A family stopped on the shoulder
Sonya noticed tire trouble while driving on Highway 59 with her two young children. She pulled far onto the shoulder and waited for help. A 34-wheel oilfield transport truck was traveling north on the same highway.
The truck's load exceeded the limits of its permit, and equipment extended into adjacent lanes. The protruding equipment struck Sonya's disabled vehicle and dragged it nearly two football fields down the highway.
Her two-year-old son died at the scene. Sonya and her daughter suffered injuries. The case concerned both the death of a child and the injuries to the mother and sister who survived.
Company personnel had warned about the load
Brian Beckcom and Vuk Vujasinovic examined decisions made before the collision. Company personnel had raised concerns that the load exceeded its permit limits and extended into adjacent lanes. Management's instruction was to "run it anyway."
Those concerns were directly related to how the collision happened. Equipment extending from the rig struck a vehicle that had been pulled off the travel lane. Brian and Vuk examined why the transport proceeded despite the warning, as well as what happened when the rig reached Sonya's vehicle.
The driver's history required investigation
Brian and Vuk investigated the load and the company's decision to allow this driver to operate the truck. Through discovery and sworn testimony, they developed evidence that the driver had cocaine in his system at the time of the crash and that the company knew about his history of drug abuse.
Brian and Vuk also developed evidence of failures to screen, train, and monitor the driver. Those issues concerned the company's decisions about who operated its equipment, separately from the decision to proceed with the overloaded transport.
Physical evidence, witnesses, and altered records
Brian and Vuk preserved physical evidence, retained engineering experts, secured witness testimony, and pursued the trucking company's records. The physical evidence and engineering work addressed the collision. The documents and testimony addressed the company's decisions about the load and driver.
Through discovery, Brian and Vuk uncovered altered driver logs and efforts to delete negative comments from company records. They examined the reliability and completeness of the information supplied during the lawsuit, including changes to records as well as the events those records described.
Brian and Vuk handled the family's case. Both are Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Finding $10 million more in insurance
The company and its lawyers initially told the referring lawyer that there was only $1 million in insurance. Brian and Vuk found $10 million more in insurance.
Determining the insurance available was a separate part of Brian and Vuk's work from proving how the crash happened. Evidence about the load, the driver, and the company's conduct addressed responsibility. Their coverage investigation addressed what insurance was available to respond to the family's losses.
The $10 million in additional insurance and the $9,638,589.96 Settlement are different figures. One describes coverage Brian and Vuk found beyond the amount originally represented to the referring lawyer. The other describes the amount for which the case resolved.
A $9,638,589.96 Settlement for the family
After Brian and Vuk's investigation and litigation, the case went to mediation and ended in a $9,638,589.96 Settlement. The outcome addressed the death of Sonya's two-year-old son and the injuries to her and her daughter.
The Settlement provided financial support for the family's future. The family also used the resolution to support charitable causes in their son's memory.
What the evidence showed
- Sonya's vehicle was far onto the Highway 59 shoulder when protruding equipment from the oilfield transport struck it.
- Company personnel raised concerns about the load's dimensions and permit limits, but management instructed them to run it anyway.
- Brian and Vuk developed evidence of cocaine in the driver's system and a history of drug abuse known to the company.
- Through discovery, Brian and Vuk uncovered altered driver logs and efforts to delete negative comments from company records.
- After the company and its lawyers represented that there was only $1 million in insurance, Brian and Vuk found $10 million more in insurance.
The insurance investigation and the Settlement
The insurance figures describe coverage. The Settlement figure describes the amount for which the case resolved.
More from the record
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