Bus, Truck and Tractor-Trailer Accidents
Settlement on behalf of young husband and father who was struck from behind by a fuel truck during the morning commute towards Boston. The impact of the accident was severe and the plaintiff was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage and two compression fractures in his lumbar spine. Although he did not undergo surgery, the plaintiff was rendered totally disabled from his physical job and still suffers from his injuries. After pre-trial motions were decided, SUGARMAN attorneys were able to resolve the case just days before trial.
In the largest reported plaintiff’s personal injury settlement or verdict of 2022, SUGARMAN Principals Ben Zimmermann and David McCormack obtained a recovery on the eve of trial for a 26-year-old whose vehicle was struck by a tractor-trailer that hit and tipped over a temporary barrier dividing lanes of traffic in a construction zone on a highway in Central Massachusetts. Through years of litigation in federal court, SUGARMAN was able to demonstrate that the general contractor and engineering firm for the project selected a light-weight steel barrier that did not meet the project’s specifications and that the manufacturer of the barrier withheld testing and misrepresented the barrier’s characteristics. Compounding these errors, the general contractor failed to install the barriers properly and the engineering firm failed to provide instructions regarding how much room was needed on either side of the barrier to prevent intrusion into opposing lanes of travel. SUGARMAN’s experts demonstrated that the tractor-trailer was traveling at a low rate of speed with a small angle of impact such that a properly installed steel barrier (with several feet of room on either side) or an unpinned concrete barrier would have contained and re-directed the tractor-trailer and prevented it from entering the opposing lane of travel and striking the plaintiff’s car. The plaintiff was a healthy 23-year-old college student at the time of the collision. He suffered multiple fractures and injuries to his internal organs, ultimately rendering him paraplegic with an above-the-knee amputation of the left leg.
Settlement in personal injury case for a 69-year-old driver who suffered spinal fractures in a motor vehicle and truck collision in Lunenburg, resulting in a complex surgery with hardware implantation.
Settlement for married 50 year-old father of three who suffered a life-altering brain injury when his car was rear-ended and run over by a commercial truck.
A trucking company, which allowed its drivers to work beyond the maximum hours mandated by federal regulations, settled a case in which a tired truck driver rear-ended a car at high speed on a highway. A woman in her thirties, with no dependents, was killed in the accident.
Pre-suit settlement of personal injury claims for husband and wife whose van was struck from behind by a tractor trailer. The wife sustained ACL tears in both her knees and the husband developed compartment syndrome resulting in extensive surgeries and scarring.
Settlement in a negligence and product liability case against a transportation company and bus manufacturer following the deaths of four middle school students on a school trip in Canada. Through the use of accident reconstructions, SUGARMAN attorneys established that bus driver error was the cause of the deadly crash, and not a roadway design defect as the defendants maintained. SUGARMAN lawyers also prosecuted product liability claims against the foreign bus manufacturer, relying upon biomechanical engineering evidence to show that an improper window design resulted in passengers being ejected from the bus during the crash sequence.