A trucking company’s insurer has paid nearly $1 million to a Lenoir County woman who was driving to pick up her son from school when a tractor trailer smashed into her car. The truck was attempting to pass Melanie Moll’s ...

Tagged with: Truck Driver

Franklin v. Broyhill Furniture Industries When a truck driver has limited his job search to truck-driving positions, before the Industrial Commission can conclude the truck driver is disabled, the Commission must make findings and conclusions explaining why the limitation on his job search was reasonable. We affirm in part but reverse and remand on the issue of disability. Defendant argues that, when relying on an unsuccessful job search to prove disability, a claimant must produce evidence and the Commission must find that he unsuccessfully searched for employment in fields other than the one in which he was employed at the time he was injured. We disagree.

Tagged with: disability Job Search reasonableness Truck Driver Workers’ Compensation

Leggett v. AAA Cooper Transportation Even though the proffered job as a dock worker/truck driver paid somewhat less that plaintiff earned as a truck driver, the job was within plaintiff’s medical restrictions and might have led to plaintiff’s reinstatement as a full-time truck driver. Plaintiff’s refusal to start back at “the bottom” was an unjustified refusal of suitable work.

Tagged with: Truck Driver Workers’ Compensation

Alexander v. AAA Cooper Transportation, Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-08-0146, 8 pp.) (Danny Lee McDonald, Commissioner) Appealed from Opinion & Award of Deputy Commissioner Bradley W. Houser. I.C. No. 089319. Holding: The defendant-employer failed to show that a non-injured worker ...

Tagged with: accident Termination Truck Driver Workers Compensation

Two companies that manufacture communications devices for truck drivers have been dismissed from a lawsuit brought by plaintiffs injured in a 2008 accident on Interstate 40 in Buncombe County. U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis L. Howell had recommended that Geologic Solutions, Inc.'s and Xata Corporation's 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss be allowed because the plaintiffs failed to state a recognized cause of action, and a U.S. district judge recently adopted that view. Asheville attorney Brady J. Fulton (pictured) said the ruling could be used as precedent by attorneys representing manufacturers in all manner of distracted driver injury cases.

Tagged with: Buncombe County Distracted Driver Motion to Dismiss Negligence Products Liability Truck Driver

A North Carolina mother and child were killed in a 2009 commercial truck crash.  There were allegations of truck driver inattention and contributory negligence against the mother. The grandmother of minor child was the sole heir to both estates. Mediated ...

Tagged with: auto accident Contributory Negligence Truck Driver Trucking wreck Wrongful Death

It was a cold day in December 2008 when Mike Sprinkle backed his tanker truck up to the loading dock at an asphalt plant in Greensboro and, like he had done many times before, climbed a ladder to the top of the truck and guided a pipe into an opening for a refill. An employee of the plant, Hammaker East, told Sprinkle that the pipes were clogged and it would be a short while before the asphalt started flowing. But when the clog was dislodged, the burst of asphalt was so strong it caused the pipe to fly out of the truck, spraying asphalt all over Sprinkle and knocking him to the ground, shattering his knee in the process.

Tagged with: Contributory Negligence Forsyth County personal injury third-party Truck Driver Trucking

Defendant-truck driver was driving a 2003 Freightliner tractor pulling an enclosed van semi-trailer north/northwest on N.C. 147 in Durham. Plaintiff Jane Doe, age 60 and an oncology nurse at Duke University Medical Center, was driving her 2000 Toyota Camry on ...

Tagged with: accident auto accident Durham County Fractures Lacerations personal injury tractor-trailer Truck Driver Trucking wreck

Plaintiffs, a 47-year-old mother, her 11-year-old daughter and her 7-year-old son, were struck by a dump truck on the driver’s side of their minivan as the plaintiff-mother attempted to turn left on a green turn arrow from a multi-lane road ...

Tagged with: auto accident dwi Fractures Lacerations motor vehicle Truck Driver Trucking Wake County wreck

Allen v. Werner Enterprises, Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-04-1120, 14 pp.) (Martin Reidinger, J.) W.D.N.C. Holding: Where plaintiff’s unconsciousness rendered him unable to remember the accident, defendant’s former employee could not be located, and defendant showed that its former employee ...

Tagged with: personal injury respondeat superior Tort/Negligence Truck Driver