What you do after getting hit by a delivery truck can affect your claim for money damages. You need to take steps for the benefit of your health and your legal rights.
Get Medical Attention
You should get medical care right after the delivery truck accident. Injuries can become critical quickly, and you want to be in the hands of medical professionals in case you go into shock or have severe bleeding. You might not have noticed all of your injuries, but the emergency room personnel can treat your visible harm and assess you for other injuries.
Injuries do not always show symptoms immediately, even though you have sustained significant harm. Internal injuries could be causing life-threatening bleeding internally before you realize that there is a problem.
With some other injuries, it could be days before you detect symptoms. You might have a blood clot or bleeding in the brain or a spinal cord injury and experience additional harm before you experience signs of injury. Irreparable damage can happen by that time. You should always get a trauma examination after a significant motor vehicle accident.
Protect Your Legal Rights
As soon as you have addressed the initial medical issues, you should talk with a lawyer. The insurance companies of the delivery truck driver and the delivery company will gear up right away to defend themselves from your injury claim.
Once you get a lawyer, the insurance company is not allowed to contact you directly. The insurer will have to go through your lawyer. For example, if the adjuster asks you to give a recorded statement, you can tell her to talk to your lawyer.
Your lawyer can protect you from the tactics that insurance companies use to pay people less money than they might deserve. People who accept early settlement offers without having a lawyer often find out later that they should have gotten much more money.
We can investigate the crash and gather the evidence to build your case. We can collect the police report, your medical records, and your employment records. We use employer records to prove how long you were out of work without pay because of your injuries.
Preserve the Evidence
Let your lawyer know if you or someone else took photos or videos at the scene of the accident. Try to get the names and contact information of people who might have seen something that could be useful to your case.
Medical Records
When you get medical care, make sure that you tell the doctor or intake personnel that you got hurt in a crash with a delivery truck. Your medical records will be strong evidence in your claim for money damages. The medical file needs to link the harm you suffered to the cause of the injury – the delivery truck accident.
Your medical records will also fix the time at which your injuries happened if you go for medical care right away. If you wait for a few days, trying to tough it out or hoping that you will get better on your own, the defendant can argue that you did not get hurt in the truck accident. The driver or delivery company can say that you got hurt in some later incident. They do not have that argument if you get medical treatment right after the wreck.
Who Can Be Liable in a Wreck with a Delivery Truck
If the delivery truck driver’s carelessness caused the collision that hurt you, both the driver and the delivery company can be liable for your losses. The driver can be responsible for his own negligence, such as driving too many hours, and the company can have liability under two different legal theories:
Vicarious Liability
An employer can be responsible for the actions of an employee even if the employer did not participate in the carelessness that harmed you. The theory of vicarious liability says that, but for the employer hiring the driver to do the job, you would not have gotten hurt.
Negligent Hiring, Training, or Supervising
The delivery company can be liable if it was careless when it hired the driver or when it was performing its duties of training and supervising. If an adequate background check would have revealed a driving record of multiple accidents with injuries caused by reckless driving, but the company did not pull the driving record, the company is guilty of negligent hiring.
The delivery company has a duty to make sure the driver has sufficient training to operate the delivery truck. If the failure to properly train the driver caused the wreck, the company is liable on the ground of negligent training.
If the driver causes several collisions or gets moving violations like DUIs, the delivery company should take corrective action, like suspending or firing the driver. If the company fails to take appropriate action, the company has engaged in negligent supervision.
Getting Legal Help
If you got hurt after getting hit by a delivery truck, a lawyer can help you go after money damages for your losses. Don’t delay in taking legal action. Under Georgia law, you have two years to recover damages for your losses. Call S. Burke Law today at 404-842-7838 for your free consultation.