Shreveport’s 18-wheeler wrecks happen on I-20 and I-49, on the Inner Loop, and at the intersections along Bert Kouns, Mansfield Road, Texas Street, and Youree Drive where dump trucks and other commercial vehicles cross city traffic. The people in them go to Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport on Kings Highway, to Willis-Knighton, or to CHRISTUS Highland. The Shreveport Police Department writes the report inside the city, and the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office writes it for the rest of the parish. Caddo Parish suits can be filed and tried at the First Judicial District Court, 501 Texas Street. Trey Morris Injury Lawyers is at 509 Milam Street, across the street from that courthouse.
What separates a truck case from a fender bender is the paper: when the carrier or the driver broke a federal safety rule, that violation is itself evidence of liability, and the file holding it does not sit still.
Results for Louisiana Clients
- $17.25 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
Client was struck head-on by a disconnected load of an 18-wheeler that crossed the median causing broken bones and amputation.
- $13 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
On the interstate, an 18-wheeler failed to yield right of way then made an unsafe lane change causing the accident which resulted in major bone breaks, damaged organs, and ultimately a leg amputation.
- $7 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
An 18-wheeler cut across traffic on an illegal left turn and hit our client, who suffered neck and back injuries.
- $4 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
Our client's vehicle was struck by the at-fault vehicle, resulting in neck and back injuries.
- $3.25 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
Commercial vehicle collision. Details not publicly disclosed.
- $3.2 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
While our client was stopped, the at-fault driver rear-ended our client's vehicle and set it on fire, leaving our client seriously hurt.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; each case is decided on its own facts.
Common Causes of Truck Accidents
Driver Fatigue and Hours-of-Service Violations
The driver is too worn out to be behind the wheel, usually because the driving went past the hours federal law allows. Fatigue turns up as a factor in roughly 13% of large truck crashes in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Large Truck Crash Causation Study. A carrier builds its own liability when it sets a delivery schedule that only works if a driver skips rest, and doctoring electronic logging device (ELD) records to bury those hours stacks more exposure on the company. On the I-20 and I-49 corridors through Shreveport, where long-haul freight runs straight into local congestion, a tired driver is a standing problem, not a freak event.
Speeding and Traveling Too Fast for Conditions
Federal law caps a loaded tractor-trailer at 80,000 pounds on the Interstate Highway System under 23 CFR § 658.17, and the limits on each axle and on how the weight spreads across the axles can hold a truck below that figure. Louisiana’s general limit at La. R.S. 32:386 is also 80,000 pounds, but a truck with a set of three or four axles grouped together (a tridem or quadrum) may weigh up to 83,400 pounds on the interstate and 88,000 pounds on other state highways, a natural-gas truck may carry up to 2,000 pounds more, and a load that cannot be broken down can run heavier under a special permit. Energy climbs with the square of speed, so the same truck at 70 mph carries four times what it carries at 35. Speeding is tied to roughly 23% of large truck crashes in FMCSA data. 49 CFR § 392.14 tells a driver to slow down or park when conditions make going on unsafe, and the carrier owns a share of the blame when it pays by the mile or sets a delivery window nobody can meet at a legal speed.
Brake Failures and Mechanical Defects
Brake problems turn up in roughly 29% of the trucks involved in crashes, per FMCSA data. Tire failures appear in about 6% of large truck crashes, and Louisiana heat makes that worse, breaking rubber down faster and raising blowout risk on the interstate. 49 CFR Part 396 requires a carrier to keep its vehicles in safe operating condition and to run systematic inspections and repairs. Fault in a mechanical case usually spreads across the carrier, the shop that ran the last inspection, and the manufacturer of a defective part, and maintenance logs, inspection reports, and repair receipts settle which of them met its obligations and which did not.
Improperly Secured Cargo and Overloading
An unsecured load is what rolls a truck or jackknifes it. Jackknifing is the trailer swinging outward at the articulating joint, the hinge between cab and trailer, and folding against the tractor cab. Once it folds, it sweeps across lanes it was never in, and the wreck reaches vehicles that were nowhere near the truck. Federal cargo securement standards at 49 CFR Part 393, Subpart I require cargo to be secured against shifting and spell out how each type has to be tied down, blocked, and braced, and how its weight is distributed. A truck over the weight limit also changes how it handles and how it stops.
