Injured victims turn to our Joliet truck accident lawyers when they need legal help regarding a case. At Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, we handle complex cases involving trucks, businesses, and other factors that attorneys who work with car accidents don’t regularly handle.
Our attorneys are experienced in helping victims with serious injuries recover compensation from trucking companies, truck drivers, government agencies, and other businesses after truck crashes.
You Have Limited Time to File a Truck Accident Personal Injury Claim in Joliet, IL
If you are the victim of a truck accident, you can file a personal injury claim in Joliet, IL. However, there is a time limit—called the statute of limitations—for how long you have to file that lawsuit to recover compensation. Most types of lawsuits involving truck accidents have a statute of limitations.
The statute of limitations in Joliet, Illinois, for personal injury, product liability, and wrongful death cases is two years from the date of injury or death. That means that you have two years to file a truck accident lawsuit under Illinois law. Otherwise, you won’t be able to take legal action after the statute of limitations passes, no matter what the cause of the delay is.
Types of Cases That Our Joliet Truck Accident Attorneys Handle
Our Joliet truck accident attorneys have experience working on a wide range of truck accident cases, including the following:
- Rollover crashes
- Jackknife accidents
- Hit-and-run
- Underride truck accidents
- Override truck accidents
- Pileups
- Brake-failure accidents
- Head-on collisions
The Most Common Causes of Joliet Truck Accidents
The most common causes of truck accidents in Joliet, Illinois, are as follows:
- Distracted driving
- Negligent truck drivers
- Driver fatigue
- Reckless driving
- Driving under the influence
- Not complying with federal regulations regarding hours of service
Do You Have a Trucking Accident Case?
Compared to regular motor vehicle accidents, trucking and semi-truck accidents have an extra level of complexity that makes it more difficult to tell if you have a credible case. Your lawyer has a duty to prove certain things in order for the judge to rule on it.
Your Joliet truck accident attorney will need to prove the following:
- The truck driver had a duty to behave in a certain way to protect other drivers on the road (truck drivers are generally expected to drive cautiously and avoid unnecessary risks—among other actions—to prevent possible accidents)
- That the truck driver breached their duty and caused the accident
- That there was damage that should be compensated for
- The compensation amount that should be awarded
Part of this process includes seeking compensation for each damage you are entitled to, such as medical expenses, lost wages, or vehicle repair costs.
Who Can Be Liable for a Truck Accident in Joliet, IL?
Even if you are in a truck accident caused by a collision, the truck driver is not always liable for that accident. There are cases where other parties can be held liable, which is one of the reasons why truck accidents are more complex than other types of motor vehicle accidents are. Your trucking accident lawyer in Joliet will help to establish liability.
Some of the other parties that can be held liable for Joliet truck accidents include the following:
- Truck companies
- Truck manufacturers
- Parts manufacturers
- Repair companies
- Government agencies that own garbage trucks, fire trucks, and police cars
- Government agencies that maintain specific roads and road conditions
Proving Fault in a Truck Accident Case
By providing evidence of negligence, breach of duty, or other conditions that contributed to the commercial vehicle accident, your case must show that the other parties—whether that’s the driver, the trucking companies involved, or otherwise—are either at fault or caused the accident.
Your truck accident attorneys will gather evidence to support your claim, including compiling the police report, collecting medical records, taking witness testimony, recovering data from commercial truck black boxes, securing expert testimony, working with an accident reconstruction specialist, and—in some cases—tracking down video surveillance footage from the accident scene.
Damages That Joliet Truck Accident Victims Can Pursue
You can file claims for economic damages and non-economic damages.
Economic damages are any claims that you file for fixed costs, such as medical bills or car repair costs. If you can attach a fixed cost to something related to the accident, like lost wages from missing work or hospital fees from catastrophic injuries, then you can file an economic damages claim in your lawsuit.
Non-economic damages are claims for things that don’t have a fixed cost. The most common examples of these sorts of damages have to do with emotional distress and pain or suffering.
