Fatal Truck Accident Lawyers in Summerville

Respondeat superior is the rule that makes an employer pay for harm a worker causes while doing the employer's business. James v. Kelly Trucking Co., Opinion No. 26447, filed March 10, 2008, restates the rule. This liability does not depend on any fault by the employer. It turns on the worker's conduct and on whether the worker was on the job. Leases, dispatch logs and pay records usually answer that question in a truck case.

In James, the defense admitted its tractor-trailer driver was negligent and working when he ran a red light. It then argued that the admission left nothing to try on the hiring claim. The court rejected that argument. An employer that knew, or should have known, of a worker's undue risk to the public can answer for its own negligence. That covers negligent hiring, training, supervision and entrustment. Entrustment means handing a worker a dangerous tool, such as a heavy truck.

The court called that liability direct, not derivative. Two justices dissented. Their opinion noted that most other states bar the separate claim once an employer admits responsibility for its driver. In South Carolina, a carrier's concession about its driver does not end questions about its own hiring and supervision. Frost Law Group can build that part of a death case from the carrier's files.

The file opens with the driver's employment application. It also holds the road test record or an accepted substitute, driving records and proof of medical fitness. Each item answers a separate question about the person behind the wheel. Two of them carry dates that keep changing while the driver works for the carrier. A lawyer checks each date against the day of the crash.

Driving Records From Each Licensing State

Within 30 days of hiring, the carrier must ask for the driver's record. Every state that licensed the driver in the prior three years gets that request. After that, the carrier must pull a new record at least once a year. A note in the file names who reviewed each record and when. A driver who held a North Carolina license until a recent move to Ladson should have records from both states.

Medical Fitness and the 24-Month Exam

Under 49 CFR 391.41, no one may drive a commercial motor vehicle without a medical examiner's finding of physical fitness. Under 49 CFR 391.45, a driver needs a new exam at least every 24 months. A new exam is also due when an injury or illness has impaired the driver's ability to work. If a driver lost control on I-26 after a known health problem, the medical paperwork becomes part of the review.

Under 49 CFR 382.701, an employer must query the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse before hiring a commercial driver. The query reveals reported violations, such as a verified positive drug test or an alcohol result of 0.04 or higher. The employer must query again at least once a year and keep a record of each query for three years. A driver with a reported violation may not drive until the Clearinghouse shows the return-to-duty steps are done.

Without a death, federal testing turns on a citation to the truck driver for a moving violation, among other conditions. A death removes that condition. The employer must test every surviving driver doing safety-sensitive work on the truck for alcohol and drugs. Under 382.303(e), the employer may treat a driver who does not stay readily available as having refused. A driver may still leave to summon help or get emergency care.

Section 382.303(g) lets an employer use police breath or blood alcohol tests in place of its own. The officers must have independent legal power to test, and police urine drug tests count the same way. Each test must meet the applicable requirements, and the employer must obtain the results. So a missing company test does not always mean no test exists. Before he practiced law, Jack C. Frost served fourteen years with the Summerville Police Department and the Charleston County Sheriff's Office. He learned there how investigators collect evidence and put it in writing. A lawyer can request the police file alongside the carrier's.

The three-year filing period in Section 15-3-530(6) begins on the date of death. Federal minimums for keeping test records under 49 CFR 382.401 can run out sooner. A negative drug result or an alcohol result under 0.02 need stay on file only one year. Papers on the decision to test sit with the collection records, kept for two years. Positive results, alcohol at 0.02 or higher and refusals carry a five-year minimum. A preservation letter can name all of them.

Under 49 CFR 396.11, the driver's end-of-day report covers parts such as brakes, steering, lights, tires, coupling devices and wheels. The rule requires a written report only when the driver found or heard of a defect. An empty folder may mean no one flagged a problem. When a report lists a safety defect, the carrier must fix it before anyone drives the truck again. Someone must then note on the report, over a signature, that the carrier fixed the defect or that it needed no repair.

Before the next trip, 49 CFR 396.13 has the driver review the last report and sign it. The report, the repair note and that signature stay on file for only three months. A brake complaint days before a fatal crash, with no repair note beside it, is the gap a lawyer looks for.