Distraction, Blind Spots, and Unsafe Lane Changes
Inattention and inadequate surveillance, meaning nobody checked the mirrors or watched the blind spots, shows up in roughly 14% of the crashes FMCSA studied. A driver stops watching the road for a phone, a GPS screen, or a sandwich, and cell phone records and in-cab camera footage are what prove distraction.
A commercial truck has blind spots on all four sides, called No Zones in the trade. Cyclists and passenger cars sitting in one of them are in the worst possible place when the truck changes lanes or turns. In Shreveport the trouble spots are the Stack, where I-20 and I-49 come together, and the narrowed interstate lanes wherever construction is running. One sudden lane change by a loaded truck can start a jackknife or push a smaller vehicle into the guardrail. The carrier shares the fault when the driver training records show the instruction on safe vehicle operation was thin.
Impaired Driving
Drug use, counting legal over-the-counter medication, is a factor in roughly 17% of large truck crashes per FMCSA data. 49 CFR Part 382 requires the trucking company to test its surviving driver for alcohol and drugs after any crash in which someone died. When the crash instead injured someone who was treated away from the scene, or damaged a vehicle so badly it had to be towed, the test is required only if the truck driver gets a ticket for a moving violation from the crash, within 8 hours for the alcohol test or 32 hours for the drug test. If the company has not given the alcohol test within 8 hours or the drug test within 32 hours, it must stop trying and write down why (49 CFR § 382.303(c) and (d)). A positive test is evidence of fault, and those results become some of the strongest evidence in your file. A carrier picks up its own exposure when it skips the pre-employment and random testing Part 382 requires, or fails to check a new driver’s drug and alcohol history under 49 CFR Part 391, and reading a positive result and putting the driver back on the road anyway is a failure that belongs to the company.
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Types of Truck Collisions
The configuration you were in shapes the whole claim: what has to be investigated and preserved, which federal rules the carrier broke, how fault gets divided among the parties, and the settlement value of the claim. The specific causes of truck accidents in your wreck shape the proof and the questions put to the carrier. In 2023, 5,375 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes across the country according to National Safety Council data.
Jackknife
Hard braking or a trailer losing traction can pivot the trailer up to 90 degrees. Wet or icy pavement and shifting cargo are the usual triggers. Federal vehicle standards at 49 CFR Part 393 and 49 CFR Part 396 set the design and maintenance requirements for articulated commercial trucks.
Underride
An underride is a smaller vehicle sliding beneath the rear or the side of a trailer. The roof of the passenger compartment can shear off on impact, which is why these rank among the deadliest crashes involving commercial trucks. Federal law requires most heavy trailers and semitrailers to carry rear impact guards, usually called Mansfield bars, under 49 CFR Part 393, though a few specialized trailers, such as pole and pulpwood trailers, do not need one. Whether the guard was there, whether it was kept in good condition, and whether it met the strength standard in force when the trailer was built is the central question in most underride cases.
Rollover
A rollover puts the truck on its side or its roof, blocking lanes and setting up a second round of collisions behind it. Tank trucks are especially exposed because of liquid cargo slosh, which is the fluid inside a partly filled tank moving and dragging the center of gravity sideways in a turn. Flatbeds are exposed when the load was not secured to the federal cargo rules in 49 CFR Part 393.100. Speed on a curve and an overloaded trailer are the two factors that show up most often.
Rear-End Collision
A rear-end truck collision is a loaded commercial vehicle unable to stop before it reaches the vehicle in front. A fully loaded tractor-trailer at highway speed needs about 525 feet to stop, against roughly 316 feet for a passenger car, according to FMCSA data. When the truck is tucked in behind you and you brake, the physics do not leave room for it to stop, whatever the driver does with the pedal. Brake system problems show up again and again as a contributing factor. The Large Truck Crash Causation Study ranked rear-end events among the most common large truck crash configurations, and on I-20 and I-49 around Shreveport, a loaded truck reaching slowed or stopped traffic is how a chain-reaction pileup starts.
