Tractor-Trailer Crash Lawsuit Settled for over 2 Million Dollars
Pritzker Olsen attorneys Fred Pritzker and Eric Hageman recently obtained a $2,560,000 recovery for the victims of a tractor-trailer crash.
The clients were a husband and wife in their sixties whose automobile was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer. The initial impact caused their automobile to lose control, cross the center median and collide head-on with an SUV traveling in the opposite direction. The husband suffered a traumatic brain injury and both the husband and wife had extensive orthopedic injuries.
The cause of the crash was hotly contested. The trucking company claimed the driver of the car allowed her vehicle to drift into the truck’s lane while the plaintiffs contended the semi-truck drifted into their lane. Eyewitness testimony supported each claim.
Pritzker and Hageman retained the services of an accident reconstruction expert able to identify and map out tire markings from the automobile that showed it was in its proper lane at the time the tractor-trailer crashed into it. Using that data, an animationist hired by our law firm created a short video demonstrating how the crash occurred.
The trucking company (defendant) hired its own reconstruction expert and an engineer, who prepared a computer simulation of the crash using a software program claimed to be more scientifically accurate than the plaintiffs’ animation.
Pritzker and Hageman attacked the scientific claims of the defendant’s engineer by retaining an expert in the same software program to testify that the software program was manipulated to reach a pre-ordained conclusion. They also brought a motion to exclude the testimony of the trucking company experts and the simulation on which it was based. The tractor-trailer crash lawsuit was settled for 2.56 million dollars the day prior to the hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion to exclude.
