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Tag Archives: Truck Driver

Workers’ Compensation – Disability – Job Search – Reasonableness – 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.

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Workers’ Compensation – Suitable Work – Unjustified Refusal – Truck Driver – Dock Work 

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.

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No liability for device makers in Buncombe distracted driver crash

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.

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Jury discounts contrib defense in trucker’s P.I. case

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.

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Nurse injured in Durham Freeway wreck settles case for $850,000

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 ...

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Tort/Negligence – Personal Injury – Respondeat Superior – Truck Driver – Off Course – Company Policy Violations

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 ...

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