Helping attorneys handle their very first trucking injury case
Steven Gursten will be keynote speaker at Ohio Association for Justice Truck Accident Litigation Track
Legal discovery and trial of a truck accident case is very different from an auto accident case. The problem is that very few personal injury lawyers know that.
For lawyers who only take one or two cases every now and then involving commercial trucks, it’s nearly impossible to understand the rules and regulations that apply, the unique industry practices, and the law and the psychology of trying cases involving these types of commercial vehicles.
One tip for any lawyer getting ready for his first truck accident case: It’s important for lawyers to always keep the focus on the truck company – not on the driver. The company wants the focus to be on the driver, but it’s usually the company that is violating important safety regulations and pushing its drivers to break the laws.
It’s equally important to make these cases about the “rules of the road” and to understand the new theories in jury persuasion, such as “Reptile,” fit very naturally in serious truck injury cases.
I will expand on these points Thursday, when speaking to the Ohio Association for Justice on a special litigation track focused on Truck Accident Litigation. I’m going to present the basics for lawyers involved in their first trucking lawsuit, and review and update the key Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations that every lawyer who has a truck injury or serious accident case must understand.
This also includes the essential documents to ask for in discovery and understanding truck driver logbooks.
Finally, I’ll talk about key trial themes and the rules that attorneys should adopt in these cases, and give an example of the opening statement and demonstrative exhibits of a truck accident wrongful death case that I tried to verdict recently.
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