Rogue Trucking Companies

Truck drivers and trucking companies must abide by federal and state laws that have been put in place to protect the safety of the public. These laws include hours of service rules, requirements for logbooks, and rules for inspecting and maintaining trucks on a regular basis. Unfortunately, some trucking companies do not follow these rules, considering them burdensome and valuing profits ahead of people.

For example, a trucking company may tacitly or explicitly encourage a truck driver to work longer hours than allowed by law so that a tight delivery deadline may be met. When it sees the false hours recorded in the logbook, it may look away or even reward the truck driver for violating the law. This can be problematic because truck drivers who do not get adequate rest are more likely to be driving while fatigued or using drugs to stay awake, which means that they are more likely to cause harmful accidents on the road.

Rogue trucking companies have a history of violations like these. They may accumulate numerous violations of federal and state laws that specify the standard of care. Sometimes, they set up new companies with different names to hide their record of poor adherence to safety regulations. Their businesses may be underfunded or uninsured, or they may fail to follow the rules related to corporate forms and documentation.

Due to the tendency of rogue trucking companies to hide their bad behavior, it may be challenging to hold them responsible for a truck accident. To hold a trucking company responsible for negligence, you will need to prove that the company owed a duty of care, breached that duty, and in breaching the duty caused your injuries.

You may also be able to hold a rogue trucking company directly liable for negligent hiring, training, or supervision. For example, if a trucking company fails to conduct background checks for its drivers or looks the other way after seeing multiple DUIs or legal violations on a driver’s record, it may be held liable for negligent hiring.

You may also have a cause of action for negligence per se, which would require you to establish that the defendant violated a safety law, that you belong to a group that was supposed to be protected by the safety law, and that you suffered injuries of a type that the law was designed to prevent.

It is critical to retain an attorney who understands how to investigate a rogue trucking company and any successor companies, how to determine whether the company has accumulated other violations under a different name, and how to craft a strong strategy for actually recovering the damages that you are entitled to.