Proving Your Legal Rights After a Truck Accident on I-78 or I-80 in Pennsylvania
If you were injured in a truck accident on I-78 or I-80 in Pennsylvania, you should have two priorities: (i) getting the medical treatment you need; and (ii) protecting your legal rights. Truck accidents can cause serious injuries and lead to substantial costs, and they can leave victims facing long and expensive roads to recovery.
Getting medical treatment will help protect your legal rights. If your medical records show that you sought treatment promptly after the collision, this will help prove both the cause and extent of your injuries. Once you receive a diagnosis, you should follow your doctor’s advice and do everything you can to recover as fully and quickly as possible.
How to Prove Liability After a Truck Accident in Pennsylvania
While seeing a doctor promptly will help protect your legal rights, this is just one of many steps in the process. To recover the financial compensation you deserve for your truck accident on I-78 or I-80, you will also need to:
1. Preserve Any Evidence That is Available at the Crash Site
While it is important to seek medical treatment promptly, it is also important to promptly preserve any evidence that is available at the crash site. However, since this can be dangerous (and since you need to make sure the evidence remains admissible in court), you should not try to do this on your own. Instead, you should engage a law firm to investigate the accident on your behalf.
Collecting as much evidence as possible is key to proving your legal rights after a truck accident on I-78 or I-80. Debris, skid marks, damaged signs or guardrails, and numerous other forms of evidence may be available at the crash site to help establish your right to just compensation.
2. Determine What Other Evidence is Available
Along with promptly conducting an on-scene investigation, it is also important to determine what other evidence is available. Does it look like the truck driver may have been distracted or asleep behind the wheel? Does the evidence at the crash site suggest that the truck’s brakes or tires may have failed? Could your truck accident have been captured on video by a traffic camera or security camera? Oftentimes, evidence that is available from other sources will serve as the strongest proof of liability.
3. Determine What Company (or Companies) May Be Liable
Once your law firm investigates the accident, it will be able to use the available evidence to determine what company (or companies) may be liable for your accident-related losses. There are several possibilities, including:
- The truck driver’s insurance company (if the driver is an owner-operator)
- The trucking company
- The shipping company that loaded the truck’s cargo
- The truck’s manufacturer or a component manufacturer (i.e., a tire or brake manufacturer)
- Another driver’s insurance company
In some cases, government agencies can be responsible (or at least share responsibility) for truck accidents on I-78 and I-80 as well. For example, if an issue with the highway caused the truck driver to lose control or contributed to the severity of the crash, you may have a claim against the government.
Determining where you need to file your claim (or claims) is essential for asserting your legal rights effectively. Simply knowing that the accident was someone else’s fault isn’t enough. Truck accident cases can be extremely complex—and this is yet another reason to put an experienced law firm on your side.
4. Collect Additional Evidence Through Formal Legal Means
In many cases, it will be necessary to collect additional evidence through formal legal means. For example, if it appears that the truck driver was asleep behind the wheel, you may need the driver’s log to prove that he or she had spent too many hours in the driver’s seat. Or, if it appears that the truck’s brakes or tires failed, you may need the truck’s maintenance records to prove that the trucking company failed to replace worn brake pads or tires as necessary. Your law firm may be able to obtain cell phone records, traffic camera footage and various other forms of evidence through formal legal means as well.
5. Use the Evidence to Show How and Why Your Truck Accident Happened
After gathering all of the evidence needed, the next step is to use this evidence to show how and why your truck accident happened. Your law firm will use the available evidence to piece together the events leading up to your crash, and it may hire an accident reconstructionist to create a detailed computer simulation of the collision. The clearer it is that a company (or government agency is responsible), the easier it will be to recover the financial compensation you deserve.
6. Calculate the Truck Accident’s Long-Term Financial and Non-Financial Costs
Speaking of financial compensation, proving your legal rights also involves proving how much you are entitled to recover. This is an entirely separate process that requires different types of evidence. Your medical records and employment records will be essential, and your law firm will use these documents (among others) to prove the long-term financial and non-financial costs of your injuries.
7. Deal with the Insurance Companies (But Avoid Settling Too Soon)
In the vast majority of cases, recovering just compensation involves dealing with the insurance companies. But, when dealing with insurance companies, you need to be extremely careful to avoid settling too soon. Until your law firm has comprehensively calculated the accident’s long-term financial and non-financial costs, you won’t know how much you are entitled to recover—and you won’t be able to make an informed decision about settlement.
Talk to an Experienced Pennsylvania Truck Accident Lawyer for Free
We help truck accident victims throughout Pennsylvania recover the financial compensation they deserve. If you need help protecting your legal rights after a truck accident on I-78 or I-80, we encourage you to contact us promptly so that we can investigate the accident right away. To speak with a lawyer at our offices in Allentown, Bethlehem, Doylestown, Easton or Stroudsburg for free, call 888-777-7098 or tell us how we can reach you online now.