You can take charge of your legal situation after a commercial vehicle crash by hiring our team at Distasio Law Firm. Our Tampa truck accident lawyers understand what it takes to handle these claims, and we’re ready to fight for you.
Attorney Scott Distasio has over 35 years of experience handling these claims and is ready to provide the personalized assistance you deserve. Our Tampa personal injury lawyers are here to help you secure the funds you need to pay for your medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, and other losses.
Why Hire Distasio as Your Truck Accident Lawyer?
Hiring Distasio as your Tampa truck accident lawyer means you can expect to experience The Distasio Personal Touch every step of the way. We have helped many of our clients navigate the complexities of filing a truck accident insurance claim or lawsuit in Tampa.
We have the experience to handle even the most complex claims and the financial resources to take on the trucking company as we work toward recovering a settlement for you. We listen to you and put your needs first throughout every part of the legal process.
Our Tampa truck accident attorneys will use our experience, resources, and knowledge of Florida law to:
- Evaluate your claim
- Help you find medical care
- Investigate what happened
- Prove your case
We will bring in expert witnesses, show the extent of your injuries, and negotiate a fair settlement for you. We have decades of experience and a record of success that includes securing:
- $680,000 settlement after a commercial vehicle accident
- $300,000 settlement for a client who broke their leg and ankle in a truck crash
- $300,000 settlement for a client who sustained broken ribs and a broken arm in a truck collision
You can review our case results to see more examples of our work. Past results do not guarantee future successes.
For a free legal consultation with a Truck Accident Lawyer serving Tampa, call (813) 259 0022
Types of Truck Crash Claims We Handle
Our team at Distasio Law Firm can provide you with professional help after a commercial vehicle crash. Contact us for help from a:
- Blind Spot Truck Accident Lawyer in Tampa: We’re here to help with your personal injury claim if a trucker ignores their blind spots and hits your vehicle. We can fight for you every step of the way after a crash.
- Cargo Truck Accident Lawyer in Tampa: Turn to our team after a commercial motor vehicle accident that involves unbalanced or unsecured cargo. We can help you build your claim for fair compensation.
- Delivery Truck Accident Lawyer in Tampa: Get the professional help you need after a collision involving a delivery truck. We can stand up to big delivery companies like Amazon.
- Garbage Truck Accident Lawyer in Tampa: Our legal team can fight to help you get compensation for your medical costs, pain and suffering, and other losses after a crash involving a truck from Waste Management or another garbage company in Tampa.
- Moving Truck Accident Lawyer in Tampa: Focus on building a claim for fair compensation after a crash involving a moving truck on Tampa roads. Allow us to provide the dedicated assistance you deserve after a crash with a vehicle owned by Two Men and a Truck or another moving company.
- Speeding Truck Accident Lawyer in Tampa: Our dedicated team can help you after a speeding trucker strikes your vehicle. Turn to our Tampa injury attorneys for help right now.
You can request a consultation from a member of our team to learn more about how we can help after your accident. When you speak with our team during your free consultation, we will explain:
- Your rights
- Your legal options
- How our team can help
- The likely liable parties
- The claims process
- What happens if we cannot reach a settlement
- Our contingency fee policy
Our Tampa truck accident lawyers will also answer any related questions and listen to your concerns about your case.
Tampa Truck Accident Lawyer Near Me (813) 259 0022
Your Compensation After a Truck Crash
After a Tampa truck crash, your commercial vehicle accident lawyer can file a claim to recover damages for your related expenses. This includes:
- Medical bills
- Lost wages
- Property damage
- Other accident-related expenses
In addition to financial losses, you can also claim devastating emotional losses in many situations. You may also receive punitive damages in cases involving high levels of negligence or misconduct.
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An Attorney Can Work to Recover Overlooked Damages
In many instances, it is not just the stress relief and time saved that makes it worth hiring a truck accident lawyer. Hiring a lawyer may also help identify damages you might otherwise overlook.
While current medical treatment costs, lost wages, property damage, and out-of-pocket expenses are relatively easy to prove, you may overlook a receipt or bill. In addition, many other types of recoverable damages are commonly forgotten or difficult to value properly, which may include:
- Future medical care costs
- Ongoing care costs
- Future lost wages or reduced earning ability
- Smaller expenses, such as rental car costs and parking at the hospital
- Pain and suffering damages
- Other types of intangible losses
While you hopefully have never been a victim of a truck accident before, we have handled many claims similar to yours. We understand the types of losses victims often experience and how to document them for an insurance claim or lawsuit.