Head-On Collision
A head-on with a commercial truck at highway speed produces severe or fatal injuries, and no passenger vehicle is built to absorb what that mass generates. Fatigue is a leading reason a truck drifts into oncoming traffic. ELD records show whether the driver stayed inside the federal hours-of-service limits, which puts them at the center of any fatigue case.
T-Bone (Side-Impact)
A T-bone is the front of one vehicle striking the side of another at an intersection. Dump trucks and other heavy commercial vehicles show up often in Shreveport intersection wrecks. Running a red light and missing a vehicle in a blind spot are the two usual causes. Side-impact crashes account for a large share of fatal large truck collisions according to FMCSA crash data.
Sideswipe and Wide-Turn Squeeze
A sideswipe is a truck touching a vehicle in the next lane during a lane change. Its cousin, the wide-turn squeeze, happens when a tractor-trailer swings out to make a right turn and the trailer pins a smaller vehicle against the curb or a pole. Both raise the same questions: were the mirrors maintained, was there a camera system, and did the driver follow the turn procedure the carrier was supposed to teach.
Injuries From Truck Wrecks
Truck injuries sort into severity tiers, and where yours falls drives both your future medical needs and what the claim is worth. Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport is Northwest Louisiana’s only Level I Adult Trauma Center and Level II Pediatric Trauma Program, and it takes 2,500 or more trauma patient encounters a year. Willis-Knighton Health System adds hospital capacity across several campuses. If an ambulance took you to either system after a wreck on I-20, I-49, or a surface street, the severity of what happened to you is already written down in your chart.

These are the injuries that come through Shreveport truck cases:
- Traumatic brain injury. Your head does not have to hit the wheel, the window, or the dash: rapid deceleration by itself can throw the brain against the inside of the skull.
- Spinal cord injury, paralysis, and amputation. Rollovers and rear-end collisions are the truck crash types that produce spinal cord damage most often, and an estimated 62% of spinal cord injuries from truck crashes result in partial or complete disability requiring care for life. Lifetime medical cost can run into the millions, which is why the life care planner gets retained early instead of at the end.
- Burns. Fuel spills, ruptured tanks, and electrical fires in truck wrecks produce burns well past anything a passenger-car collision does. Diesel is less volatile than gasoline, but it burns hotter and longer once it goes.
- Fractures. Truck crash forces break bones differently than car accidents do: compound, comminuted, and pelvic fractures, not the clean break that heals in a cast.
- Internal injuries. Blunt force can damage the liver, kidneys, spleen, or lungs without leaving a mark on the outside, and symptoms often hold off for hours or days.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder. Over 20% of truck crash survivors develop PTSD, and the number climbs when the wreck involved a death, a fire, or entrapment.
- Whiplash and soft tissue injuries. In a truck collision the force behind the snap of the head is extreme, and because these injuries do not always show on an X-ray or an MRI, clinical examination and a symptom log carry the proof.
An adjuster will point at the gap between the crash and a delayed diagnosis and argue the wreck did not cause it. If you had prior injuries to the same part of the body, count on the defense raising that too. Under Act No. 18 of 2025, the Housley presumption is gone in civil tort cases. It used to let a court presume medical causation in certain situations. Now expert medical testimony is what establishes that the truck wreck caused the injury.
Louisiana Laws That Affect Your Claim
Comparative Fault Under La. C.C. Art. 2323
Louisiana splits responsibility for a wreck among everyone who contributed, stated as a percentage, under La. C.C. Art. 2323. That is comparative fault, and what you collect comes down by your percentage of fault. For accidents on or after January 1, 2026, Act No. 15 of 2025 amended Art. 2323 to add a 51% bar: assigned 51% or more of the fault, you collect nothing. Accidents before that date stay under the old rule, pure comparative fault, which lets you collect something even at 99% fault.
The defense will push as much of that percentage onto you as it can, and insurers raise defenses like assumption of risk to move blame off the driver and the carrier. Pinning down the real cause of the wreck, with documented federal violations and preserved electronic data behind it, is how your attorney answers an inflated fault number.
