Myrtle Beach Truck Accident Attorneys

In a truck crash, the trucker is likely to be insulated from injury, but the occupants of the other car are more likely to face substantial injuries. If you were disabled, hospitalized, or even faced any medical bills in a truck accident, you could be entitled to compensation for your injuries.

Whether you live in the Myrtle Beach area or were injured on vacation, you should consult with a lawyer for help with your truck accident case. Our attorneys can help you with insurance claims and file any lawsuits necessary to get you compensation for your injuries, any wages you lost because of the accident, and other damages related to the crash.

For a free assessment of your injury case, call Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers’ truck accident attorneys today at (803) 451-4000.

Getting Compensation for a Truck Crash in Myrtle Beach, SC

Truck accidents can involve substantial compensation, which means that insurance companies and trucking companies will often put up barriers to compensation in an attempt to save themselves money. Claims may be denied, valuations of your damage might be criticized, and, ultimately, you may need to turn to a lawsuit to get full compensation for your injuries.

When you file an insurance claim for injuries in an auto accident in South Carolina, you usually do so with the at-fault driver’s insurance. However, the decision of whether they accept your claim as true and how much they determine the damages to be worth is often a question that the insurance company answers. They may even reject your claim if they can point to any factual inconsistencies, mistakes, or missing information that makes it harder to rule on the claim, leaving you with nothing.

The first course of action for our truck accident lawyers is usually to appeal insurance denials and, if a settlement offer was made, seek to negotiate a more reasonable offer. These initial offers are often low and do not cover nearly enough to justify accepting the settlement.

If this does not work and we cannot arrive at a reasonable settlement offer, we can file the case in court. There, we turn the decisions over from the insurance company to a neutral judge and a neutral jury of your peers to decide the case based on facts, evidence, and procedural rules meant to keep the process fair for victims. In a court case, the jury can award damages potentially above and beyond what the insurance company might have issued, potentially including punitive damages.

Determining Who is at Fault in a Truck Accident in Myrtle Beach, SC

Just because a truck is involved in a crash does not necessarily mean the truck driver is at fault. Our attorneys will have to investigate what happened and analyze the specifics of your case to determine who we should sue and what parties the court might reasonably find at fault for a crash.

In some accident cases, the truck driver will be at fault. This means we can sue them directly for causing the crash through inattention, traffic violations, drunk driving, distracted driving, and other causes. However, when you sue a trucker who was working as an employee for a trucking company when they caused the crash, you can often sue the trucking company alongside them and request that the court hold the employer liable in place of the driver.

In other cases, the trucker will not actually be the one who caused the crash. Especially in multi-car pileups, the trucker could be a victim, too. Then, you would likely file your case against another driver who did actually cause the crash. Their insurance might be enough to cover the accident. If not, we can investigate ways of potentially holding the trucking company partially liable for a share of the damages or suing the driver to hold them directly liable for what they did.

In many cases, the trucking company’s mistakes will have played a part in the crash as well. If the trucking company owns the truck and it had maintenance issues, that could be their fault. Similarly, if they hired a dangerous driver or kept a driver on staff after known violations and safety issues, that would also be their fault. In these cases, trucking companies can share a part of the blame along with their driver or another driver.

If you were partly responsible for the crash, you could lose out on a proportional part of the damages. However, you will not necessarily lose your case unless you were responsible for more than half of the fault in causing the accident.

Damages in a Truck Accident Claim in Myrtle Beach

When you file a claim for damages in a truck accident case, you can claim compensation for any expenses you paid related to the accident. This means repair costs for your vehicle, medical expenses, therapy bills, childcare costs, and other expenses should all be covered. In addition, you can claim compensation for money that you lost coming in because of your injuries. For example, you could face lost wages and earnings from your employment or from running your own business if your injuries require a long healing period or lead to long-term disabilities.

Altogether, these damages are known as “compensatory” damages in that they compensate you for the various harms you suffered. In some cases, additional “punitive” damages are available to punish the at-fault parties for their wrongdoings. Higher than normal fault is usually required for these damages, but this often happens when trucking companies seek to break the rules and overwork their drivers in the name of profits.

Call Our Truck Accident Attorneys Today

Call (803) 451-4000 for a free case review with our truck accident lawyers at Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers.

$6 Million

The Plaintiff was injured as a result of a failing component of a commercial motor vehicle that fell from the vehicle into the roadway. The Plaintiff brought claims against the owner and operator of the tractor trailer as well as the manufacturer of the vehicle.

$4.1 Million

The Plaintiff was insured as a result of a refrigeration system that malfunctioned, spraying ammonia gas into the Plaintiff's face. As a result of this event, the Plaintiff sustained significant vision loss. The Plaintiff brought claims against his employer and the manufacturer of this system.

$2 Million

The Plaintiff was injured while riding his motorcycle when he collided with another vehicle. This event occurred in the city of Columbia and the Plaintiff sustained significant bodily injury resulting in extensive medical expenses and permanent injury.

$1.8 Million

The Plaintiff was injured when he was rear-ended by a tractor trailer on Interstate 20. The Plaintiff brought claims against the owner and driver of the tractor trailer for his injuries relate to his lower back.

$1.5 Million

The Plaintiff sustained significant injury when she was attacked by a dog while performing repairs on a rental property. The Plaintiff was at the rental property as part of her employment with a rental management agency. She was attacked by the animal and sustained permanent nerve damage in her legs.

$1.3 Million

The Plaintiff was killed as a result of a collision with a logging truck that had been improperly loaded by a timber harvester. The proceeds of the settlement were funded by both the timber harvester and the owner of the logging truck.

$1.5 Million

The Plaintiff underwent surgery to her neck as a result of injuries sustained when she was struck on the head by a piece of loading equipment at her job. The Plaintiff was employed by a national retailer and was engaged in stocking shelves when the piece of equipment failed. After settling her workers' compensation claim, the Plaintiff brought a claim against the manufacturer of this equipment.

$1.1 Million

The Plaintiff brought a claim against a local medical facility for a false positive HIV reading. As a result of this false positive, the Plaintiff lived for 4½ years believing that she had the virus which leads to what she feared was an eventual AIDS diagnosis.