We also know how to assign a fair settlement value to your claim, including intangible, non-economic damages.
When we handle your claim, you will pay a percentage of your settlement to us. However, because we often seek overlooked damages and negotiate until we reach a just settlement, we often recover more for our clients than they would have settled for without our representation.
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Legal Deadlines After a Truck Crash
Deadlines apply for suing liable parties in Hillsborough County civil court or another Florida jurisdiction. The statute of limitations includes:
- Personal injury: two years, per Florida Statutes § 95.11(3)(a)
- Wrongful death: two years, per Florida Statutes § 95.11(4)(d)
For a free legal consultation with a Tampa truck accident lawyer, call now.
Florida’s No-Fault Laws and Trucking Accidents
Florida is a no-fault state for auto accidents. You’ll need to go through your personal injury protection (PIP) policy to seek compensation for your medical bills and other losses after a crash with a trucker.
However, you may qualify to step outside of this system if you sustained serious injuries in your accident. Serious injuries result in permanent scarring or the loss of an important bodily function.
Our team can review your situation, explain what you need to do to file a PIP claim, and determine if you qualify to file a lawsuit to get additional compensation for your losses after a crash.
Common Causes of Tampa Truck Accidents
Truck accidents often happen because truck drivers or trucking companies place profits and deadlines ahead of safety. Many crashes are entirely preventable and happen when federal trucking safety regulations are ignored.
Some of the leading causes of semi-truck accidents include:
- Driver fatigue
- Distracted driving
- Speeding and aggressive driving
- Improper cargo loading
- Mechanical failures
We’re ready to investigate the reasons for your crash in Hillsborough County when you contact us for help.
Identifying the Potentially Liable Parties in a Truck Collision
Liability in most commercial vehicle accident cases is complex. Some of the potentially liable parties include:
- The trucking company: These companies may fail to follow the safety measures the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act requires, leading to vehicle issues that cause major collisions. The company may perform improper maintenance or try to avoid federal regulations.
- The trucker: We can look for evidence of driver negligence when you turn to us for help after a collision. The trucker may have to cover your losses if we can prove that their actions directly led to your crash and financial losses.
- The owner of the trailer: In many cases, the trucking company or the truck’s driver does not own the trailer. The company that owns the cargo may also own the trailer, and their employees may not have properly loaded or maintained it.
- Truck mechanics: A mechanic may have made a mistake when repairing, inspecting, or diagnosing issues with the truck, or they may have failed to maintain the vehicle adequately.
- Cargo loaders: When a commercial truck’s cargo is not loaded correctly, it can shift and cause an accident.
We’re here and ready to investigate the causes of your crash so we can identify all potentially liable parties and get to work on your claim.
Vicarious Liability in Truck Accident Injury Cases
Sometimes the truck or trailer is defective because of a faulty design or because someone altered it after it was sold. In that case, the vehicle manufacturer or the entity that altered it may also be held responsible for your damages.
In addition to these examples of how other parties might be legally responsible, these cases also feature vicarious liability. This is because of a legal doctrine known as respondeat superior. It lets us bring a claim against the truck driver’s employer in addition to the driver.
When more than one party is liable, negotiations can get much more complicated. Our Tampa truck accident attorney will coordinate talks with as many parties as it takes to recover fair compensation for you.
We Can Help After a Fatal Truck Accident
Our dedicated team at Distasio Law Firm can provide you with compassionate assistance if you lost a loved one in a commercial vehicle crash. Our Tampa wrongful death lawyers can guide you through the steps your family needs to take in this situation.
A personal representative for your loved one will need to file a wrongful death lawsuit on your family’s behalf. We can identify the personal representative and assess your situation to determine if you qualify to file this kind of claim.
We understand that filing a lawsuit cannot bring back your loved one, but it can provide your family with a sense of closure and allow you to get the funds you need to cover the financial pressures of a fatal accident.
Types of Evidence We Can Use to Prove Your Claims
Commercial trucking companies often have access to valuable evidence that can help prove liability after a crash. Our legal team works quickly to preserve and obtain evidence such as:
- Black box data
- Driver logbooks
- GPS records
- Maintenance records
- Truck inspection reports
- Dash camera footage
- Driver qualification files
- Toxicology reports
- Cargo manifests
- Cell phone records
Without immediate legal action, some of this evidence may be lost, altered, or destroyed.
Questions Truck Accident Victims Should Ask When Seeking a Lawyer
If you speak with a law firm, you’ll want to ask the following questions:
- Have you handled truck accident lawsuits before?
