Texas Trucking Defense and Litigation

We have moved our Texas Trucking Defense blog ...

The new address is:

Castagna Scott LLP — Insurance Defense and Trucking Blog

Make sure you bookmark the address, to obtain updated information regarding defense of trucking lawsuits throughout the State of Texas.  We'll also cover the following subjects:

• Trucking and transportation accidents
• Dram shop and liquor liability
• Products liability
• Construction defects
• Construction accidents
• HOA litigation
• Automobile accidents
• Premises liability
• Ladder design and defects
• Racetrack accidents and litigation
• Fitness center and gym litigation
• Bicycle accidents
• Motorcycle accidetns
• Swimming pool safety and defects
• Fabric flammability litigation
• Oilfield negligence
• Employment matters
• Professional malpractice
• Bad faith litigation
• General liability

 

States beginning to restrict truck traffic

USA Today recently published a story discussing how many states are banning big trucks from specific lanes of highways:

Florida has already taken action, banning big trucks from the far left lane of Interstate 4 on a 60-mile stretch between Tampa and Orlando. Stretches of I-75 and I-95 elsewhere in Florida have similar restrictions. Elsewhere:

•Georgia, where truck traffic is likely to grow by more than 50% over the next 20 years, is considering truck-only toll lanes on parts of I-75 northwest of Atlanta and on a 20-mile stretch of the I-285 beltway that surrounds the city.

•Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio are using a $5 million federal grant to study adding truck-only lanes on I-70 from Kansas City to Columbus, Ohio.

•California, Arizona, Texas and the Gulf Coast states will use a similar grant to study segregating truck and automobile traffic on stretches of I-10.

•Tennessee is eyeing truck-only lanes on I-40.

Tanker truck takes down SF Bay Area overpass

I’d hate to be defending this one.

Early Sunday morning, a tanker truck accident wiped out an overpass in a very heavily travelled mess of freeways where they converge to connect San Francisco with the cities of the other side of San Francisco Bay.  It apparently was a single vehicle accident where the driver, who had just filled up with 8,600 gallons of fuel, lost control and flipped his truck.

The mayor of San Francisco visited the accident site, and called it a “giant wake-up call to the region” about what might happen when the Big One (my words, not his) hits San Francisco.

The New York Times has the story here, including this, and more, photographs.

More on obscene salaries of newly licensed lawyers

Susan Hackett, of the Association of Corporate Counsels, calls foul on the obscene starting salaries of recent law graduates.  In an article on law.com, she estimates the true cost of brand new attorneys to be about $400,000 per year.  She points out that when you raise the salaries of brand new associates, you also have the raise the salaries of the more-experienced associates as well.  Who pays for it?  The client, of course.

Ms. Hackett goes on to excoriate the outrageous money made by lawyers in the “law firm biz”, and to suggest that corporate counsel put a stop to it:

Is this out of touch with reality? You bet. I'm completely unpersuaded by apologists who suggest that entry-level associate salaries are hardly keeping up with partners' slice of take-home pay. The fact that the associates make less per year compared to their partners than associates 20 years ago did is yet another indicator of how obscene partners' fees and profits are in the law firm biz. Sure, outside counsel are entitled to make as much money as they can, but let's not "justify" these salary increases by suggesting that they're necessary to adequately compensate associates.

*****

So where will in-house counsel draw the line on new associate costs? Why don't corporate clients simply say: We're not paying for this anymore? In-house legal executives need to stand up and exercise their considerable influence. Demand to know -- in detail -- why prestigious firms believe their inexperienced associates provide more value than a successful partner in a less expensive firm or an expert legal service vendor/consultant. Tell them that you're happy to pay high rates for high quality and experience, but you'll be the judge of the value provided. And if they answer that they had no choice but to follow the market in order to attract the same 50 graduates from the same 25 top-ten schools, then label them the sheep that they are, and vote with your feet.

Texas truck accident lawsuit is one of largest verdicts in 2006

Lawyers USA has published a story about the “top ten jury verdicts of 2006”.  The number ten slot is occupied by a Texas lawsuit in which actual damages of $38.5 million were awarded.  It was an underride protection lawsuit in which the jury awarded $36 million to a 25 year-old woman who survived, and $2.5 million to the family of a woman who died.  Here’s a link to the story.

DOT to allow Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways

The Department of Transportation announced that it will allow Mexican trucks to deliver on U.S. highways.  They will be subject to “tough” inspection programs.  The story was reported on TTnews.com:

EL PASO, Texas — The United States will grant Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways under a pilot program, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced here today.

Peters said the program would be “a limited year-long demonstration program that will permit up to 100 Mexican trucking companies to make deliveries beyond the commercial zone” near the border.

Under the program, “an equal number of U.S. trucking companies will be able to cross the border and compete in the Mexican market place for the first time ever,” Peters said.

“In 1995, we let fear trump common sense along the nation’s southern border when we put the trucking provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement on hold,” the secretary said in a written statement.

“I am here today to right a 12 year-old wrong,” she added.

Carriers wishing to enter the United States from Mexico will be subjected to a “tough” inspection program, including examinations of both truck and drivers, Peters said.

New Jersey vacates $105 million dram shop award, including $75M for punitive damages

Law.com reports that the N.J. Supreme Court has declined to reinstate a $105 million dram shop verdict against a Giants Stadium beer vendor. Mothers Against Drunk Driving filed an amicus brief in the action.

In a Jan. 31 order with no commentary, the court denied a petition for certification by lawyers for Antonia Verni, now 9, who was paralyzed in a crash with a drunken fan after a Giants-Saints game in 1999.

Two years ago, a Bergen County Superior Court jury found the stadium vending company, Harry M. Stevens Inc., and its parent Aramark Corp., liable for $30 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages.

The verdict was cited around the country as a warning to the sports industry, its vendors and its insurers of the potential cost of letting fans drink too much at games and tailgate parties.

But an appeals court vacated the award and ordered a retrial in August on grounds that dramatic testimony about the culture of drunkenness at the stadium was impermissible in a dram shop case and had the capacity to enflame the jury.

The Supreme Court's cert denial in Verni v. Harry M. Stevens of New Jersey, C-543, sets the stage for a trial along the lines mandated by the Appellate Division: concentration on whether the fan was served when he was visibly intoxicated, not whether a culture of drunkenness existed