It only takes the blink of an eye for a negligent trucker to slam their big rig into your car. The resulting damages are nothing short of tragic, too. While your car will likely be totaled, that’s nothing compared to the physical injuries, emotional devastation, and financial toll that you’ll suffer. Given the extensiveness of these losses, many truck accident victims find the prospect of recovery impossible. While it’ll certainly be a challenge, it doesn’t have to be out of reach for you.
While a successful recovery will require you to follow your doctor’s recommendations and remain committed to your treatment plan, a personal injury lawsuit can also help pave the way. If successful on a truck accident personal injury claim, you can recover the financial resources necessary to pay for the best medical care while also securing financial stability. As a result, you can focus on reclaiming your health and your life.
What truck accident defenses will you be up against?
Although a personal injury lawsuit can be enormously beneficial for you and your family, it’s going to take some work to get what you want out of it. A lot of that will involve gathering and presenting evidence, but you can’t overlook the importance of anticipating the defense’s arguments and how to counter them. Here are some of the defenses that you might face in your truck accident case:
- Contributory negligence: Even if a truck company thinks that it can’t escape liability, it’ll try to minimize the damages that it’s forced to pay. One of the most effective ways to do this is to argue that the other driver, you in your case, was also negligent and thus partially to blame for the accident. Under Mississippi’s contributory negligence law, any financial award stemming from a personal injury lawsuit will be reduced in accordance with the amount of fault that’s attributed, meaning that your recovery can be significantly diminished if you’re found to have contributed to the crash.
- Independent contractor status: More and more, truck companies hire independent contractors to avoid potential liability. If this defense is raised in your case, then you should scrutinize the relationship between the truck company and the trucker to see if you can argue that, despite classification as an independent contractor, the relationship is more accurately classified as one of an employer and employee.
- Emergency action: The trucker and their employer might also claim that you were injured in the accident only because the trucker was responding to an emergency and had to react so quickly that they couldn’t appropriately assess the ramifications of their actions. Here, the court will analyze whether the trucker’s actions were reasonable in light of the unforeseeable emergency that arose.
- Pre-existing conditions: Another way truck companies try to avoid paying damages is by arguing that the victim had pre-existing conditions that are not attributable to the accident itself. If you have pre-existing conditions, then you’ll want to talk to your doctor about how the accident may have exacerbated them.
Don’t let a truck company take control of your personal injury case
You need to win your truck accident personal injury case if you want to secure the compensation and closure necessary to spur your recovery forward and obtain proper closure. That’s going to require assertiveness and thoroughness as you build and present your claim. If you don’t stand up to have your voice heard, then the truck company will take control, leaving you on the defensive.
Don’t let your claim get away from you. Instead, diligently work to build the robust claim that you need to protect your future.