Truck Accident Lawyer in Melbourne

When a passenger vehicle collides with a commercial truck, it’s almost always the smaller vehicle that comes out worse. Because of their size and weight, the force generated by these trucks in a crash is substantial. After suffering injuries in a collision, an experienced Melbourne truck accident lawyer can help you recover compensation from the liable party.

If you’ve been a victim of a truck accident, we can help you. The experienced legal team at The Schiller Kessler Group can get you compensation for the injuries, lost wages, and other damages you’ve suffered because of a trucker’s negligent driving. Reach out today to learn more about how our Melbourne personal injury lawyers can help.

Why You Need an Experienced Melbourne Truck Accident Attorney on Your Side

While any motor vehicle accident can result in severe injuries and complex legal cases, collisions involving large commercial trucks tend to be particularly devastating. Due to the massive size and weight of semi-trucks, the damage they can inflict on smaller passenger vehicles is catastrophic.

Truck accident cases also introduce additional legal challenges that make having an experienced truck accident attorney necessary. The team at The Schiller Kessler Group can help resolve all legal issues.

Complex Trucking Regulations

Truck drivers and trucking companies are held to high safety standards because of the potential harm that can result from improper handling of these vehicles. The trucking industry is governed by a web of state and federal regulations related to things like: 

• Hours of service
• Maintenance
• Cargo loads
• Licensing
• Inspections 

Trucking companies and drivers who violate these rules can be held liable. Our attorneys know these regulations inside and out.

Dealing With Liability Issues

When a truck driver causes an accident, not only are they potentially liable, but so is the trucking company that employed them under the legal doctrine of vicarious liability. However, these are not the only parties that may share fault for your accident. Additional parties that are often liable in these cases include:

• Cargo loaders
• Third-party motorists
• Maintenance providers
• Truck manufacturers

Your Melbourne truck accident lawyer can identify all responsible parties in your case. This allows truck accident victims to pursue compensation from the company’s higher insurance policy limits.

Overcoming Strong Opposition

Trucking companies and their insurers are motivated to avoid accountability and minimize payouts at all costs after a serious crash. They have vast resources to fight even legitimate claims. You need an equally fierce legal advocate to stand up against their tactics.

Conducting Thorough Investigations

To build a strong case, your personal injury attorney needs to perform an exhaustive investigation, gathering evidence often only available for a short period, such as data from the truck’s black box or Event Data Recorder, driver’s logs, dashcam footage, company safety records, and more. Collecting this evidence in time requires experience and resources.

Pursuing the Maximum Compensation

The physical and financial impacts of truck accident injuries like brain trauma, spinal cord injuries, amputations, and more are devastating and permanent. Valuing this harm accurately requires accounting for a lifetime of diminished quality of life, disabilities, loss of earnings, future care costs, and more.

Your truck accident attorney serving Melbourne can evaluate these losses thoroughly and build a claim backed by evidence to prove your losses. This complex calculation ensures you receive appropriate compensation.

Level the Playing Field

The reality is that trucking companies and their insurers have an army of attorneys working relentlessly to protect their bottom lines. 

You need an equally persistent and knowledgeable legal team fighting tirelessly for your rights as the victim. Never attempt to take on these massive companies alone. The stakes are too high.

Be Mindful of All Deadlines When Pursuing a Truck Accident Lawsuit in Melbourne

If you’re seeking compensation after a truck accident in Melbourne, it’s crucial to be aware of the legal deadline for filing your claim. Florida law imposes a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury cases. This means that, in most situations, you have just two years from the date of the accident to initiate legal action.

If you miss this window, you may lose your right to seek damages altogether. Although two years may seem like ample time, it can slip by faster than expected. Acting quickly by retaining a knowledgeable attorney early in the process can help ensure you meet all necessary deadlines and preserve your ability to pursue full compensation.

Getting a lawyer involved soon after the accident also gives them the best chance to build a compelling case on your behalf. Early legal intervention allows your attorney to collect key evidence before it disappears or deteriorates and to speak with witnesses while their memories of the incident remain clear and accurate.

Florida’s No-Fault Insurance and Truck Accidents

Florida is a no-fault insurance state. What this means is that the first place to turn after any vehicle accident is your own insurance company. Your personal injury protection (PIP) coverage will pay for some of the damages you’ve suffered. Still, it may not cover all your losses due to the massive damage often resulting from a collision with a commercial truck.

Florida’s PIP coverage is unique because it will only pay up to 80% of your medical costs. You must cover the other 20% separately. Your health insurance may cover the rest of your medical costs, or it might not. There are also limits to how much you can receive in lost wages.

