What can a St. Louis 18-wheeler accident injury attorney do for me?
You are injured in an 18-wheeler accident, and you are not sure what to do next. The insurance carrier for the trucking company has dispatched an immediate response team (IRT) to the scene of the crash, and evidence is being handled and processed by the trucking company. What is being done with all the evidence is really up to the insurance company because you do not yet have a tractor-trailer accident injury attorney on your side of the case. What you do next in your case will have more ramifications that you can possibly understand at this point.
First, the insurance claims adjuster and trucking company will hire their own defense lawyers immediately after the crash in an attempt to 'circle the wagons." Evidence gathered at the scene, including a download of the tractor-trailers "black box" will be done and the data may be discarded, unless of course your attorney has notified the trucking company and insurance carrier to preserve this evidence. You see, a trucking accident personal injury lawyer should immediately send a "spoliation letter" to all contacts at the insurance carrier and trucking company, demanding that all evidence be preserved, in an unaltered state due to possible future pending litigation.
Second, the insurance company may very well begin searching through documents and processing accident registers that are required by the federal safety regulations. Who knows what these accident registers will state. Internal documents such as driver qualification files and other records may be altered or destroyed. In this situation, a trucking accident plaintiff's lawyer will subpoena all records in the custody of the trucking company to make sure that vital truck driver data is not conveniently 'lost' or altered and/or destroyed.
An 18-wheeler accident injury attorney is vital and should be retained from the start of the case in order to prevent destruction of evidence that will prove critical to your injury claim. Don't be the one within the lawyer in this fight against the big trucking company and its insurance carrier.