- Who is responsible for my damages?
- What damages can I recover?
- Have you successfully negotiated with corporations?
- How will you get my financial settlement?
- Will you take my case to trial?
You may find that other attorneys or law firms can’t give you the same answers and confidence in their abilities that our team can. Most truck accident claims never end up in court because the trucking company negotiates a settlement.
However, if they don’t, you need an attorney with trial experience. At Distasio Law Firm, we are prepared to take your case to trial when necessary.
How Is Negligence Established in a Truck Accident?
After a semi-truck hit you and caused injuries, you may be wondering how negligence is established in a truck accident. Your attorney will investigate the facts that led to the crash and seek to show that the truck driver violated traffic laws or made another mistake behind the wheel that caused the accident.
By showing that the trucker behaved negligently, you will be eligible to seek compensation for your pain, suffering, medical bills, lost wages, and emotional trauma related to your injuries from the accident.
If you cannot prove the truck driver’s negligence, or if the facts do not show the trucker was at fault, you may not be able to file a claim against the truck driver’s or the truck owner’s insurance.
Starting the Investigation
Although a semi-truck is much larger and heavier than most vehicles on Florida roads, the truck driver is not automatically considered negligent after a collision with a car. Even if the driver and passengers in the car suffer life-threatening injuries, and the truck driver walks away from the crash with no injuries, those facts alone do not indicate the truck driver is negligent.
Instead, after a crash in which you suffered an injury, you and your attorney will need to use the facts in the case to determine whether the truck driver was negligent. Some of the ways we will work to show fault on the part of the trucker include:
- Police report: We will review the report law enforcement officers file after investigating the crash, looking for evidence that the trucker made an error that caused the crash.
- Traffic violation: If a police officer issues a traffic ticket to the truck driver after investigating the accident, this clearly shows that the trucker did something wrong before the crash, which equals negligence.
- Maintenance record: We will review the records of how the trucking company maintained the truck and trailer, and if we find a maintenance mistake, that can show negligence.
We can handle every aspect of the investigation to establish negligence after your collision.
Negligence in a Truck Accident
When attempting to prove negligence on the part of the truck driver, you and your attorney simply have to show that if the trucker had taken a different action while behind the wheel, they could have prevented the crash.
You do not have to prove that the truck driver acted with malice or purposefully caused the accident, although negligence can involve a purposeful act.
In other words, negligence exists if the truck driver made an error that could have been corrected with a different action or choice.
What to Do After a Commercial Truck Crash
After a collision with a commercial truck, you should:
- Notify the Police: Make sure you notify the Tampa police or the Florida Highway Patrol immediately after your collision. Telling law enforcement will create an official police report about the incident that our team can use when working on your personal injury claim.
- Get Medical Care: Seek immediate treatment for any injuries you sustained in a truck crash. You may need to go to Tampa General Hospital or St. Joseph’s Hospital for medical care after your crash. Getting treatment right away will create a direct link between the collision and your injuries.
- Contact Our Legal Team: Make sure that you reach out to our dedicated team for professional help with all legal matters after a collision. We’ll focus on walking you through every step of the legal process when you contact us for help.
We can give you more information about what you should do after an accident when you turn to us for a risk-free initial consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Tampa Truck Accident Claims
Our team at Distasio Law Firm can answer any questions you have after a commercial vehicle accident. Contact us if you have questions like:
When Should I Call a Lawyer for a Truck Accident?
You should call a lawyer as soon as possible after a truck accident. The sooner you call us, the sooner we can get to work. We need to preserve the data and evidence needed to prove your case and get you a settlement as quickly as possible. The trucking company may control important evidence, so prompt preservation requests can be important.
How Much Money Will I Get After My Truck Crash?
The amount of money you get after a truck crash will depend on factors like the extent of your losses and your degree of liability for the collision under Florida’s comparative negligence law (F.S. 768.81). Under this law, the compensation you receive will decrease based on your percentage of fault.
My Lawyer Works on a Contingency-Fee Basis; What Does That Mean?
Your attorney will only get paid for legal fees after fully resolving your claim if they work on a contingency-fee basis. In this situation, your lawyer will receive a percentage of your final compensation as payment.
Connect with a Tampa Truck Accident Attorney for Free
You can speak with a member of our Tampa truck accident legal team for free today. We provide free case assessments and will answer your questions about how to seek and secure compensation for your injuries and expenses.
Call now to get started with our team at Distasio Law Firm.
Call or text (813) 259 0022 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form