The Two-Year Filing Deadline
You have two years from the day you were hurt to file suit (La. C.C. Art. 3493.1). Louisiana calls this deadline a prescriptive period, and once it runs, the right to bring the claim is gone no matter how strong the evidence.
Federal Trucking Rules
FMCSA rules on driving hours, maintenance, and driver qualifications reach any commercial motor vehicle operating in interstate commerce that has a weight rating or actual weight of 10,001 pounds or more, carries placarded hazardous materials, or is built to carry nine or more passengers for pay or sixteen or more otherwise (49 CFR Part 390.5). That covers 18-wheelers, tankers, dump trucks, box trucks, and many delivery trucks on I-20, I-49, and the Inner Loop, and Louisiana adopts these rules for intrastate carriers as well.
Louisiana does not treat a violation of these rules as automatic proof of negligence (Faucheaux v. Terrebonne Consol. Gov’t, 615 So.2d 289 (La. 1993)). When a defendant breaks a safety rule written to protect people like you from the harm that happened, the broken rule does much of the work of proving fault (Boyer v. Johnson, 360 So.2d 1164 (La. 1978)). Our Louisiana truck accident page explains the hours-of-service limits and the other federal rules that create liability, and the causes of truck accidents page covers the violations that turn up in Northwest Louisiana cases.
Who Is Liable for a Truck Accident?
A commercial truck crash on I-20, I-49, or any street in Shreveport can involve three, four, or more responsible parties, where an ordinary car wreck has one other driver and one policy. Each liable party may carry its own insurance, so missing one responsible party can mean missing that party’s coverage. A jury assigns a fault percentage to every person or company whose conduct caused the crash, whether or not they are sued, based on what each one did, so adding defendants does not change any share of fault that is yours. Each defendant pays only its own percentage, which is why every responsible party needs to be in the case: one left out still carries its share of the fault, but you cannot collect that share from the defendants who are in the case.
The Driver and the Trucking Company
Commercial drivers hold a Commercial Driver’s License, or CDL. A CDL holder passes knowledge and skills tests, keeps a medical certification current, and lives under stricter traffic-violation rules than the rest of us. Because of that training and licensing, courts hold a CDL driver to a higher standard of care. The FMCSA also disqualifies drivers for serious traffic violations. Two serious violations in three years means a 60-day disqualification from operating a commercial vehicle. Three in three years means 120 days. If the carrier kept a disqualified driver on the road and that driver hit you, the company has its own layer of liability on top of the driver’s.
The carrier usually has more insurance and more exposure than the driver does, and two theories put it in the case. Under La. C.C. Art. 2320, an employer is liable for damages its employee causes acting within the scope of employment, which is called respondeat superior, Latin for let the master answer. Labeling the driver an independent contractor does not end that inquiry: where the carrier controls how the work gets done, the court treats the driver as an employee whatever the written agreement says.
The carrier also answers for its own negligence. Under 49 CFR Part 391, a carrier has to look into each new driver’s safety record with the DOT-regulated employers the driver worked for in the past three years. It has to get the replies, or proof of its good-faith efforts to get them, into its files within 30 days after the driver starts work. Skipping that check can support a negligent hiring claim. 49 CFR § 391.11 sets the floor for commercial drivers: at least 21 years old, able to read and speak English well enough for the job, trained or experienced enough to handle the truck, physically qualified, holding a valid commercial license, not disqualified, and road-tested. When a carrier puts an underqualified driver on I-20 or I-49 in the middle of Shreveport traffic and that driver’s shortcomings help cause the wreck, the carrier answers directly for it. The driver qualification file, which federal law makes the carrier keep, is key evidence. Both theories are pleaded in the same Caddo Parish suit.
Manufacturers, Loaders, Shops, and Government Entities
When a defective part causes or worsens a crash (brakes that fail on a grade, a tire that lets go, a steering column that locks, a coupling that separates, an underride guard that folds), the manufacturer is in the case on its own footing. The Louisiana Products Liability Act, at La. R.S. 9:2800.51 et seq., is the only route for a defective product claim in this state. A defective part claim has to move fast, because the physical part goes to a scrapyard long before any deadline arrives.
