Smith LaCien LLP – Trial Lawyers represented a plaintiff in a lawsuit who suffered serious injuries when an improperly secured load of scrap metal placed in a long-haul tractor-trailer truck caused the trailer to overturn. The injuries he sustained prevented him from continuing to work as a truck driver. The case was settled in the Circuit Court of Cook County for $500,000.
During the trial, the plaintiff, a 56-year-old long-haul truck driver, alleged that the defendant – a big rig trucking company – should have made sure that the scrap metal was carefully secured to the wooden pallets and that the pallets themselves should have been sufficiently blocked from sliding on the floor. The oversight ultimately shifted the load and caused the tractor to turn over on its side while moving at a slow rate of speed. The plaintiff’s lawyers argued that the defendant had undertaken a fiduciary duty of care to safely load the trailer.
The driver sustained an avulsion of his lateral epicondyle of the left humerus bone and a common extensor origin of his left elbow, as well as fractured ribs that prevented him from continuing to work. He eventually returned to work for a different employer.
Brian LaCien, a founding partner at Smith LaCien, and Andrew W. Mason, an associate attorney at the firm represented the Plaintiff.
