Trucking · Train · Heavy machinery

Los Angeles · Santa Fe

A collision with an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer, a train, a transit bus or a piece of industrial equipment is rarely a two-party case. There is a driver or operator, an employer, an owner, a maintenance contractor, a manufacturer, sometimes a public agency, and each has its own insurer and its own lawyers. Federal regulations govern much of what they were supposed to do. The evidence that shows what actually happened lives in electronic logs, event data recorders and maintenance files that are routinely overwritten.

This is the area in which lawyers from other states most often ask Tobin Lanzetta to join them as trial counsel.

Trucking

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations set the rules for driver qualification, hours of service, drug and alcohol testing, vehicle inspection and maintenance, and cargo securement. A violation is evidence of negligence, and a pattern of violations can support claims against the carrier beyond the driver's own conduct. We send preservation demands for the electronic logging device data, the engine control module, dash-camera footage, dispatch records and the driver qualification file immediately, and we seek a court order where a carrier will not confirm preservation.

Rail and transit

Train and light-rail cases turn on who designed, installed, maintained and oversaw the crossing, the signals and the equipment, and on federal preemption arguments that railroads raise in nearly every case. Tobin has written on California rail safety for the Daily Journal and tried the Garcia v. MTA case to a $13.82 million verdict. Railroad employees injured on the job have a separate remedy under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, with its own three-year limitations period and a standard more favorable than ordinary negligence.

Heavy machinery

Forklifts, loaders, cranes, presses and conveyors injure workers when a guard is missing, an interlock is defeated, a warning is inadequate or a design is unstable. Workers' compensation does not bar a claim against the manufacturer, the owner or a contractor who is not the employer. In Ventura County a jury returned a $3.5 million verdict for a worker catastrophically injured by a forklift; the comp carrier's lien was addressed as part of the resolution.

Each case is different. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome.

Deadlines

Two years for most injury claims in California (Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1). Six months to present a written claim if a public transit agency, city or county is involved (Gov. Code § 911.2). Three years for FELA claims by railroad workers (45 U.S.C. § 56). The evidence deadlines are shorter than any of these.

Consultations are free and confidential. We represent clients on a contingency fee: no attorney's fee unless we recover for you. If there is no recovery, you owe us nothing for the costs we advance; a court may in some cases award costs to the opposing side.