When is a Trucking Company Liable for Your Accident?

Many truck accidents are caused by negligent driving. A trucker makes a critical error behind the wheel or is distracted or fatigued. Surprisingly, however, their employer is usually a defendant on the other side of the case. At Snyder Heitman Injury Attorneys, we work day and night to protect the interests of injured victims. Below, we identify the situations where you can hold a trucking company responsible for a crash and demand fair compensation.

Vicarious Liability in South Carolina

Most trucking companies are defendants in accidents when their trucker is negligent. This is the result of the “vicarious liability” or “respondeat superior” theory. Essentially, an employer is legally liable when their employee injures someone in the course of employment. The reasoning is that the employee is furthering the employer’s business at the time of the accident, so the employer should bear the economic risks.

If you are injured by a negligent trucker, we can certainly add the trucker as a defendant. But we can usually add their employer, too. The trucking company has deeper pockets and can pay a fair settlement to injured victims. To succeed, we need to show the truck driver caused the accident and they did so while working.

Other Sources of Liability

A trucking company might also have direct liability to an injured victim if the company was negligent. The following are common situations:

• Negligent hiring. The trucking company might hire someone who is completely unqualified. Maybe the trucker does not have a commercial driver’s license, or they are underage. Other truckers could fail a mandatory physical exam but still be hired. A company is negligent when they put unqualified truck drivers out on the road who then cause accidents.
• Negligent supervision or training. The trucking company could fail to follow regulations or guidelines for the industry. Under federal law, a trucker who fails a drug test should be automatically suspended and not be allowed to return until they complete a return-to-duty process. The company might skip these steps because they are short of drivers. That type of inadequate supervision is also negligent.
• Improper maintenance of the truck. The trucking company is liable if they fail to maintain their rigs. They might send a truck out which has a major defect or worn-out mechanical parts. It is foreseeable that a defective truck will crash, so the trucking company is on the hook to victims.

Let us investigate if you can hold the trucking company liable directly, which might matter if we seek punitive damages for reckless or wanton conduct.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Snyder Heitman Injury Attorneys can step in and negotiate on behalf of anyone hurt in a truck accident. Call our office to connect directly with a Greenville truck accident lawyer. Our firm has ideas you can follow to build up a valid legal claim for compensation, and we can find evidence to use in negotiations on your behalf. In addition to Greenville, we serve Spartanburg and Upstate South Carolina.