The company that loaded the trailer, the shipper who directed the loading, and the broker who arranged the shipment each answer for their own work. When a third-party loading company controls how the load is packed and strapped, that company faces its own negligence liability under La. C.C. Art. 2315 if bad loading caused the wreck, and a loader that overloads the trailer past the weight limits has handed you a negligence claim separate from anything the driver or carrier did.
A third-party maintenance shop answers directly when bad repair work causes a mechanical failure, and it can be named as a defendant when the records show the defect was sitting there and its last inspection missed it. A shop that does faulty brake work or turns a truck loose on worn tires can be liable right alongside the carrier.
If a bad road condition on a Shreveport street or a Louisiana highway helped cause the crash, the Louisiana DOTD or the city may share fault. A claim against a government entity carries its own notice provisions and procedural requirements that private claims do not have, which our Shreveport injury page covers.
Insurance Layers
The FMCSA requires interstate motor carriers to hold minimum liability coverage under 49 CFR § 387.9, and the minimum depends on the load:
- For-hire carriers of non-hazardous freight in vehicles rated at 10,001 lbs or more: $750,000 minimum liability coverage
- Oil transport: $1,000,000 minimum liability coverage
- Hazardous materials (certain highly dangerous categories): $5,000,000 minimum liability coverage
Those are federal floors, and large carriers and shippers often carry excess or umbrella policies well above them. One crash can reach the driver’s own policy when the driver is an independent contractor, the carrier’s primary and excess policies, the insurer of a leased trailer, the shipper’s or loader’s liability coverage, and a maintenance contractor’s general liability policy. When a carrier leases vehicles or drivers from another company, 49 CFR § 376.12 extends the motor carrier’s liability to those leased assets, which can add another responsible party and another policy to your claim.
When several defendants share fault, Louisiana’s rule under La. C.C. Art. 2324 decides how much each one owes. In a truck crash caused by carelessness, each defendant pays only its own percentage of fault. No defendant has to cover another’s share, even when that other defendant is broke or has no insurance. That is why finding every responsible party and every policy matters: a share of fault that lands on a company with nothing to take is money you may never collect.
Louisiana’s direct action statute, La. R.S. 22:1269, allows a lawsuit directly against the at-fault party’s insurance company only in limited situations, such as when the insured is bankrupt, insolvent, or deceased, cannot be served, or when the claim is against your own uninsured motorist carrier. In most cases the suit names the driver and the carrier, and the insurer stays out of the caption.
Your own auto policy can matter here too. Under La. R.S. § 22:1295, every Louisiana auto policy has to include uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage unless you waived it in writing, and it pays when the at-fault party’s insurance runs out before your losses do. Even a $750,000 carrier policy comes up short in a catastrophic injury case.
Steps to Take After a Shreveport Truck Wreck
What you do in the hours and days after a truck wreck decides whether the case holds up. Get to the shoulder if you can, call 911, do not leave the scene, and get medical care the same day. The trucking company’s insurer will call you, possibly the same day, and ask for a recorded statement. You have no legal obligation to give the other side’s insurer a recorded statement, so let the call go to voicemail until you have talked to a lawyer. Leave the scene, skip medical treatment, or make an admission in a recorded statement, and the defense will use it to argue you carry part of the fault or that you failed to hold your own losses down.
A truck case adds steps a car wreck does not:
- Get the carrier’s identifiers. The driver may work for one company, the tractor may be owned by another, and the trailer may be leased from a third. Get the truck’s license plate, the carrier name on the side of the trailer, the driver’s name, license number, and insurance information, and the USDOT and MC numbers painted on the cab door as FMCSA regulations require. The USDOT number is what lets your attorney pull the carrier’s safety record, inspection history, and prior violations. If the driver names an employer, a dispatcher, or an insurance carrier, write that down too.
- Record the truck and the scene. Photograph your vehicle, the truck, the road surface, the signals, skid marks, debris, the weather, and any injury you can see, and take down the name and phone number of anyone who saw it happen. Write down the color of the cab, the lane it came from, and the time on the clock, then sketch the crash: lanes, direction of travel, where the truck was when you first saw it, and where each vehicle came to rest. A drawing made this week is worth more than a description given in a deposition next year.
