Fatal Truck Accident Lawyer in San Antonio: 18-Wheeler and Commercial Truck Deaths

Why truck crash deaths are different

San Antonio sits where I-35 and I-10 cross, and freight runs through the city on them, on Loop 410, Loop 1604 and I-37. A loaded tractor-trailer weighs many times what a car does, so when it hits a car, a motorcyclist or a pedestrian, the result is too often a death. The company behind the truck usually has a safety department, an insurer and lawyers working within hours of the crash. A family should not be the only side without help.

Commercial trucks are governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations. These rules say how long a driver may drive, what a company must check before it hires a driver, how trucks are inspected and maintained, and what records must be kept. A breach of them is often the heart of the family’s case.

The federal rules that most often matter

Hours of service: 49 CFR 395.3

A driver of a property-carrying truck must have 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving, may drive a total of 11 hours, may not drive after 14 consecutive hours from coming on duty, and must take a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving. Weekly limits of 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days also apply. Fatigue is a frequent cause of serious truck crashes, and the hours records show whether the rules were kept.

Drug and alcohol testing after a death: 49 CFR 382.303

When a crash involving a commercial truck on a public road “involved the loss of human life”, the employer must test each surviving driver who was performing safety-sensitive functions for alcohol and for controlled substances, as soon as practicable. If the alcohol test is not given within eight hours, or the drug test within 32 hours, the employer must stop trying and keep a record of why. Whether the tests were done, and when, is one of the first things we ask about.

Driver qualification: 49 CFR Part 391

A carrier must keep a qualification file for each driver, with records such as the driver’s application, driving record, road test and medical certification. Section 391.51 requires the file to be kept for as long as the driver is employed and for three years after. A company that hired or kept a driver with a poor record, or without a valid medical certificate, can be responsible for its own negligence, not only for the driver’s.

Inspection and maintenance: 49 CFR 396.3

Carriers must systematically inspect, repair and maintain their vehicles and keep the records where the vehicle is housed or maintained for one year, and for six months after the vehicle leaves their control. Brake, tyre and lighting failures can often be traced in these records.

Minimum insurance: 49 CFR 387.9

Federal rules set minimum levels of financial responsibility for motor carriers, well above the minimums for private cars and higher again for hazardous materials. Many carriers carry more. That does not make a claim simple, but it means there is usually insurance behind the company, unlike many fatal car crashes.

The records that disappear

The federal rules set how long records must be kept, and those periods are short:

Record	Kept for at least	Rule
Driver’s records of duty status and supporting documents	6 months from receipt	49 CFR 395.8(k)
Accident register, with copies of accident reports	3 years after each accident	49 CFR 390.15(b)
Driver qualification file	While employed and 3 years after	49 CFR 391.51
Inspection, repair and maintenance records	1 year, and 6 months after the vehicle leaves the carrier’s control	49 CFR 396.3(c)
Post-accident alcohol test	Must be given within 8 hours, or the attempt stops	49 CFR 382.303(d)

Beyond these, the truck itself may hold engine and electronic logging data, and many fleets have cameras and tracking systems whose data is overwritten on a schedule. We send a written demand to preserve all of it as soon as we are hired. A company that destroys evidence after it has been asked to keep it faces consequences in court, but the better result is that the evidence is kept.

Who can be responsible for a fatal truck crash

• The driver, for speeding, fatigue, distraction, impairment or an unsafe manoeuvre.
• The motor carrier that employed or contracted the driver, for the driver’s conduct on the job and for its own failures in hiring, training, supervision, scheduling and maintenance. Civil Practice and Remedies Code 71.002 makes a company liable for the wrongful act or neglect of its “agent or servant”, and section 71.002(c) speaks specifically of the owners and hirers of vehicles that carry goods.
• The owner or lessor of the tractor or the trailer, where it is a different company.
• The company that loaded the cargo, where shifting or overweight cargo caused the crash.
• A maintenance contractor that worked on the brakes or tyres.

We look for each of them early. A defendant may ask the court to name a responsible third party for the jury to blame (section 33.004), and a defendant found more than 50 percent responsible is jointly and severally liable for the damages (section 33.013(b)).

How Texas tries commercial truck cases: Chapter 72

In 2021 Texas added Subchapter B to Chapter 72 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code for suits over bodily injury or death caused in a collision with a commercial motor vehicle. Its main rules are:

• A split trial on request. On a defendant’s motion, the court must divide the trial (section 72.052). The first phase decides liability and compensatory damages; the second decides exemplary damages. The motion is due by the later of 120 days after the defendant’s answer or 30 days after a new claim is added against it.
• Limits on regulation evidence in the first phase. Evidence that a defendant broke a regulation is admitted in the first phase only if the breach tends to prove a cause of the death and the regulation governs the conduct at issue (section 72.053). Other breaches can still support exemplary damages in the second phase.
• Employer stipulations. If an employer agrees in time that the driver was its employee acting in the scope of employment, claims such as negligent entrustment usually move to the second phase (section 72.054). Even then, for an employer regulated under the federal Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 or Transportation Code Chapter 644, the jury may hear in the first phase whether the driver was licensed, disqualified, under an out-of-service order, medically certified, or driving in breach of the hours rules on the day of the crash.

The hours rules named in section 72.054 are the federal ones in 49 CFR 395.3 and, for trucks that operate only within Texas, the state’s own rule at 37 Texas Administrative Code 4.12. Which applies depends on how the truck was operating.

Exemplary damages in truck cases

Section 71.009 allows exemplary damages when a death is caused by gross negligence. In truck cases the question is often what the company knew: a driver it knew was falsifying hours, a truck it knew had failing brakes, a schedule it knew could not be driven legally. Gross negligence must be proved by clear and convincing evidence and found by a unanimous jury (section 41.003). Under Chapter 72 it is decided in the second phase of a split trial.

What the family’s claim covers

The claim is the same Texas wrongful death claim as in any other case: the surviving spouse, children and parents bring it for their own losses (section 71.004), and the estate brings the survival action for the person’s own losses before death (section 71.021). The suit must be filed within two years of the death (section 16.003(b)). Our wrongful death lawyer San Antonio page explains both claims, and our fatal car accident lawyer San Antonio page covers the crash report and the family’s own insurance, which can matter in truck cases too.

What a family can do now

1. Keep any card, letter or paper from the trucking company, its insurer or an investigator, but do not sign anything or give a recorded statement.
2. Write down the truck’s company name, any number on the cab door, and the names of witnesses, if you have them.
3. Keep papers from the police, the hospital, the medical examiner and the funeral home.
4. Call us when you are ready. The sooner the company is asked in writing to preserve its records, the more of them survive.

For how we handle a claim from the first call to suit in Bexar County, see wrongful death attorney San Antonio.

This page is general information about Texas and federal law, not legal advice for any particular crash. Responsible attorney: Michael Uvalle, LAWBOSS – Harris, Nelsen & Uvalle, PLLC.

Questions people ask