Under 49 CFR 396.9(c), an inspector marks a truck out of service if its condition or load makes a crash likely. No carrier may let anyone drive it until the repairs listed in the notice are complete. After a roadside inspection report, the carrier has 15 days to sign the form confirming it corrected the noted violations. It keeps a copy for 12 months. In South Carolina, the State Transport Police Division of SCDPS enforces those federal rules. Its inspection history on the truck is worth requesting.

Under 49 CFR 396.3, a carrier keeps inspection, repair and maintenance records for one year where it houses or maintains the truck. After the truck leaves the carrier's hands, the records need only last six more months. A tractor sold, scrapped or returned to a leasing company after a fatal wreck starts that shorter count. A written request can ask the carrier to hold the tractor and trailer too, since the machines are evidence.

Section 395.3 applies its limits no matter how many carriers use the driver's services. The count covers the driver's time for every carrier, not only the one whose truck crashed. Suppose a dispatcher hands a driver a load for a Ladson warehouse five hours away. The driver has two hours of driving time left that day. That dispatch record points at the company, and a lawyer compares each dispatch time with the hours remaining.

Section 395.8(e) bars a driver or a carrier from making a false report about duty status. It also bars either one from jamming or reprogramming an electronic logging device, or ELD, so it no longer records accurately. A carrier that permits or requires someone else to tamper with an ELD breaks the same subsection. Proof of that conduct can bear on whether a company acted recklessly, which a jury decides with the rest of the evidence.

Under 49 CFR 395.13, an agent of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, may order a driver off the road. Driving past the hours limits or lacking current logs can prompt that order. The carrier may not require or permit that driver to drive again until the driver can lawfully do so. It must also report the action it took on the form and send it to FMCSA within 15 days. An earlier order against the same driver may bear on what the company knew before the deadly run.

Section 15-32-520(D) requires clear and convincing evidence that willful, wanton or reckless conduct caused the harm. That standard asks for more certainty than the more-likely-than-not test in most civil claims. If any defendant facing punitive damages asks, the trial runs in two stages before one jury. In setting an amount, the jury may weigh similar past conduct, the defendant's awareness and any concealment.

The Base Cap in Section 15-32-530

Section 15-32-530(A) generally caps punitive damages at whichever is greater, $500,000 or triple the compensatory damages. The dollar figure moves each year with the Consumer Price Index. Subsection (B) keeps the cap from the jury, so the court applies it after the verdict. The ceiling rises to four times or $2,000,000 if the court finds management knew of or approved dangerous conduct aimed mainly at unreasonable financial gain. It also rises when the conduct could bring a felony conviction.

Exceptions That Remove the Cap

Subsection (C) of Section 15-32-530 lists three findings that remove the ceiling entirely. The trial court makes each finding, and each one attaches to a particular defendant. That matters when a driver and a carrier face the same verdict. Frost Law Group can review the criminal file and any toxicology results for that reason.

Intent to Harm or a Felony Conviction

No cap applies when the defendant intended harm and did harm the claimant. None applies either when the defendant has a felony plea or conviction tied to the same conduct. Felony DUI resulting in death, under Section 56-5-2945, is one such charge.

Impaired Judgment From Alcohol or Drugs

The third finding concerns impairment. Drinking, or drug use beyond a lawful prescription, must have substantially impaired the defendant's judgment. The statute speaks of the defendant who was impaired. Whether it also lifts the cap on an award against the employer is a question for the court. A post-accident test under 382.303 may form part of the proof.

Federal rule 49 CFR 390.15(b) makes a motor carrier hold each entry in its accident register for three years. An entry gives the date, the nearest city or town and state, and the driver's name. It counts the people hurt and killed and flags any hazardous materials spill other than fuel. Any crash report a state or insurer required goes in the register too. An accident, for this rule, means a crash with a death, a tow-away or an injury needing treatment off the scene. A register that shows the same driver in earlier crashes can speak to what the company knew.

The federal schedule in 49 CFR 387.9 sets $750,000 as the least public liability coverage an interstate for-hire freight hauler may carry. That row governs vehicles rated at 10,001 pounds and up. For oil and most listed hazardous materials, the minimum is $1,000,000. It reaches $5,000,000 for some bulk hazardous shipments. Those numbers set a floor, not a cap on a family's recovery. Private carriers moving their own nonhazardous goods and carriers running only inside South Carolina fall outside the $750,000 row. One deadly crash can put a wrongful death claim, a survival claim and other injury claims against the same policy.