Who Can Be Held Liable for a Truck Accident in Minnesota?

If a truck hit you and caused injuries in an accident that was not your fault, you may have made a decision to pursue a personal injury claim. However, you may not be sure how to proceed beyond making this decision. You may not know how to start to file the claim, because you may be wondering who can be held liable for a truck accident in Minnesota.

The truth, unfortunately, is that truck accident claims can be extremely complex. It’s possible that multiple parties behaved in a negligent manner, creating conditions that led to the crash and to your injuries. It can be challenging for you to track down the appropriate parties to hold liable, which is why hiring our Minnesota truck accident lawyers can give you some peace of mind.

Determining Fault After a Truck Accident

Determining fault after a truck accident follows many of the same steps as determining fault after a car accident. However, there are some key differences.

Number of at-fault parties: With a car crash that wasn’t your fault, the other driver is frequently a single person, rather than a corporation, meaning one person is probably liable. Because a semi-truck often is part of a business, it’s possible that multiple parties played a role in maintaining the truck, training the driver, or loading the truck, potentially complicating the process of determining fault after a truck accident.
Evidence available: The operation of a truck often results in tracked data that helps our personal injury lawyers investigate the case. Trucks may use GPS devices, black boxes, driving logs, and dash cams that provide evidence for us to use in determining fault. In a car accident, we may have to rely on eyewitnesses to the crash.
Applicable laws: Truck drivers need to follow certain laws that an individual driver of a car doesn’t have to follow, such as observing limits for the amount of continuous time spent behind the wheel. Truck drivers must hold a CDL, or commercial driver’s license, too. Failure to follow these extra rules and regulations could show negligence on the part of the truck driver.

Investigating to Determine Who Can Be Held Liable for a Minnesota Truck Accident

After a truck accident in which you suffered injuries, you may choose to try to represent yourself in your claim against the truck driver or trucking company’s insurance company. To you, the facts in the case seem pretty clear, meaning you don’t believe you should have much of a problem receiving the payment you deserve.

However, what often happens is that the trucking company’s insurer has a team of investigators and lawyers who look at the facts in the case and focus on the ones that favor the trucking company, rather than you. The insurer then uses this information to try to limit the amount you can receive in payment.

As a victim in a truck accident, you may struggle to force the trucking company to give you the information you need to investigate the case yourself and to find facts that help you. However, when you hire our truck accident attorneys to represent you, we use our collective decades of experience to find facts that help your side of the case. We can force the trucking company to give us the tracking information we need to carry out our investigation.

Who Can You Sue for a Truck Accident in Minnesota?

As mentioned earlier, when a truck hits you and causes injuries, figuring out which parties you can make part of your claim or lawsuit can be a challenge. It’s possible that only one person or entity is liable for the accident, but it’s also possible that multiple parties are potentially liable. We use the facts in the case to guide us to figure out exactly who to sue to try to win the payment you deserve to have for your injuries. The parties who potentially are liable include:

Truck driver: It’s possible that the person operating the truck simply violated a traffic law, and this violation led to the crash. We may then recommend that you bring a claim against the driver and the driver’s insurance company.
Truck owner: If the driver works for a large trucking company, the company could be liable. If the company knowingly hired inexperienced drivers, forced drivers to try to meet impossible delivery deadlines, or cut corners in training, these could be signs of negligence.
Truck maintenance team: If the team that repaired or maintained the truck is a different company than the company that owned the truck, we may include the maintenance company as part of the lawsuit or claim. We need to show that the company did shoddy repair work that led to an unsafe truck.
Truck manufacturer: If the truck manufacturer sold trucks that had a significant design flaw that affected the safe operation of the vehicle, it’s possible that the manufacturer could be a liable party for your injury claim after an accident.
Cargo loading company: An improperly loaded semi-truck trailer could cause the driver to lose control. If the cargo shifts during transport, this sudden change could throw the trailer out of balance, leading to a serious accident. Cargo loaders must secure the trailer’s contents properly.

When we hold multiple parties liable for the accident and for your injuries, the case suddenly could involve several different insurance companies, many of which want to point fingers at each other, rather than agreeing to pay you the award you deserve to have. Our team of truck accident injury lawyers works hard to cut through the red tape and to figure out the fastest way to move forward in your case.

Reach Out to Tyroler Leonard Injury Law Today for Help with Your Truck Accident Claim

Trying to figure out exactly who should be liable for your medical bills, pain and suffering payment, and lost wages after a truck hits you can be a challenging process. It often leads to a lot of stress for you at the same time you are trying to regain your health. Consider calling Tyroler Leonard Injury Law to help you understand who can be held liable for a truck accident in Minnesota. We are ready to work on your case immediately. Call us today at 651-259-1113 for a free consultation.

Attorney Isaac Tyroler

Attorney Isaac Tyroler has been a strong advocate for injured people his entire legal career. He has a passion for righting wrongs, and he deeply cares about representing injured clients who may feel overwhelmed or uncertain about how to navigate the legal system. He is compassionate toward clients and aggressive with insurance companies and defendants. He is on the elected Board of Governors of the Minnesota Association of Justice (MAJ), the top personal injury lawyers’ group in Minnesota. And is currently the chair of MAJ’s legislative committee. [ Attorney Bio ]