1. Inadequate insurance on Georgia log trucks.

Georgia law requires only $100,000 liability insurance for 18-wheeler log trucks with tree-length timber that operate only within Georgia’s state lines. This is grossly inadequate for catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. Through decades of experience, we have found ways to locate other insurance coverages and multiply the potential recovery. In a recent log truck case in rural Georgia, we recovered sixteen times the truck’s insurance policy limit—$1.6 million—although the coverage on the truck was only $100,000.

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What should you do after a serious crash with a large commercial truck?

Act quickly after a family member is hurt in a catastrophic truck crash.

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For several years, insurers for trucking freight brokers have tried relentlessly to use the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) to preempt claims for negligent selection of unsafe motor carriers. The defense position has been that the FAAAA, 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1)) trumps all other state and federal rules authorizing liability of motor carriers, brokers, and freight forwarders. That code section says:

“General rule.—Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3), a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of 2 or more States may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier (other than a carrier affiliated with a direct air carrier covered by section 41713(b)(4)) or any motor private carrier, broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the transportation of property.”

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If adjusted for the general rate of inflation over the past forty years, it would be $2,203,415.84 today. People who are injured by trucking negligence need to pay their medical bills so trucking safety advocates have sought for years to bring some balanced fairness to others on the road. If adjusted to the rate of medical inflation it would be about $5 million. But opponents of advancing public safety on the highways repeatedly have blocked an inflation adjustment on the amount of insurance required.

This year, a 2019 recipient of the “Tradition of Excellence” Award from the State Bar of Georgia General Practice & Trial Section. as a reasonable compromise.

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The effects of this epidemic, both medical and economic, could be historically devastating. For at least the next few months, our lives will be changed radically by  “social distancing,” closing of schools and businesses, decrease of business especially in travel, retail and hospitality industries, shortages of food and supplies, and unpredictable ripple effects.

As any trucker will tell you, if a truck doesn’t deliver it, you don’t get it. To keep hospitals supplied, grocery stores stocked, fuel tanks filled, mail and online purchases delivered, trucks must keep running. We should appreciate the work good truckers do.

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First, you should be aware that the trucking company and its insurance company have a rapid response team on the scene almost immediately to identify, capture and “massage” evidence. That evidence is time-sensitive. Depending on the sophistication of the law enforcement officers who respond to the crash, critical evidence may be lost while your family member is struggling for her life in the hospital.

We have seen cases in which driver logs were “lost” while police were managing traffic control as the insurer’s investigator was crawling around the truck cab. We have seen trucks removed without authorization from police impound and put back on the road, erasing critical electronic data on “hard stops,” while the insurance company’s lawyer pretended to cooperate in scheduling a joint inspection.

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Most log trucks operating in the middle of Georgia operate exclusively intrastate, inside the state of Georgia, and do not cross state lines. They are governed by the Georgia Forest Product Trucking Rules, which exempt applicability of numerous provisions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Log trucks operating near state lines may cross into neighboring states, subjecting them to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

Length of loads.

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Often late at night on Georgia highways, we see tractor trailers parked on what many people commonly refer to as the “emergency lane” next to the traffic lanes. Unfortunately, many people even in the trucking industry do not appreciate how dangerous this can be for the truck driver and for motoring public.

Stopping on the roadside increases risks of a potential deadly crash, which can be prevented through management practices that include good trip planning, vehicle inspections, and appropriate equipment maintenance.

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In Georgia state courts, cases must be filed in a county where a defendant is a resident. Federal courts are options if there is complete diversity of citizenship, meaning that all plaintiffs reside in a state different from all defendants, or if there is “federal question” jurisdiction. In tractor trailer crash cases, we usually but not always file in state courts in Georgia because of the relatively more user-friendly procedures in the state court system. Occasionally, we choose to file in a federal court when available rather than a small, rural county where the trucking company and its driver are located. Most often, plaintiff attorneys file cases in state courts against out of state trucking companies and drivers based on the Nonresident Motorist jurisdiction provisions which provide for venue where the crash happened or where the injured Georgia resident resides, Then the defense usually files a notice of removal to federal court under “diversity of citizenship” jurisdiction.

Rarely does a defendant in a trucking case claim “federal question” jurisdiction in federal court. However, that happened in a case recently in which we are co-counsel in five of six cases arising from a tragic crash at the intersection of I-16 and I-96 in Pooler just outside Savannah, and preparing the briefs in all six companion cases. As the plaintiffs and two defendants are Georgians, there was no diversity jurisdiction. The last defendant served filed notices to remove all six cases from the State Court of Chatham County to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, claiming that the Shipping Act of 1984 created federal question jurisdiction. We immediately filed motions to remand all the cases back to the State Court of Chatham County.

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