However, you may have the option of filing a truck accident lawsuit to recover further compensation if you suffered a serious injury. An experienced Melbourne truck accident attorney can review the details of your injuries to determine whether you are eligible to take legal action.

How Do I Prove Negligence in a Truck Accident Claim?

When attempting to recover compensation after a collision with a commercial truck, you will need to establish the four elements of negligence. An experienced truck accident lawyer serving Melbourne can help prove the negligence of the liable party so you can secure fair compensation for the losses you incurred.

Duty of Care

The duty of care is the reasonable care people owe to each other in any interactions. Reasonable drivers want to avoid getting hurt in a collision, so they’ll follow the traffic laws and not act recklessly. 

If you are pursuing compensation from the truck driver, establishing this element is easy, as all drivers have an automatic legal duty of care toward everyone else on the road. 

Similarly, if you are pursuing compensation from the trucking company, establishing the existence of a duty of care is straightforward, as these companies have a duty to ensure that the trucks they are putting on the road are safe and that their drivers are qualified.

Breach of Duty

The second thing to prove is that whoever owed you a duty of care broke it and put others in danger. Breaking traffic laws is an obvious breach, but a violation can also include things like poor vehicle maintenance or an employer forcing unsafe work practices on their workers.

Police reports, time sheets, dash cams, and even black box recorders can give our lawyers evidence to prove that a breach of duty occurred and put you in danger.

Damages

The third part of establishing negligence is proving that you sustained damages. The losses you sustain in a crash can include both economic damages, like your medical bills, and non-economic damages, like your pain and suffering. Along with proving negligence, part of our job as your Melbourne truck accident attorneys is calculating the true costs of your damages.

Causation

The final element of negligence is causation. You need to prove how the damages you sustained in your crash were directly caused by the liable party violating their duty of care. An experienced lawyer can help connect the dots for a judge or jury so that causation is clear.

What Damages Can I Recover After a Truck Accident?

Victims of truck accidents face incredible amounts of pain and disruption to their lives. They also take an enormous financial hit. Medical bills, car replacement, and lost time at work can deplete a family’s savings quickly. Determining all the damages you are eligible for after an accident is critical for recovering the full value of your claim.

You can recover both economic and non-economic damages through a personal injury lawsuit. Adding up the value of all your damages is an important part of your lawyer’s job. Once they know how much your case is worth, they can begin negotiating with the insurance company for a fair settlement amount.

Common damages available in truck accident claims include:

• Medical expenses
• Future medical costs
• Property damage
• Lost wages
• Decreased earning capacity
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Mental anguish
• Permanent disability
• Scarring and disfigurement
• Emotional distress
• Loss of consortium
• Pain and suffering

If the insurance company decides they won’t pay what you’re owed, we’ll take them to court and let a judge and jury decide. Without the threat of potential legal action, insurance companies often try to force victims to take much smaller settlements. Hiring a Melbourne truck accident lawyer is the surest way to get the most from your accident.

Is Hiring a Truck Accident Attorney in Melbourne Expensive?

Anyone can afford to hire a Melbourne truck accident attorney from our firm, even if they have no income. This is possible because of our contingency fee system. By charging our clients on a contingency fee basis, we are able to provide experienced legal representation with no financial risk to the injured party.

Under this system, we only receive payment for our services if we recover compensation on your behalf. Should we fail to get you money for your losses, you won’t owe us anything for the services we provide. Meanwhile, if we do win your case, the payment we receive is taken directly out of the compensation paid by the liable party at a fixed percentage.

Charging our clients in this manner means you will never have to pay a single penny out of your own pocket. You should also note that even after deducting a legal fee from the money received, on average, those who hire attorneys to help with their truck accident cases receive significantly more compensation than those who attempt to represent themselves.

Modified Comparative Negligence in Florida

Florida follows a comparative negligence system to determine fault and compensation in truck accident cases. Under this approach, you may still be eligible to receive damages even if you share some responsibility for the accident, provided your share of the blame is 50% or less.

However, your compensation will be reduced based on your degree of fault. For instance, if you’re found to be 20% responsible, your financial recovery would be limited to 80% of the total amount of your damages. That means that if your damages are valued at $100,000, your financial recovery would be capped at $80,000.

Contact a Melbourne Truck Accident Law Firm for a Free Consultation

Our attorneys know how hard truck insurance companies fight back against claims. You need aggressive legal advocacy on your side. At The Schiller Kessler Group, with over three decades of experience, we’ve helped over 30,000 Florida injury victims recover compensation.

To get started, contact us today for a free case evaluation. We’ll explain your legal options and how we can help you. There is no obligation to retain our services if you call us for a consultation. Let us give you the information to help you make a smart choice about how to proceed after your truck accident.