Common Links to More and More Trucking Accidents
With a 20% increase in trucking accidents over the last two decades according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMSCA), there are more and more trucking accidents occurring across Texas.
And when these types of accidents occur typically the result is much more severe, as the large truck or semi is often 20 times the size and weight of most other vehicles on the road.
TIRE DEFECTS LINKED TO MORE AND MORE TRAGIC ACCIDENTS
Call our Law Firm for more information at 1-800-862-1260.
The sudden separation of the outermost tread from the main body of the tire causes a rapid decrease in tire pressure or a blowout. Either situation can send the vehicle out of control or into a rollover accident, which can be lethal. National manufacturers such as Goodyear and Firestone have produced defective tires that failed, causing injurious and fatal accidents.
In Texas, to prove a product liability case, a plaintiff must show the product was defective, the product reached the plaintiff in a defective condition, the defect made the product unreasonably dangerous, and the defect caused the plaintiff’s damages. In a 2014 products liability case, a deceased woman’s estate appealed a summary judgment in favor of the company Respironics.
The case arose when the woman contracted Lou Gehrig’s and became paralyzed. She needed a respirator to breathe. The woman’s husband bought a home respirator and hired a nurse through a nursing service. In 2004, a nurse was caring for the woman and allegedly adjusted a valve on the respirator incorrectly.
The deceased woman’s husband sued the medical staffing agency for negligence. The plaintiff’s third amendment joined Respironics, which designed, manufactured, and sold the respirator. He claimed the ventilator was designed and manufactured to allow a patient to suffer respiratory arrest without sounding an alarm. He also claimed the ventilator was marketed with inadequate warnings that there would be no alarm for respiratory arrest. Continue reading →
In a product liability or manufacturing defects case in Texas, it is common to need extensive discovery on the manufacturing process. Among other things, plaintiffs will need to propound written discovery, take depositions, and retain experts on the issue of defects. Sometimes, a site inspection is also required to determine whether there were particular actions or processes that could have caused a defect. There may be certain kinds of investigation and discovery that are harder to obtain, particularly if a company has taken remedial steps or discontinued manufacturing a particular product since your accident.
In a recent appellate decision, the court considered the plaintiffs’ efforts to sue a tire manufacturer in a wrongful death case after a car accident that was allegedly caused by a defectively manufactured tire. The plaintiffs argued that the tire manufacturer was grossly negligent in its manufacturing practices and that the tire design was defective in failing to include a ply cap or nylon overlay. Accordingly, they asked to view the manufacture of the tire with the overlay so that they could prove how simple it was to add a cost-efficient safety component to the tire.
The plaintiffs asserted that if the actual machine used to manufacture the title wasn’t available, they were willing to view a similar tire-building machine. They explained that any deviations from the norm that their tire expert identified were caused by a person or the equipment used in the process. They hoped to use the recording to prove a correlation between activity in the plant and the later failure due to a defect.
Thanksgiving weekend is the most traveled holiday period of the year with almost 90% of those traveling doing so by car. To lessen your chances of becoming one of the statistic this year, here are a few things to keep in mind:
• Seat Belts: Keep yourself safe and ticket free by wearing a seat belt.
• Speed: Speeding is a common cause of accidents and you run the risk of a speeding ticket.
Texas Injury Lawyers Blog