Massachusetts Truck Accident Lawyers You Can Trust

Yes, and Massachusetts puts that obligation on you personally rather than only on police. 

Under M.G.L. c. 90 § 26, you must file a written crash report whenever a collision causes injury, death, or property damage over $1,000. Truck collisions clear that threshold almost automatically. The report goes to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, your local police department, and the police department in the community where the crash happened, and it is due within five days. 

The trucking company has a parallel obligation you should know about. Under Code of Federal Regulations 49 CFR 390.15, motor carriers must maintain an accident register recording the date, location, driver, vehicle, injuries, fatalities, and any hazardous materials involvement. A crash qualifies as DOT-reportable if someone died, someone required medical treatment away from the scene, or any vehicle was towed away. 

That register exists whether or not anyone asks for it, and it is retained for three years. It becomes a useful early document in a claim, because the carrier created it without knowing you would eventually request it.

Yes, and you file it with your own insurer, not the trucking company's. 

Massachusetts is a no-fault state for medical benefits. Personal Injury Protection on your own auto policy pays your treatment and part of your lost income regardless of who caused the collision. That obligation belongs to your carrier even when a commercial truck was entirely at fault. 

PIP is capped at $8,000. If you carry private health insurance, PIP pays the first $2,000 of medical expenses and your health plan becomes primary after that, with PIP covering deductibles and copays inside the same ceiling. It also pays up to 75 percent of lost wages. 

Request the PIP application from your insurer promptly. Delay is the most common reason benefits get interrupted. 

The claim against the truck driver and the motor carrier runs separately and later, once treatment has progressed enough to establish the extent of your injuries. Filing PIP does not waive it, and failing to file PIP does not strengthen it. 

Go, and go the same day. Truck collisions are the category where declining transport causes the most damage to both your health and your claim. 

The reason is physics. A loaded tractor-trailer can weigh twenty to thirty times what a passenger vehicle weighs, so the forces transferred into your body are on a different scale than an ordinary fender bender. Adrenaline masks that in the first hours. Concussions, internal bleeding, disc injuries, and soft tissue damage routinely present a day or several days later. 

There is a documentation reason too. Massachusetts insurers dispute causation aggressively when there is a gap between the crash and the first medical visit, and that argument becomes difficult to rebut once it exists in the record. 

Tell every provider the collision involved a commercial truck. It affects how they evaluate you, and it puts the mechanism of injury in your chart from the beginning. 

If you declined transport at the scene, go to urgent care or your physician that day rather than waiting to see how you feel.

Usually more parties than people expect, and identifying them early matters because each carries separate insurance. 

The driver is the obvious defendant. The motor carrier is often the more significant one, because employers are generally responsible for the negligence of employees acting within the scope of employment, and federal leasing rules make carriers accountable for drivers operating under their authority even when nominally independent contractors. 

Beyond those two, depending on what happened: the owner of the tractor, the separate owner of the trailer, a freight broker that selected an unsafe carrier, the shipper or the company that loaded improperly secured or overweight cargo, a maintenance contractor that performed or skipped a repair, and the manufacturer of a component that failed. 

Another motorist may share fault, and a public entity may be involved where road design or maintenance contributed. 

The practical point is that a case named against the driver alone can leave substantial coverage untouched. Establishing the corporate relationships requires the carrier's own records.

Probably not, though truck cases reach trial more often than ordinary car claims. 

Most Massachusetts personal injury matters resolve by settlement. What makes trucking different is the size of the exposure and the number of parties. Multiple defendants with separate insurers means multiple parties who each want to shift responsibility, and that slows agreement. 

Filing suit is not the same as trying a case. Litigation opens formal discovery, which is frequently the only way to obtain driver logs, electronic logging data, maintenance files, training records, and internal safety communications. Many cases settle after that material surfaces, precisely because it surfaces. 

Boston-area cases are typically filed in Suffolk County Superior Court or the Superior Court for the county where the crash occurred, depending on venue. 

One practical consideration in choosing counsel: insurers price cases partly on whether a firm actually tries them. A firm known to settle everything gets treated accordingly, and that shows up in the offer long before trial is ever scheduled.

Two categories, from two different sources. 

