Truck accidents wrench your sense of financial and physical security away from you in a heartbeat. One moment, you’re safely navigating Connecticut’s interstates, and the next, you’re contending with life-changing physical injuries and bills.
It’s not fair to make you contend with the consequences of someone else’s misconduct on the road when your life’s already irrevocably changed. That’s why Injured CT’s truck accident lawyers in Vernon, CT, step in to investigate your losses.
You can turn to our Vernon personal injury lawyers in the wake of a truck crash and work with us to demand the support you deserve from a liable party.
What to Do Immediately Following a Truck Accident
You or someone on the scene with you needs to contact emergency services as soon as you can after a truck accident. These accidents can prove physically devastating, even if they’re minor. The sooner you have medical professionals on the scene, the safer you and your loved ones may be.
If you’re able, you should also exchange insurance information with the party liable for your accident. You can also connect with bystanders and gather their contact information, as you may need to request their testimonies later.
Last but not least, contact your insurance provider shortly following your collision. Most providers will send an insurance adjuster to your location or home to begin calculating the value of your losses. Insurance companies rely on their adjusters to determine how much support you may be entitled to based on the insurance policy you’ve paid into in the past.
You Have a Limited Amount of Time to Consider Legal Action
You can also call an attorney within hours of your truck accident. If you have an attorney on the scene with you, you can delegate your post-accident responsibilities to that party while you, in turn, focus on recovering.
The sooner you get in touch with an attorney, too, the more time you may have to consider legal action against the party responsible for your truck accident. Connecticut specifically limits the amount of time in which you may act after a truck crash. The General Statutes of Connecticut section 52-584 states that you may take no more than two years to investigate your losses.
You cannot file a truck crash claim after your statute of limitations expires. If you want to make the most out of the time allotted to you, then you should consider contacting an attorney within days, if not a few hours, of your initial accident.
How to Assign Liability for a Truck Accident
Who bears the most liability for a truck accident? On the one hand, that depends on the evidence. Hard data, including a truck’s black box data, can help tell the story of the negligence that contributed to your losses.
On the other hand, contracts also play a starring role in conversations about truck accident liability.
File a Claim Against an Independent Contractor
Truck agencies today want to avoid taking on liability for their drivers’ behavior. As such, many corporations hire truck drivers as independent contractors. Independent truck drivers take on liability for their own behavior on the road. If the person who hit you works as an independent contractor, you may take up a claim against that single person.
File a Claim Against a Corporation
A trucking agency or corporation that hires drivers as employees instead of independent contractors assumes liability for on-duty negligence. If you can prove that a driver was both on-duty and classified as an employee at the time of your accident, you can name that driver’s employer liable for your losses in a civil claim.
That said, taking up legal action against a corporation can prove challenging, often due to a corporation’s legal resources. Many corporations make an effort to avoid time in court and will instead try to negotiate an accident settlement with you – oftentimes before you can call on an attorney.
The good news is that you are under no legal obligation to accept a settlement offer without running it past an attorney first. You can call on our team to both assess previous settlement offers and negotiate for a more comprehensive offer, should the need arise.
Assign Liability to a Third Party
There’s always a chance that another motorist, pedestrian, or related party contributed to your losses. Our truck accident attorneys in Vernon can investigate your accident scene and divide fault between multiple parties, including a truck driver or agency, as applicable. You, in turn, can demand damages from everyone who contributed to your financial and physical stress.
Let a Lawyer Calculate Your Possible Damages
When you move to bring a truck crash complaint before a judge, you must elaborate on the damages that you believe you deserve. This means that you need to find the sum of any bills you have relating to your post-accident recovery. Those bills can address:
- Medical expenses
- Property damage and restoration
- Lost income
- A loved one’s funeral expenses, if applicable
You are also, however, entitled to damages for losses that don’t generate bills. These non-economic losses can include the stress and mental suffering you deal with as a result of your truck accident. Valuing these losses can prove challenging, but Connecticut has legislation in place that makes it easier for an experienced legal professional.
In other words, you can turn to a truck accident lawyer in Vernon to determine what the dollar value of losses like pain and suffering adds up to and how those losses impact the total value of your truck accident case.
Injured CT Stands With Truck Accident Survivors
Today’s trucking agencies often choose to distance themselves from their drivers in an effort to protect their bottom lines. While these agencies have the legal right to categorize drivers as independent contractors and throw off liability for driver misconduct, their choice to do so can put you and your injured loved ones in a difficult position post-crash.
Injured CT believes that you deserve better than mitigated liability and a half-hearted apology after a devastating truck accident. When you partner with our truck accident lawyers in Vernon, you work with a team that prioritizes your financial and physical well-being. You can contact our office to schedule a truck accident case evaluation today.