Michigan Delivery Truck Accident Lawyer: Free Consultations!

If you were seriously injured in a delivery truck accident in Michigan, you can hire a lawyer to sue for pain and suffering as well as economic damages such as medical bills and lost wages. Delivery truck drivers, their employers, and sometimes other third parties owe you a duty to keep you safe on the road. When they breach this duty, you have a viable lawsuit.

A delivery truck is a type of truck designed for transporting goods and products of all kinds. The most common types of delivery trucks are Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and DHL, but there are many more.

Delivery trucks serve an important purpose in commerce, but our Michigan delivery truck accident lawyers know they also pose a serious risk on the roads and in neighborhoods. In addition to the dangers posed by commercial trucks in general, delivery trucks come with some unique dangers of their own, including frequent starts and stops, parking hazards, constant loading and unloading, and driving in tight urban areas with dense populations. As a result, delivery trucks are involved in numerous serious crashes, some with devastating results.

If you have been injured in a crash involving a delivery truck, it is important to know your rights. Our attorneys can help. For a free consultation, call now to speak with one of our experienced Michigan delivery truck accident lawyers today, or use the chat feature on our website.

Meanwhile, to find out what your case may be worth, please check out our Settlement Calculator. 

Delivery trucks are considered commercial trucks, although they are generally smaller than most of their commercial counterparts. They also have some of the same features as larger commercial trucks, with a handful of exceptions. The specific features of a delivery truck vary widely based on the industry and the types of goods and products being transported, but some of the common features include:

• Size: delivery trucks come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from small vans to larger box trucks, depending on the type and volume of goods that need to be transported.
• Cargo Area: delivery trucks have a dedicated cargo area, often enclosed or partially enclosed, to securely transport goods.
• Modified: some delivery trucks are modified for a specific industry
• Loading and Unloading: delivery trucks have certain features to facilitate frequent loading and unloading, such as rear doors, side doors, or ramps.
• Payload Capacity: delivery trucks have a specific payload capacity, which determines the maximum weight of goods it can carry safely.
• Refrigeration: some delivery trucks transport perishable goods. These trucks may have refrigeration or temperature control systems to maintain specific temperature conditions.

• Parcel Delivery Vans
• Cargo Vans
• Box Trucks
• Refrigerated Trucks
• Flatbed Trucks
• Step Vans
• Pallet Trucks
• Armored Trucks
• Specialty Trucks

Our Michigan delivery truck accident lawyers know these types of trucks share many of the same safety concerns as other large commercial trucks, such as size and weight, driver inexperience and error, equipment and mechanical failure, challenging maneuverability, limited visibility, bad weather conditions, and more. But there are also several specific safety challenges unique to delivery trucks, including:

• Frequent Stops and Starts: delivery trucks are regularly stopping to drop off packages or goods, which increases the risk of rear-end collisions and poses significant challenges for traffic flow and safety.
• Parking and Stopping Hazards: these types of trucks often park or stop in areas where it is difficult to find a legitimate parking spot. Our Michigan delivery truck accident lawyers know that this can lead to traffic congestion, visibility issues, and safety concerns, and greatly increases the chances of a crash.
• Loading and Unloading: delivery personnel moving around the truck are at a much greater risk of being injured in a crash.
• Tight Urban Spaces: Our Michigan lawyers know that in urban areas, and even suburban areas, delivery trucks often have to navigate through tight streets and crowded traffic, increasing the risk of an accident with other vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians.
• Time Pressures: the demand for fast deliveries puts pressure on drivers to rush, potentially leading to speeding and other risky behaviors.

The most common cause of a delivery truck crash remains driver error, usually resulting from fatigue and lack of training and experience. But our Michigan lawyers know that delivery truck accidents are generally due to a great fault in the trucking company’s chain of command.

But when a delivery truck crash happens, the trucking companies tend to claim the drivers are independent contractors, and will point the finger at the driver or a third party. In nearly all cases, the driver is an employee of the trucking company, making the trucking company liable for failures in hiring, training, equipment maintenance, and so forth.

Typically, liability can be attached to one or more parties, including the company, the driver, and perhaps a responsible third party.

In Michigan you need an experienced delivery truck accident lawyer because these trucking cases are more sophisticated and far more difficult than car crash cases. The problem is how few personal injury attorneys truly understand trucking. Most treat these as car crash cases but with bigger insurance policy limits, but they don’t understand trucking law and the federal and state rules and regulations that make these cases different. There can be multiple defendants and hidden layers of insurance. There can be broker-shipper liability. 

A skilled attorney will protect you and your family. He or she will protect your legal rights. And he or she will give you the best and only chance to get the full compensation you deserve for your injuries. 

