Determining negligence in a trucking accident

The most important factor in many motor vehicle accident claims relates to the negligence of another party and whether that negligence proximately caused injury and damages to another party. A commercial truck accident case is not any different, although different rules and regulations apply to truck drivers and the companies that employ them.

There are certain essential elements of negligence that an injured plaintiff will need to prove in court in order to prevail in a personal injury matter stemming from a commercial truck collision.

Duty: Plaintiffs must establish that the defendant owed him or her a duty of care. This duty of care may be as simple as the notion that any average person has a duty to take reasonable precautions to prevent the injury of another person. Did the truck driver or trucking company in your case fulfill this reasonable duty?

Breach of duty: This leads us to whether the identified duty of care was not fulfilled. Perhaps the trucking company did not maintain its truck in a safe way. Maybe the truck driver failed to follow the scheduled rest requirements to ensure he or she was awake and alert while behind the wheel.

Cause in fact: It’s also important that the failure to fulfill the duty of care was related to the actual injuries, i.e., if the failure had not occurred, the injury would not have occurred.

Proximate cause: Proving proximate cause is the act of proving that the defendant’s failure, not another issue, was the cause for the injuries and damages.

Damages: Of course, central and necessary to this entire process is the fact that damages have actually occurred.

If you have questions about your trucking accident injuries and whether you can prove a negligence claim in court, learn more about these issues by visiting our website now.