Your own PIP pays medical treatment and up to 75 percent of lost wages, capped at $8,000, without regard to fault. 

The claim against the truck driver and motor carrier covers what PIP does not. Medical expenses above the cap, full lost income, diminished earning capacity, future medical and rehabilitative care, and pain and suffering once you clear the Massachusetts tort threshold. Permanent impairment and disfigurement are compensable, as are home and vehicle modifications where injuries require them. 

Where a truck crash is fatal, M.G.L. c. 229 § 2 provides a wrongful death claim for the family, covering loss of expected net income, services, protection, care, companionship, comfort, guidance, counsel and advice, along with funeral expenses. A spouse may bring a separate loss of consortium claim. 

Available coverage tends to be substantially larger than in car cases, which matters when injuries are catastrophic and a personal auto policy would otherwise cap recovery well below actual losses.

Federal regulations layer on top of Massachusetts negligence law, and violations of them frequently establish the negligence directly.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations at 49 CFR Parts 350 through 399 govern interstate carriers and much intrastate operation. They cover hours of service limits, electronic logging, driver qualification and medical certification, drug and alcohol testing, cargo securement, vehicle inspection and maintenance, and commercial licensing. 

The retention periods are the urgent part. Electronic logging device data must be kept only six months. Driver vehicle inspection reports, three months. Vehicle maintenance records, twelve months. Driver qualification files, employment plus three years. Accident registers, three years. 

That six-month window on electronic logs is why truck cases demand immediate action. Once the retention period expires, a carrier can destroy the record that shows a driver had been at the wheel too long, and nothing improper has occurred. 

A written preservation demand sent early is often what separates a provable case from a plausible one.

No honest figure exists, and Massachusetts professional conduct rules restrict advertising numbers that create unjustified expectations. 

Available coverage often sets the practical ceiling, and it is where trucking differs most from car cases. Interstate general freight carriers operating vehicles over 10,001 pounds must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage under 49 CFR Part 387. Many voluntarily carry $1 million because brokers and shippers require it, and hazardous materials and passenger operations run from $1 million to $5 million. Larger fleets frequently hold excess layers above that. 

Beyond coverage, value turns on the severity and permanence of injury, the strength of objective medical evidence, lost earning capacity, whether liability is contested, and how many parties share responsibility. 

Comparative fault reduces recovery by your assigned percentage, and bars it entirely above 50 percent. 

Then liens come off the top. Health insurers, MassHealth, Medicare, and PIP carriers all assert reimbursement rights, which is why gross settlement and net recovery are different numbers. 

Before you accept a settlement agreement in your truck accident case, be aware of all the damages you could be entitled to. This understanding could help you reach a fair settlement with the insurance companies. These damages could include:

Lost Wages

You could replace your lost wages through a successful truck accident injury claim or lawsuit. Your compensation could cover past and future wages you miss out on due to your injury.

Medical Bills

Medical expenses could also make up a substantial portion of your personal injury settlement. Your compensation could pay for treatment like surgeries, physical therapy, and hospitalization.

Property Damage

You might also be entitled to compensation based on the damage your motor vehicle sustained. When passenger cars collide with commercial vehicles, the damage is often catastrophic. You could be entitled to damages that allow you to repair or replace your vehicle.

The cause of a truck accident will not always be obvious. In some cases, one party might be noticeably at fault, but a thorough investigation could be necessary in others. Your truck accident attorney could identify more than one defendant in a potential truck accident injury lawsuit.

Determining the at-fault party is important if you intend to seek monetary compensation for your injuries. Establishing that another party acted negligently in causing your accident is necessary. Without establishing negligence, your case will be unsuccessful. Some of the parties that could be at fault for a truck accident include:

Truck Operators

Most people point the finger at the truck driver following an accident with a commercial vehicle—and for good reason. Truck accidents have many causes, but human error is frequently a factor.

Some acts of negligence in these accidents are no different than any other vehicle collision. Truck drivers often cause collisions by:

• Driving distracted
• Driving too fast for conditions
• Failing to yield the right-of-way
• Turning without signaling
• Violating federal regulations, i.e., overloading their truck or ignoring rest requirements and becoming fatigued

Trucking Companies

The trucking company could be liable for your damages for multiple reasons. The company could be at fault based entirely on their employee’s negligence. Under the doctrine of vicarious liability, an employer is responsible when their employee negligently causes an accident while acting within the scope of their employment.