• Pain and suffering compensation – If you have been seriously injured in a delivery truck accident in Michigan, an experienced lawyer will likely be able to recover for your pain and suffering compensation, as well as your “economic damages,” which include medical bills and wage loss. Determining economic damages is fairly straightforward. Calculating pain and suffering after a delivery truck accident is more subjective as it often depends on the severity of the injuries, their impact on the victim’s life, and the degree of emotional distress suffered.
• Wrongful death lawsuit – If you have lost a family member in a delivery truck accident in Michigan, you and other members of your family can hire a lawyer to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the responsible party or parties. This type of lawsuit also allows for the recovery of pain and suffering compensation and certain types of economic damages, but it also allows for the recovery of medical, hospital, funeral, and burial expenses as well as the loss of the deceased’s financial support, society and companionship.
• No-Fault benefits – If you have been injured in a delivery truck accident in Michigan, a lawyer can help you collect no-fault personal protection insurance benefits, or PIP benefits, from the responsible auto insurance company to help pay for your medical bills, lost wages, transportation costs for medical appointments, and attendant care services. Generally, a person’s own insurance company will be responsible for paying no-fault benefits. However, if the person does not have his or her own policy, benefits might come from another source, including a spouse or relative’s policy (living in the same home) or the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan. The collection of no-fault benefits can sometimes be complicated, and is time sensitive, so speaking with an experienced Michigan delivery truck accident lawyer is important.

Our mission when we represent you is to get you and your family the best possible settlement in your case. You are entitled to be compensated for your pain and suffering, and you have a legal right to insurance benefits that will help you pay for your medical bills and provide you a financial lifeline if you haven’t been able to work because of your injuries. Our Michigan delivery truck accident lawyers will fight to ensure that your settlement reflects the full, true value of your case.

We specialize in handling truck crash cases successfully, and attorneys from across the state refer these cases to our attorneys because of this specialization and experience.   We have a proven track record of winning truck crash settlements and verdicts and 5-Star reviews from more than 2,500 clients to prove it. Our law firm has recovered more multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements in truck crash cases than any other firm in the state, including the largest truck crash settlement for any attorney ever in the state.

The size of your claim depends partly on how much liability insurance coverage the driver and the trucking company are carrying on the delivery truck involved in your crash. Typically, trucks have significant coverage per state and federal law. For example, federal law requires interstate trucks to have a minimum of $750,000 to cover bodily injury and property damage. As such, these claims can be large.

Other factors that will impact the size of your claim include the severity of your injuries, your present and future medical needs, your inability to return to work, and your attorney’s experience level and reputation. At Michigan Auto Law, our lawyers are highly experienced in all truck crash cases, including those involving serious delivery truck accidents, and we pride ourselves on our track record of success.

If you were injured in a delivery truck accident in Michigan, call now for a free consultation with an experienced truck accident lawyer near you. There is no cost or obligation. You can also visit our contact page or use the chat feature on our website. Our attorneys can help you better understand your legal rights to sue for pain and suffering compensation as well as other non economic and economic damages.

Michigan Auto Law specializes in all truck accident cases, including delivery truck accidents, and receives referrals from lawyers all over the state and the U.S. The attorneys at our law firm have spoken at nearly 300 seminars and legal education programs throughout the country, educating other personal injury lawyers on how to handle truck crash cases. Attorney Steven Gursten is a past-president of the American Association for Justice’s Truck Accident Litigation Group and has received the Hall of Fame award for his truck crash litigation, one of only three trucking lawyers in the entire country to have won this award. Our law firm is also the only law firm in the state that has national board certification in truck crash law. 

Our law firm has an extensive record of success, including recovering the highest recorded truck crash jury verdicts and settlements over multiple years, according to year-end compilations of settlements and trial verdicts by Michigan Lawyers Weekly. These include:

• $34.5 Million – Our attorney and his team secured the largest-reported tractor-trailer crash settlement in the U.S. for the year of this crash. It is the largest truck settlement to date by any attorney in the state or law firm. The defense’s “final offer” before trial was $14 million. The case settled for $34.5 million in trial.
• $14.3 Million – Our attorneys won this truck crash verdict in Clinton County in a case involving a traumatic brain injury, extensive economic damages and loss of consortium. The defense’s final pre-trial settlement offer was $25,000. This was the largest-reported motor vehicle trial verdict in the state for that year.
• $13.5 Million – Our attorneys settled a case for a victim in a car vs. tractor trailer crash who suffered major burn injuries. 
• $13.2 Million – Our attorneys won this verdict in a wrongful death truck crash case.
• $10.5 Million Truck Crash Settlement – One of our attorneys obtained this recovery for a woman who was seriously injured when a truck crashed into her vehicle.
• $9 Million – Our attorneys obtained this recovery for a man who lost both of his legs in a rear-end collision. This was the largest pain and suffering trucking settlement of the preceding decade for a rear-end crash in the state. The insurance company for the trucking company attempted to settle this case for $1 million with the client’s previous attorney, who had urged the client to take this offer before an attorney from our law firm got involved in the case.
• $8.5 Million – This fatal truck crash, which occurred when highway traffic stopped due to a construction detour, involved claims against a road construction company for improper signage and traffic control and failure to monitor the traffic backup. This was the top-reported road construction settlement in the state that year.
• $6.2 million – This confidential out of state trucking death case was settled by one of our attorneys who was brought in to try the case by another attorney after the insurance company made a “final” offer of $1 million dollars to the widow of the man who was killed. 

For more than 50 years, the Michigan truck accident lawyers at our law firm have been helping crash victims who have been injured or killed in delivery truck accidents . Our attorneys understand the physical, emotional and psychological hardships you are experiencing. We can help.