How Trucking Companies Work to Preserve Thier Profits After a Georgia Accident

Key Points:

• Trucking companies and insurers can use tactics after a serious accident in Georgia like delaying claims, disputing evidence, and offering quick, low settlements to reduce payouts, often at the expense of your recovery.
• Evidence like black box data, driver logs, and accident scene photos can sometimes be lost, making quick preservation and legal support essential.
• Trucking companies will downplay injuries by questioning medical records or arguing against necessary treatments, making detailed documentation and medical expert testimony crucial pieces of your case.

If you have recently been injured in a truck accident in Georgia, you may be questioning the information coming from the trucking company. It’s important to keep in mind that their top priority is to protect their bottom line, not your recovery. Understanding the strategies they use to minimize claims is essential for ensuring your rights are protected.

Companies that own fleets of trucks, such as FedEx, Amazon, UPS, Target, and Walmart, are responsible for millions of dollars in trucking accidents every year, and their goal will always be to pay out as little as possible. They will attempt to drag out claims, use evidence against you, limit their liability, and give lowball offers. Knowing these tactics and immediately contacting a personal injury lawyer, like those at The Millar Law Firm, is critical. In this guide, we’ll explore the steps you can take to safeguard your case and secure the compensation you deserve.

Table of Contents

Why Trucking Companies Drag Out Claims

After your trucking accident, trucking companies and their insurers will try delay tactics meant to frustrate victims and minimize payouts. Tactics can include dragging out investigations, disputing evidence, and purposefully slowing down negotiations. While this is unfair, it doesn’t mean they won’t do it. Dragging claims out can affect critical areas, such as:

• Evidence:  Evidence that’s gathered on the scene, like black box data and driver logs that show Hours-of-Service compliance, are vital to your case, and can be overwritten or no longer usable if not preserved quickly.
• Finances: Delays can also affect you financially, as medical bills pile up and wages are lost. You might feel like you need to accept a smaller compensation just to pay the outstanding bills.

Our attorneys at The Millar Law Firm are well-positioned to help counter these delay tactics, push for timely negotiations, and ensure that all evidence is preserved. We know the types of games trucking companies play and have the resources to fight back and help you secure the compensation you deserve.

Trucking Accident Evidence and How it’s Used

What Evidence and Tactics Will Trucking Companies Use to Attempt to Reduce Your Compensation?

When you’re injured in a trucking accident, the trucking company will be looking for ways to use anything they can against you, including:

• Medical Records: Trucking companies will carefully examine your medical records, looking to downplay your injuries or blame them on pre-existing conditions. In this case, it’s important to know that Georgia law follows the Eggshell Plaintiff Doctrine, which means that if you have a pre-existing condition, the at-fault party can still be held accountable for worsening it.
• Driving Records: Past driving records are also up for examination in trucking accident cases. Trucking companies and their attorneys will search for any past issues, such as speeding tickets or prior accidents. If they can show a history of risky driving, they will try to shift the blame to you.
• Additional evidence from the scene: Trucking companies won’t stop at pulling medical and driving records. They will also look into your cell phone records to see if you were on a call at the time of the accident, trying to prove that you could have been distracted. They will also use witness statements and police reports to their advantage to try and prove that you had contributed to the accident.

Working with a local Georgia personal injury lawyer, like those at The Millar Law Firm, can help you challenge these claims and ensure your injuries and other losses are properly compensated for. Your personal injury lawyer will help you gather evidence from the scene, like photos, videos, and accident reports to ensure you have a strong case against the trucking company.

Several Ways Trucking Companies Will Dispute Evidence and Limit Liability

In the same way that a trucking company will scrutinize your past and your medical records, they can also dispute or manipulate evidence to weaken your case. Evidence from black box, driver logs and accident scene photos can be areas that they can target.

• Black box data and driver logs: Black box data reveals the truck’s speed, the duration of braking, any steering wheel movements, and other operational details about the vehicle. It contains critical information for proving negligence, but can be altered or claimed as unavailable. Driver logs can also fall victim to alterations, or can be argued that they are not relevant to the truck accident.
• Accident scene evidence: On-the-scene evidence like skid marks on the road, and debris can be dismissed or blamed on external factors. To protect your claim and receive maximum compensation for your trucking accident, you should act quickly and work with your personal injury attorney to file preservation requests for evidence. Documentation and expert testimony can strengthen your case and make sure no detail is overlooked.