For example, a driver that is involved in an accident while driving a company truck to make a delivery could make their employer accountable.

There are other times when the trucking company could be at fault. Specifically, the company or one of its agents could act negligently and cause an accident. This could occur when the company is careless in its hiring practices. It could also result from the trucking company failing to property load the vehicle or ensure a truck is in safe, working order.

The Government

Road conditions can also play a big part in causing a truck accident. If the road is not properly designed or maintained, otherwise avoidable accidents could happen. When road conditions play a part in a crash, the government entity responsible for maintaining that roadway could be at fault. There are strict rules when it comes to pursuing an injury lawsuit with the government, making it important to seek legal counsel immediately.

Truck Manufacturers

The makers of commercial vehicles or their parts could also be to blame for a truck crash. When defects cause these collisions, holding the truck manufacturer accountable could be possible under something known as the strict liability standard. Under this standard, you could recover damages even without establishing the truck manufacturer was negligent.

Some accidents are more severe than others, and oftentimes this has to do with the cause and kind of accident. This information may be helpful for your attorneys to determine the cause of the collision and the responsible party. It may also help accident reconstructionists to analyze your collision.

Here are some common kinds of truck accidents:

• Rollovers. If the tractor-trailer rolls, they become a much larger obstacle to avoid on the road. While truck drivers are often safer from injury in these kinds of collisions, passenger vehicles may be severely damaged, their riders suffering catastrophic injuries.
• Jackknife accidents. When the trailer becomes out of sync with the cab, the two pieces of the truck may bend to form a 90-degree angle. Needless to say, this becomes impossible to control and can result in severe collisions.
• Wide turn accidents. These commercial trucks do not have the sharp turning radius that most passenger vehicles do. This means they may take a wider turn and collide with vehicles in nearby lanes.
• Blind spot accidents. Because of the length of their cargo container, they have long blindspots. This may lead them to change lanes or make a wide turn into another vehicle. These often result in underride accidents.
• Underride accidents. When a smaller car gets lodged under the trailer of a big rig, passengers may suffer severe injuries as they are subject to the weight and motion of the larger truck.
• Tire blowouts. Blowouts are fairly common on tractor-trailers, but the tires may become shredded obstacles for other cars to run over or avoid; they may also cause the driver of the truck to lose control. Negligent truck drivers may ignore the signs of a worn tire and cause a blowout.
• Runaway trailer accidents. With the added weight of the trailer and its cargo, the truck may find itself unable to brake on steep inclines or declines. This results in a runaway truck that may collide with anything in its path. Runaway trucks may be the cause of inexperience or inadequate truck maintenance resulting in brake failure.
• Head-on collisions. Vehicles that stray out of their lanes or run traffic lights may collide head-on with other vehicles.
• Rear-end crashes. When another vehicle collides with the back of a tractor-trailer, they may also get lodged underneath the trailer. If not, they are still susceptible to devastating injuries.

Having an attorney by your side during the course of your truck accident injury case is invaluable. If you are concerned about the financial cost of hiring a truck accident lawyer, you could pursue your case without any upfront costs. This opportunity is possible thanks to something known as a contingency-fee agreement.

Most personal injury attorneys—including our firm—operate on a contingency basis. While other types of lawyers often charge by the hour, our firm does not. Instead, we obtain our fee by retaining a portion of any compensation we recover for you. This percentage is agreed upon upfront.

Hiring our attorneys on a contingency basis allows you to pursue your truck accident claim or lawsuit without carrying the risk. You do not owe us anything until we secure fair compensation for you.

You should never put your truck accident injury case at risk by attempting to handle it on your own. You have the right to act as your own attorney, but that does not mean doing so would be in your best interest. Your attorney could assist you with building a strong case for negligence while avoiding legal pitfalls.

The team at Ged Lawyers has a track record of successfully pursuing truck accident injury lawsuits. If you are ready to speak about how our truck accident lawyers could help, our Massachusetts firm is ready to help. Reach out right away for a free consultation. You likely have a limited time to file a lawsuit under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260 § 2A, so act promptly.