There isn’t a bill, invoice, replacement cost, or any other tangible cost associated with these claims. Instead, your lawyer can ask for a specific amount, or a judge can assign a value based on their understanding of the case.
Alternatively, judges can add punitive damages that punish the at-fault party for extreme negligence or other bad actions that are considered non-economic damages. Punitive damages are not assigned in every case, but they can substantially increase a settlement offer.
Wrongful Death
If you lose a close family member because of the accident, you can file claims for funeral expenses, medical bills, and other non-economic expenses, such as loss of society or income.
For example, an estimate of how much the family of a victim of a truck crash will suffer economically over the rest of that victim’s projected lifetime could be used to estimate how much should be awarded.
How Much Can Our Joliet Truck Accident Lawyers Help You Recover
There is not a common settlement amount that Joliet truck accident lawyers can help you recover. Every case is different, and the amount that you can collect is based on the specific factors in each case.
However, Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers has had tremendous success recovering compensation for our clients involved in truck accidents. An example amount that we’ve recovered in a truck accident case is $18.5 million for a head-on collision with a semi, where the client was permanently disabled.
In another case, we were able to recover compensation to the tune of $14.1 million for the family of a motorcyclist who was killed in a truck accident, where the driver was at fault.
In yet another case, a truck driver was injured unloading a truck at a warehouse. We collected $5.75 million in medical expenses and other compensation as a result.
Factors That Affect Truck Accident Settlement Amounts
Truck accidents are affected by several factors that impact how much you can collect in compensation. For example, the cost of losses directly impacts how much you can collect in economic damages.
Additionally, the influence of evidence and witnesses impacts your ability to prove who is at fault and for how much, affecting compensation liability.
The liable parties also impact the amount that you can collect. A trucking company or similar third party may be required to pay more in compensation than an individual truck driver would be. Navigating these factors is one thing that your Joliet truck accident lawyer does to obtain maximum compensation.
The Most Common Truck Accident Injuries
Some of the most common serious injuries from truck accident cases include the following:
- Broken bones
- Internal injuries
- Severe burns
- Organ damage
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Whiplash
- Concussions
- Cut and abrasions
- Fatal injuries
The Time It Takes to Settle a Truck Accident Personal Injury Lawsuit
Since every accident is slightly different, each case takes a different amount of time to handle. In general, these types of cases take six months or more to settle.
Simple issues, such as scheduling in the court system, can slow down the process. Non-compliance by other parties, such as a driver, a truck company, or an insurance company, can also cause the case to progress slowly.
And given that everyone cooperates, even normal, injury-free motor vehicle accidents with a lot of evidence can take longer than six months to resolve—much less trucking accidents with serious accidents and severe injuries.
It is a good idea to consult with a truck accident lawyer so that you can get your case moving and seek compensation as soon as possible. This will make it easier for your lawyer to collect evidence and finish your case sooner, recovering compensation for you as quickly as they can.
The Cost of Hiring a Joliet Truck Accident Attorney
The cost of hiring Joliet truck accident attorneys is a possible problem for most accident victims.
That’s why Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers works on a contingency fee model. We don’t take anything in payment up-front when accepting your case. Instead, we take a percentage of the settlement as payment when the case is won. That way, you don’t pay anything until the case is over.
Filing a Truck Accident Claim With Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers
At Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, there is a simple but effective process for filing a truck accident claim. It begins with a free consultation where we learn more about your case. The consultation is free, so there is no downside to discussing your case with us.
Should you decide to move forward, our lawyers will start to research your case, collect evidence, and prepare for a trial.
Insurance companies may offer you a settlement, where we step in to negotiate as needed. Otherwise, we continue to prepare to go to trial and convince a judge that you should get the compensation that you asked for.
Contact a Joliet Truck Accident Lawyer Today!
Take action right away to ensure that your case is filed in time, and contact a Joliet truck accident lawyer today to start the legal process. Contact Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers by filling out our contact form or calling us toll-free at (888) 424-5757 to schedule a free consultation about your case.
We can answer your truck accident questions and give you legal advice. We have helped other clients recover millions of dollars and are available 24/7 to help you get started.