THE ILLINOIS HAMMER
Chicago Truck Accident Lawyer
A truck accident can cause severe injuries, and the impacts on your emotional and financial health can be devastating. The size of a semi-truck can seem small compared to the massive damage done to your life, your body, your family, and your plans.
No matter how bad things look, there is a path forward. A dedicated Chicago The Illinois Hammer Injury Attorneys can help set you on the road to recovery and help you take your life back.
Contact us online or call 888-742-6637 today for a free case evaluation. We’ll go the extra mile to get you the compensation you deserve, and you won’t pay us anything unless we win.
Why You Can Trust Our Chicago Truck Accident Lawyers for Your Case
We pride ourselves on holistically representing our clients, fighting relentlessly for their rights while taking a personal interest in their well-being. Here are some reasons why the Illinois Hammer team is right for you.
Proven Success and Experience
Our team has spent over 30 years hammering insurance companies until they pay our personal injury clients what they deserve, winning 97 percent of our cases..
We’ve recovered over $500 million for our clients, with $210 million alone in motor vehicle cases, including Chicago truck accident claims. Attorney Tracy Schamberger’s recent wins include $500,000 for a woman hit by a garbage truck while at a stop sign and $420,000 for a woman side-swiped by an 18-wheeler.
We succeed when you succeed. We work on a contingency fee basis, meaning you won’t pay us upfront and won’t owe us anything unless and until we win your case.
Client Praise and Industry Recognition
Our firm regularly receives high praise from our clients, our peers, and prestigious industry organizations. We have an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and a perfect 10/10 from AVVO.
Three members of our team have been recognized as Super Lawyers, placing them in the top 5 percent of attorneys in Illinois.
Comprehensive Client Support
We believe in giving our clients one less thing to worry about. That’s why we handle every step of the legal process, allowing you to focus on your recovery.
If we can do anything to make your life easier while resolving your claim, we will. That includes coming to you at home or in the hospital, wherever you’re located in Illinois. We can also help you find medical treatment or obtain a settlement loan to cover injury-related expenses.
Personalized Legal Guidance
Every case is unique and requires a personalized approach. We know the nuances of how the law applies to your situation can be confusing. We’re dedicated to keeping you well-informed and stress-free throughout your case, explaining what’s happening in plain language. Some of our attorneys are fluent in Spanish and Hebrew, eliminating potential communication barriers.
“Many of our clients suffer life-changing injuries and have no idea how to ensure that they get the medical treatment that they need and the compensation that they deserve. As attorneys, we have a unique opportunity to guide others through physically, emotionally, and financially difficult times of their lives. Seeing the positive impact that our work has on our clients’ lives is what I enjoy about working in injury law.”
–Jonathan Williams, Junior Partner
The Complexities of Chicago Truck Accidents
Semi-truck accidents can be much more complicated than regular car accidents. The applicability of federal safety regulations, the sheer size and weight of tractor-trailers, and the possibility of multiple liable parties all add to the complexity.
Dealing with multiple responsible parties likely means multiple insurance policies are involved. Commercial truck insurance policies tend to have higher coverage limits than standard auto policies, incentivizing insurers to do everything they can to minimize payouts.
Determining all the liable parties, how each contributed to the accident, and how much coverage is available under each policy is critical to winning the maximum possible compensation for a Chicago truck accident claim. Our skilled lawyers can tie all the loose ends of your case together and bring the hammer down on insurance companies until they pay the maximum compensation you deserve.
Safety Regulations, Violations, & Liability in Chicago Truck Accidents
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, or FMCSR, set standards for interstate trucking that operators must follow. These include the following:
- Caps on the amount of time a driver can work in a day or a week
- Mandated breaks
- Requirements for drivers to hold commercial driver’s licenses, or CDLs
- Limits on the size and weight of a load
- Requirements for properly securing cargo
- Mandated inspection and maintenance reports
- Mandatory drug testing following a crash
While the FMCSR are federal regulations, they apply to roads across Illinois. Our knowledgeable Chicago truck accident attorneys understand how local laws interact with these rules and how to navigate them while handling your claim.
How Liability Is Determined in a Truck Accident Case
FMCSR violations can serve as a foundation for establishing negligence in a trucking accident case. Depending on the circumstances, liability can extend beyond a truck driver to their employer and beyond.
