After a truck accident, you may have multiple parties you can sue. Different liability laws can make these cases complex, especially when the trucking company’s own mistakes contributed to the crash.
Employers can typically be held responsible for accidents their employees cause while working. This lets you sue the trucking company for most truck accidents, but only if the trucker was an employee. The trucking company can also be held liable for other mistakes, like negligent hiring or negligent vehicle upkeep. However, some accidents are caused by outside parties entirely, such as a third driver.
For help with your injury case, call Mitchell Rogers Injury Law’s Las Vegas, NV truck accident lawyers at (702) 702-2622 today.
When to Sue the Trucker
Truckers can be sued directly as part of any injury case where they caused the crash. Even when you sue them, they usually have insurance to take care of the payments.
If the trucker was self-employed or worked as an independent contractor, you usually cannot reach past them to the trucking company. This is common with owner-operators, who own their own trucks and essentially work as their own trucking company.
When to Sue the Trucking Company
Trucking companies can be held responsible in two situations:
As the Trucker’s Employer
If an employee causes an accident within the scope of their work duties, the victim can typically sue their employer. This makes the bigger company answer for its workers’ mistakes.
This type of “vicarious liability” is typical in truck accident cases since nearly anything the trucker does behind the wheel is part of their job.
For Their Own Mistakes
The trucking company could also have caused the accident – or at least contributed to the accident – through its own mistakes. This happens in a few common ways, though other problems are also possible:
- Violations involving trucker licensing, vehicle inspections, weight limits, and hours of service rules
- Negligent maintenance or upkeep of the truck
- Negligent hiring or retention of dangerous drivers
- Improper training or driver certification
- Company policies encouraging dangerous deadlines, long hours, and other dangerous circumstances.
When to Sue Other Parties
While we typically like to hold trucking companies liable for accidents, there are cases where our Boulder City, NV truck accident lawyers might find a third party is at fault. Truck accidents can involve multiple drivers, and it is possible those drivers were the ones to really cause the crash.
Crashes can also be caused by dangerous road conditions, defective auto parts, and other outside causes.
How Do You Decide Who to Sue?
Our truck accident lawyers can examine the facts of your case and help you determine which parties to sue. In many cases, you will sue the trucker and the trucking company together, along with any other at-fault parties.
In a truck accident lawsuit, you can hold any party responsible for their negligence when their conduct meets four elements:
- They owed you a legal duty (often based on traffic laws or trucking regulations).
- They breached that duty.
- The breach caused your accident.
- Your accident resulted in damages and injuries.
Each at-fault party pays its fair share of damages.
What is Respondeat Superior in Truck Accident Cases in Nevada?
Respondeat superior is a legal principle that says that the employer can be made to answer for their employees’ on-the-job negligence. This usually requires a few elements to apply to trucking accidents:
- The trucker was an employee of the trucking company, not an independent contractor.
- The trucker was working within the scope of their employment when they caused the accident.
- They caused the accident through negligence.
Trucking companies sometimes try to point to issues like company policies to say the driver was actually outside the scope of their job if they were speeding or running stop signs, but these kinds of defenses are often shut down in court.
This is the main legal principle that allows lawsuits against trucking companies, but they can also be sued in their own right if they made their own mistakes that contributed to the crash.
FAQs for Truck Accident Lawsuits in Nevada
Who is at Fault?
Truckers are not always at fault for the accident, but the involvement of a large truck can often make a crash much worse. In Nevada, whichever driver or drivers contributed to the accident can be held liable, as long as they breached a legal duty and that breach caused the accident.
Truckers often are the ones responsible, and the trucking companies they work for can be held partially responsible and made to answer for their truckers’ mistakes.
Who Determines Fault?
When you file an insurance claim, the insurance company decides who was at fault. This often means the case is denied, since they are not going to admit their driver was at fault.
If you go to court instead, the jury determines fault.
How is Partial Fault Assigned?
Any party that breached a legal duty and contributed to the crash can be held partially liable. Juries assign a percentage of the blame to each at-fault party by weighing their contributions against the other drivers’ contributions.
In the end, fault is assigned as a whole-number percentage.
What if You Were at Fault?
Victims can be assigned a whole-number percentage of the fault in a crash, too. When that happens, they lose that share of the damages, but Nevada law still allows them to sue as long as their share of fault is 50% or under.
Can You Sue for Trucking Regulation Violations?
To hold a party at fault for a crash, you have to point to a breach of duty. Trucking regulations create additional duties the trucking company and trucker need to follow, and violations can be the basis of a lawsuit.
However, the violation must actually cause the crash and result in damages. Violations can also help us show a repeat pattern of negligence.
Call Our Truck Accident Lawyers in Nevada Today
For a free case evaluation, contact the Enterprise, NV truck accident lawyers at Mitchell Rogers Injury Law at (702) 702-2622 today.