If you can successfully pursue a personal injury lawsuit after being injured in a truck accident, you might be able to recover a significant amount of compensation. But these cases are often difficult. Given the amount of money involved, truck companies and their drivers seemingly bend over backward to find a way to avoid liability.
Let’s look at some common defense strategies so that you have a better idea of what to prepare for.
Truck accident defenses that could upend your personal injury case
The trucker and the truck company implicated in your accident might raise one or several defenses to try to beat your claim. This can include any of the following tactics:
- Blaming you for the wreck: Under Virginia law, your personal injury compensatory recovery can be denied if you’re found to be even a little bit to blame for your accident. Therefore, the defendants in your case are going to fight tooth and nail to try to find a way to pin the blame on you. There’s a good chance they’ll utilize expert witnesses, and they’ll take your actions and words out of context to use them against you. They’ll also have other witnesses who may lay the blame at your feet. So, assess your behavior in the moments leading up to your crash so that you know where you’re vulnerable.
- Minimizing your damages: The defense can significantly reduce its liability if it can attack the actual damages that you’ve suffered. To do so, they’ll scrutinize your medical records and the treatment you’ve received, and they’ll scour your social media to see if you’ve posted anything that shows that you’re engaging in behaviors that are indicative of an injury far less severe than you’ve claimed in your personal injury case.
- Using your statements against you: The defense will also latch onto any statements that you make that may be indicative of fault. They might subpoena your family members and friends to testify against you, and they’ll again turn to your social media to see if you’ve said anything that can be used against you.
- Blaming the trucker: Truck companies have more resources from which to pay you for your damages. But they might go so far as to blame their own employee for the accident if it means avoiding liability. To do so, the truck company will argue that the trucker was operating outside the scope of their employment when the accident occurred.
Be prepared going into your truck accident personal injury case
If you want to maximize your compensation from your truck accident personal injury case, then you need to be prepared with strong evidence to support your position and counter the defense’s arguments. That can be difficult to do if you’re unfamiliar with the law, but that’s why many truck accident victims choose to seek out support in building and presenting their case.
If that’s something that you think you could benefit from, then now is the time to start researching your representation options.