Damage Claims for Shoulder Injuries Resulting From Truck Crashes

Your rotator cuff consists of tendons and muscles that connect around the bones in your shoulder and enable you to lift and rotate your arm. The tissue of the rotator cuff is five layers thick, and one or more of these layers can be torn when you suffer trauma to your shoulder in a truck accident. The pain from a rotator cuff tear typically originates in the front of your shoulder and moves down your arm. A snapping or popping sensation that occurs when you try to raise your arm is a sign of a rotator cuff tear.

Types of Shoulder Surgeries

Surgical procedures to treat shoulder injuries such as rotator cuff and SLAP tears include:

Arthroscopy

Small fragments of tendon and bone are removed, and minor tears can be sutured with a small instrument inserted into the shoulder.

Acromioplasty

The acromion at the outer edge of the scapula is surgically shaved to reduce painful impingement on tendons in the rotator cuff.

Open shoulder surgery

Grafts of tendon tissue are used to repair tears in the rotator cuff.

Shoulder replacement

In the most serious cases, your injured shoulder might have to be replaced with a mechanical one.

Claims for Damages Following a Crash With a Commercial Truck

If you suffer a shoulder injury caused by a truck driver who is reckless, fatigued, distracted, drowsy, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or in violation of traffic laws or Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations, you’re entitled to file an insurance claim for your damages: medical bills, property damage, lost income, and pain and suffering. If any one of the insurance companies involved does not offer a fair settlement, you may file a personal injury suit in civil court.

Fighting the Insurance Company

An insurance company’s primary objective is to earn profits for its shareholders, so it will look for any possible reason to delay, devalue, or deny expensive damage claims. Because truck crash injuries are often catastrophic, your claim is likely to be costly, with high medical expenses and extended time off work for treatment and recovery. The insurer might contact you to offer a quick, low settlement before you even know what your total medical expenses will be.

You should never accept such an offer, and you should not communicate on your own with an insurance company. Its adjusters are well-trained to take anything you say about your accident out of context and use it against you to deny your claim. This is just one reason why you should retain your own lawyer if you’ve suffered a shoulder injury in a truck crash.

Multiple Defendants in Truck Crash Cases

Another reason why it’s a good idea to have an attorney in your corner is the possibility of multiple defendants in a truck accident case. Unlike a car-car accident in which you generally demand compensation from one at-fault driver, a truck crash case could require you to seek compensation from more than one party who bears responsibility for your damages. Possible defendants in a truck crash include:

• The truck driver
• The trucking company
• A manufacturer
• A mechanic or repair service
• Loading dock personnel
• A government agency if road conditions or faulty traffic signals played a part in your wreck

The process of investigating your accident to identify all liable parties and determine their respective percentages of fault, demanding fair compensation from all insurers, and negotiating reasonable settlements is best left to an experienced truck crash lawyer. Your attorney can also obtain crucial data from the truck’s black box data recorder, dashboard camera footage, and the trucker’s log books or information from electronic logging devices to find out whether FMCSA hours-of-service (HOS) regulations were violated.