What Steps Should You Take to Preserve Your Evidence?

It’s critical to act fast on preserving evidence to ensure it’s not lost or tampered with after your trucking accident. A personal injury attorney can help you take proactive steps, as well as uncover new evidence to be used in your case. One of the first steps that your personal injury attorney will take is to issue a preservation of evidence letter to the trucking company. This letter legally obligates them to retain black box data, maintenance records, and other relevant documentation.

Your personal injury attorney can also review public records, like the trucking company’s safety history and any prior violations, to show patterns of negligence. Additionally, filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests can show federal inspection reports or records from the Department of Transportation. By using these strategies, your personal injury attorney can counter any attempts to conceal evidence, helping to strengthen your case.

How Georgia Negligence Laws Can Affect Your Truck Accident Compensation

As you are starting to understand how trucking companies will try to shift blame, a legal concept you should be aware of is contributory negligence. In Georgia, contributory negligence is where the injured party has been found to have contributed to the cause of their injuries through a lack of ordinary care. Under Georgia Code § 51-11-7, if a plaintiff could have avoided the consequences of the defendant’s negligence by exercising ordinary care, they may be barred from recovering damages.

Modified comparative negligence is another Georgia law that may come into play. This means that if the plaintiff is found to be less than 50% at fault for the incident, they can still recover damages, but the compensation will be reduced by their percentage of fault. To illustrate this example, imagine that you were shown 30% at fault for the trucking accident, and the total damages were $100,000. You would actually only be entitled to $70,000, as you would have to subtract the 30% of fault. If your fault was at 50% or more, that means you wouldn’t receive anything.

These laws show the importance of working with a personal injury lawyer who specializes in this area of law, as the trucking company will push to place as much fault on you as possible to reduce your compensation.

Settlement Strategies and GA Trucking Accident Cases

Strategies Trucking Companies Use to Downplay Your Injuries

Trucking companies and their insurer will sometimes try to minimize the severity of your injuries to reduce their financial liability. They could question your medical bills, try to downplay injuries sustained, or even argue that extensive treatments are not needed. To counter these tactics, it’s critical to keep detailed records of your medical treatment, and always seek immediate care for even minor symptoms, as sometimes they can worsen over time.

Things to keep a record of after your trucking accident include appointments, medical bills, any treatments needed post-accident, as well as prescriptions and referrals. Consulting medical experts to validate the long-term impact of your injuries is very important, along with working closely with your personal injury attorney to ensure all details are considered.

When Will a Trucking Company Try to Settle a Case?

A trucking company may look to settle a case when they begin to realize their defense is weak, and your evidence against them is much stronger, making the trial outcome uncertain or potentially unfavorable. If an investigation shows clear negligence on the part of the trucking company or the driver, the company might want to settle to mitigate further financial losses. They might even approach you with a low settlement offer right after the incident.

On the other hand, if liability is disputed or evidence is coming up as inconclusive, the company may try to prolong negotiations or proceed to trial. Knowing when a trucking company will settle a case is very dependent on the unique nature of the case. Once an offer is reached, your personal injury attorney can help navigate this process, ensuring that the settlement is fair and comprehensive, taking into account all present and future expenses related to the accident.

The Downside to Taking a Quick Settlement

During this process, the trucking company may try to provide you with a quick check to settle early after your accident. These early, lowball offers usually do not cover anywhere near what’s needed for your recovery, including current and future medical bills, and lost wages.

Companies will try to drag out claims and use quick settlements to avoid paying their full liability. This is why it’s critical to consult with an attorney before accepting any offer you are given, no matter how tempting the offer may be.

Hire a Georgia Trucking Accident Attorney – or Not?

Protecting Your Legal and Rights to Compensation with The Millar Law Firm

We know that navigating a truck accident claim in Georgia can be overwhelming, especially when these trucking companies and insurers will use any and all tactics to minimize your compensation. At The Millar Law Firm, we know these strategies very well and have the expertise to fight back. Our team of personal injury attorneys has helped our local community receive the compensation they deserve for over 30 years. Don’t let the trucking companies take advantage of you. Contact The Millar Law Firm today for a free consultation.