid evidence. I learned that the only way to protect your client and get them a fair and just resolution is to fight hard, be prepared, and be willing to take the case to trial. Until the trucking company felt the fear of losing at trial, they refused to do the right thing.

After that victory, I knew that I had found my purpose, my vocation. I also knew that representing trucking accident victims was not going to be an easy way to make a living.

The fact is, this area of law is not only substantively challenging and a lot of hard work; it is also heartbreaking. I’m fighting for people who have lost someone they love or who have suffered catastrophic injuries that render them disabled for life. My clients are suffering in ways most people can only imagine. After all of that, they find themselves up against some of the largest trucking and insurance companies in the world, adversaries that can afford to hire the biggest, fiercest law firms and draw upon enormous resources to defend their cases. My clients are always the underdogs. And they hire me to be their champion, someone who will fight...