Who Can Be Held Liable in a Semi-Truck Accident?

In a semi accident, let’s start with the most basic arrangement for who can be held liable. So you’ve got a driver, and they’re driving a tractor or the truck that usually has the name of a company on it. So, in America, in virtually every employment situation, we’ve got what’s called respondeat superior, which means the negligence of the driver becomes the negligence of the company. You can also sue the company directly if they did something that was negligent or reckless that caused the driver to make a mistake or cause the actual tractor-trailer to be the thing that broke down and made the hazard. So, for example, if the company orders the driver to drive for more hours than the federal motor carrier safety regulations – say the driver should have been driving, that would be a direct suit against the the company for making that order. Potentially, also a direct suit against the driver because, while tired, presumably they would have done something to cause the wreck. And both of those things flow through to that company, but there can also be other companies involved. So, sometimes the trailer is owned by a different company. It’s possible the trailer itself had some type of mechanical defect that contributed to the wreck, or simply that the trailer company has insurance coverage that applies whenever the driver makes a mistake. So there may be more than one policy out there. There are also situations where there’s some type of lease of the vehicle, and the company that’s on the side of the vehicle may not be the one who’s primarily responsible for the vehicle’s actions because of the lease situation. It is definitely a not-to-unravel in almost every tractor-trailer case. As far as which company stands first in terms of liability, and which insurance company – which policy is supposed to pay for the damages before you would move on to someone else. And there’s unfortunately no way, without getting a lot of facts, to tell you from the outset, which company is going to wind up being responsible.