- Keep your own evidence. Do not repair or dispose of your vehicle until it has been documented. Ask your provider for the complete chart, not the visit summary, and keep the crash report, every receipt, and every text, email, and voicemail from the insurance company or the trucking company in one folder.
What a Truck Accident Claim Can Recover
Louisiana sorts what you can collect into economic and non-economic damages. In truck cases the economic figures run higher than in car-on-car collisions because the injuries are worse and the healing takes months or years, and a complete figure takes an economist and a life care planner projecting future loss, not a stack of current medical bills. Louisiana does not cap non-economic damages in truck cases against private carriers or in other standard personal injury cases. Medical malpractice is the exception, where a statutory cap limits the total.
La. C.C. Art. 2315.4 allows exemplary damages when an intoxicated driver’s wanton or reckless disregard for the rights and safety of others caused the injury and the intoxication was a cause in fact of it. That is one of the narrow openings in a state that generally bars punitive damages. When a truck wreck kills someone, Louisiana gives the family two separate actions, which our Shreveport wrongful death page explains.
You can hear a former client describe the experience of working with our firm in this truck accident client testimonial.
Before you respond to any settlement number, write down the three columns yourself: bills paid to date, wages missed to date, and what your doctor has told you is still ahead. An offer that ignores the third column is not an offer on the whole claim.
What Shreveport Clients Say
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Trey Morris what a great experience if I ever have to suggest a lawyer's office Morris is my first choice will be suggesting to friends and family
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I had a great experience with [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] in Shreveport.Trey Morris and his team really took care of everything from the beginning and kept me informed the whole time. They were easy to work with and always made sure I understood what was going on. I truly felt like they fought for me.
- Dena H.
I would greatly recommend [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] wholeheartedly, I have known Kristen for years and to know that she has moved to such a wonderful law firm and continues to be such a wonderful person, extremely knowledgeable in her field.I highly recommend her as a paralegal to answer all your questions, as all of the group, couldn't ask for more professional and helpful law firm that puts you first and at ease.
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Maliyah and Leah have been nothing but great!They are always so pleasant to speak with, very informative, and truly go above and beyond to assist. One of the things I appreciate most is that they always pick up the phone, making communication effortless. It's clear they genuinely have your best interests at heart. I Highly recommend them.
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[Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] is an amazing personal injury firm.Meghan Nolen and her team are extremely capable, professional and knowledgeable!
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I got into an accident and I didn't know who to call.A friend of mines told me to call [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] and I did. They changed my life and I never felt better about that decision. Thank you all
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They was so amazing, communication was awesome!Made sure I was comfortable with my case and I’m grateful for them!
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[Trey Morris Injury Lawyers]yer has been the biggest help to me, i highly recommend this company.They are all so nice and they treated me like family.
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My experience with this Injury Law Firm.Was was Truly a 5 Star experience. They give back the community. They are truly a blessing.
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They have been wonderful!They answered all my questions and kept me up to date during the whole process! I'm so glad I had them to deal with the insurance company! Would absolutely recommend them!
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My husband was a client of Attorney Morris last year and we were very pleased.The most intelligent and friendly staff that would just make you find reasons to call or stop by. Out of my many years of working with and hiring attorneys, I must say that Attorney Tre Morris and staff are just OUTSTANDING!!! If you're looking for a honest hard working attorney with a pleasant staff. Contact Attorney Morris and he's handsome too😉
Testimonials do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
How a Truck Accident Lawyer Builds Your Case
The trucking company, its insurer, and often a third-party logistics provider all have legal teams and adjusters working the file within hours of impact. Most large carriers keep rapid-response teams or standing contracts with defense firms that put investigators on the scene, photographing, interviewing witnesses, and building the carrier’s version of events before you have talked to anyone. Your side needs the same command of the federal rules, the electronic data, and Louisiana liability law.
