5 reasons to consult an attorney after being hit by a logging truck

The logging industry has been called one of the most dangerous industries in the world. That’s because, generally speaking, logging is an inherently dangerous activity and there are an almost unlimited number of ways that serious or fatal accidents can occur. The workers involved in the industry are working with dangerous, often outdated equipment, with little or no safety oversight.

And it’s not only the actual logging activities that can be dangerous. Anyone who lives near a logging community knows that logging trucks traveling on our highways can cause serious accidents if the drivers and logging companies don’t ensure that the logs are carefully loaded, balanced, and secured. Further, logging trucks are often old and poorly maintained, and the drivers of logging trucks are often under-trained or poorly paid. Thus, they don’t have an incentive to make sure their logging trucks are properly maintained, which can then lead to all kinds of serious truck crashes.

My law firm is located less than an hour from the East Texas Piney Woods Region, one of the most active logging regions in the country. We have handled a number of different cases involving logging activities, including accidents involving logging work and accidents involving truck crashes.

For example, we obtained a $4,000,000.00 settlement for a logging worker who was hit in the head by a tree that had been cut down and was being transported to a truck for loading.

5 reasons to consult an attorney if you’ve been hurt in a wrecked caused by a logging truck

If you or someone you know has been injured or killed as a result of logging activities, here are 5 things you should consider when deciding if you should pursue legal action:

1. You should strongly consider hiring a Board Certified Injury Attorney. Board Certification means that the lawyer has been vetted by independent agencies to be skilled and experienced in handling personal injury and wrongful death cases. It is a mark of achievement and  excellence. It means you are getting a lawyer who knows what he or she is doing, instead of a lawyer who may not have experience working on catastrophic injury cases.
2. You should consider hiring an attorney with experience in logging-related injury or wrongful death cases. Experience matters. The logging industry will hire experienced defense lawyers in these cases, and you need to ensure that you have a lawyer on your side who is known by and feared by the logging industry—a lawyer with a proven track record of success.
3. You need to act fast. Often the amount of insurance available is limited. That means the insurance policy will often not be enough to cover all of the injuries or deaths involved in a serious accident. If you wait too long, there may not be any insurance money left for your claim. By filing your lawsuit as soon as possible, you stand a much better chance of getting the compensation you deserve.
4. Evidence must be preserved quickly. I have personally worked on cases where the evidence disappeared or was destroyed before it could be preserved for the case. While there are ways to prove your case even if the evidence has been destroyed, it is much better to preserve the evidence than to work on a case where the evidence is missing. And one of the only ways to preserve evidence is to have an experienced lawyer on your side who knows how to use the legal system to protect the evidence in your case.
5. Don’t worry about whether or not your lawyer is local. Geographic location is not important when you’re hiring a lawyer for a catastrophic injury case. In fact, if the accident occurred in a small community or in a remote area, you may not even be able to find an experienced, qualified lawyer locally. You should consider hiring a lawyer with a national reputation. After all, the insurance companies who defend these cases are often not local. They will be based in New York or some other large city and will be nationally known as good defense lawyers. You want a lawyer who has a national reputation and clout in the legal community on your side.

About VB Attorneys: 

VB Attorneys has handled some of the highest-profile accident cases in the United States, including the Captain Phillips pirate hijacking case, the massive I-80 Greyhound Bus accident in Philadelphia, a $17.72 million verdict for the family of an ironworker killed on the job, a $44.37 million verdict for the family of a rigger killed on the job, as well catastrophic injury cases such as trucking and logging accidents.

To speak with one of our experienced lawyers, call us — toll free — at 877-724-7800 or use the contact form on this website to send a confidential message to the firm’s lawyers.