A 37-year-old man from West Palm Beach, Florida won a $2.1 million verdict last month after he and his attorney were able to persuade a jury that a tractor trailer driver was negligent in a serious truck crash in Florida in 2014.

The 37-year old suffered severe personal injuries when his Honda Accord was hit by a tractor-trailer in the employment of the company Salmon & Sons. The man shattered his right hip and knee, and still faces severe pain, as well as $500,000 in future operations. 

During the two week, Flordia personal injury trial, attorneys for the defense attempted to argue that the care driver was at least partially responsible for the wreck. The jury did agree that both drivers shared responsibility for the crash, but the Honda driver was found only 30% at fault. The Honda driver was awarded $3.1 million which was reduced to $2.1 million.

The truck driver was pulling his truck out of a private driveway going south, and he crossed into the northbound lane. The Honda driver was found to have been speeding, which contributed to the crash.

According to the car driver’s attorney, the man has been a prisoner of severe pain ever since the crash, and he is going to need years more to recover from the crash injuries. He also noted that the jury ‘clearly agreed’ that the truck driver did not exercise reasonable care in the crash.

Our View

Our Virginia personal injury and wrongful death attorneys are pleased that justice was served in the above tractor trailer crash. Even though the jury found that the plaintiff was partially at fault, the truck driver still was determined to have been mostly responsible for the truck crash.

Most tractor-trailer crashes that occur lead to serious injury and even death for many passenger vehicle drivers and occupants. This is because trucks usually weigh as much as 40 times more than most vehicles on the road. Trucks are much heavier and take longer to slow down as well. Truck drivers have a higher obligation as well to drive in a safe manner.

Tractor trailer drivers have a commercial driver’s license. This means that they must take greater care than the average driver when discharging their driving duties. In the above serious truck crash, the big rig driver was determined to have been mostly responsible by pulling out into the road from a private driveway against traffic.

Our personal injury attorneys have won cases where the truck driver was partially responsible for the accident, which in one case led to a $3.5 million settlement. These types of complex truck crashes require the knowledge and expertise of an experienced personal injury lawyer.