Preserving Critical Evidence
Once the facts give an honest basis, we send a preservation letter, also called a spoliation letter, to the trucking company, its insurer, and any data storage provider. It is a formal legal demand that the recipient preserve everything tied to the collision: electronic logging device data, GPS records, dashcam footage, event data recorder downloads, driver qualification files, dispatch logs, maintenance records, and cargo weight documents. A party that destroys evidence after receiving one can face court sanctions, including an instruction to the jury that the destroyed evidence would have helped your case.
Some of the evidence runs on much shorter clocks than the filing deadline. A carrier only has to keep ELD data for six months under 49 CFR § 395.8 and driver vehicle inspection reports for three months under 49 CFR § 396.11. Driver qualification files last longer, for the length of employment plus three years under 49 CFR § 391.51, though some items in the file, such as the annual driving-record review and the medical certificate, can be removed three years after they were made. 49 CFR § 379.5 requires carriers to protect the records that part covers from being destroyed or corrupted and to report their loss, but it sets no retention period of its own. The six-month rule also bars tampering with an ELD so that it fails to keep required data, so the carrier must keep the hours-of-service record from the day of your crash for at least six months, but once those months run out, these rules no longer require the carrier to keep it. Many carriers use dashcam loop recorders that erase the oldest footage as new footage comes in, and cell phone records, GPS waypoints, and telematics data are exposed the same way.
Under La. R.S. 32:398, Louisiana law enforcement prepares a crash report where there is injury, death, or serious property damage. We pull that report as the baseline, and on I-20 and I-49 wrecks we also pull the Louisiana State Police and Shreveport Police reports, nearby camera footage, and witness statements before they are gone. The carrier’s internal file is usually thicker and friendlier to their driver.
Investigating the Crash
Reconstructing the collision. We work with accident reconstructionists who pull data off the truck’s engine control module (ECM), the computer running the engine, or its event data recorder (EDR), a separate device that captures crash data. Both hold speed, braking force, throttle position, and engine RPM in the seconds around impact. Reconstruction specialists put that against the tire marks, debris fields, gouges in the pavement, and measured vehicle damage to build a timeline of what the driver was doing, how fast the truck was going, and whether anyone tried to avoid you.
Investigating the driver. We subpoena the full driver qualification file and put the paper logs next to the electronic ELD records. Hours-of-service violations turn up regularly.
Auditing the carrier. We review the maintenance and inspection records required by 49 CFR § 396.3 and pull the safety record from the FMCSA Safety Measurement System for prior violations, out-of-service orders, and crash history. Dispatch communications, route plans, and delivery schedules show whether the carrier pushed the driver past hours-of-service limits or through required rest.
ELD records, maintenance logs, and reconstruction analysis are what move settlement value in a truck case.
Countering Insurance Company Tactics
Trucking insurers are specialized commercial operations with adjusters, defense attorneys, and investigators whose entire job is high-value claims. They read Motor Vehicle Records, drug screening results, and inspection reports before they write the policy, so they come into your claim already knowing their insured’s operational history, and they know which moves reduce a payout. We answer with independent evidence: medical evaluations with physicians who specialize in the injury you have, life care planners who project the cost of future treatment and assistive care across your life expectancy, and vocational rehabilitation analysts who measure what the injury did to your earning capacity. When negotiation will not produce a fair result, we try the case.
The Claims Process
The investigation phase takes weeks to several months while we gather evidence, retain experts, and identify every responsible party and every policy. Once your treatment stabilizes enough to project the future cost, we build the demand package: a liability analysis citing the specific federal violations, your medical records and bills, expert reports on future care, and the economic loss calculations. It goes to each responsible insurer, and negotiation follows. If the negotiation produces a fair result, the case settles. If it does not, we file suit in the First Judicial District Court for a Caddo Parish wreck, or in the 26th Judicial District Court in Benton for a Bossier Parish wreck.
Through all of it, we handle the communication with insurers, defense counsel, medical providers, and lien holders. You get told what is happening at every step, and you do not spend your days trading calls with adjusters and opposing lawyers.
Give us the date of the wreck, the location, and the carrier name off the trailer, and we will pull the crash report. You can walk in at our office at 509 Milam Street.
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