A trucking company might be liable for its own negligence by failing to meet FMCSR requirements if an accident was caused by an inadequately trained, unqualified, or overworked driver. Companies can also be held liable for the negligence of drivers for which they’re responsible.
Third parties can also be liable if their negligence has contributed to the accident. Some third parties who might be responsible for a truck accident include the following:
- Manufacturers of defective parts
- Maintenance companies
- Cargo loaders and freight companies
- Government entities responsible for road conditions
A skilled attorney can examine the variables at play to find all potentially liable parties and determine all potential paths for compensation.
What to Expect When Filing a Chicago Truck Accident Claim
Seeking legal counsel immediately after getting medical treatment is critical to recovering the compensation you deserve. After you’ve hired an attorney, your lawyer will begin investigating the accident, gathering reports, witness statements, expert testimony, and other evidence.
Your attorney will identify all third parties involved in the accident, making sure to file a claim with each to maximize your compensation. Once they’ve determined your case is strong enough to prevail, your lawyer will notify the other parties and start negotiating. They will also begin building your case and preparing for court if the liable parties refuse to agree to fair settlements.
Our Chicago truck accident lawyers know each case is unique and adjust their strategy accordingly. Your situation might include additional complexities, but we will be ready to handle them.
Wrongful Death Claims Over Chicago Truck Accidents
If a truck accident causes a fatality, the victim’s surviving family can seek compensation through a wrongful death claim for grief, suffering, financial support, and other damages. The victim’s personal injury claims can also be passed to their estate through a survival action.
In Illinois, the personal representative of the victim’s estate files the wrongful death claim or survival action and will often bring both concurrently. The personal representative is typically the executor named in the deceased’s will. If there is no will, the court can appoint a personal representative to take legal action on behalf of the estate.
Workers’ Compensation Claims and Truck Accidents
If you were injured in a commercial truck accident while on the job, you can file a workers’ compensation claim to help cover medical expenses and lost income.
Workers’ compensation cases often take less time to resolve than personal injury claims but only allow for a much narrower scope of damages. For instance, you cannot recover pain and suffering damages in a workers’ compensation claim.
However, while you generally can’t sue your employer for a work injury, you may be eligible to bring a personal injury claim against a third party for their involvement in the same accident, allowing you to seek further compensation.
Attorney Tracy Schamberger won $350,000 for a construction worker struck by an 18-wheeler while notifying traffic of a closed lane on the highway. While the victim also pursued a separate workers’ compensation claim, Tracy was able to secure him a personal injury settlement worth almost three times the cost of his medical expenses.
Types of Compensation For Chicago Truck Accident Cases
The damages available to truck accident victims are typically organized into three categories: economic, non-economic, and punitive.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are those with a set monetary value, such as medical bills. These also include future medical expenses, home modifications to accommodate injuries, property damage costs, lost wages and income, diminished earning potential, and more.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages compensate for the subjective impacts on the victim’s life. Examples of non-economic damages include pain and suffering, emotional trauma, loss of companionship, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Punitive Damages
Illinois allows personal injury claimants to seek punitive damages as an additional penalty for particularly destructive behavior. Punitive damages are awarded in cases where the liable party’s actions were particularly egregious, willful and wanton, or intentional.
Can I Still Succeed in a Truck Accident Claim If I Share Liability?
If you were partially responsible for the accident that caused your injuries, you may still recover compensation under Illinois’ modified comparative negligence standard as long as you were not primarily to blame.
This law bars anyone who is more than 50 percent responsible for an accident from recovering compensation. If you are 50 percent or less at fault, you can recover compensation for your damages. However, your potential award will be reduced proportionately to the amount of liability you share.
How Soon Should I File a Claim After a Trucking Accident?
Illinois has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. While that may seem like a lot of time to file a claim, building a case is a complicated process that might take longer than you’d expect. The additional complexities involved in a semi-truck accident, such as multiple parties and insurers, make getting started as early as possible even more vital.
Working with an experienced Chicago truck accident lawyer can give you an advantage in quickly building a case by gathering evidence that might quickly disappear and interviewing witnesses who might be much harder to find later on.
Get the Compensation You Deserve! Call Now for a Free Consultation
You call, we hammer. Our dedicated Chicago truck accident attorneys are ready to fight relentlessly to win you the justice you deserve.
Contact us online or call 888-742-6637 today for a free case evaluation.
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