Hunter Shkolnik and Terrence McCartney represented the widow of an Arizona truck driver that was killed when he could not escape his burning tractor after a late night trucking accident. 

Tim T. was a young driver who drove for J.B. Hunt out of Phoenix, Arizona hauling Wal-Mart goods between there and the Southgate terminal in Los Angeles, California on same day turnarounds – about a 600 mile round trip.  Tim lived in Buckeye, Arizona with his pretty young wife and their two girls on a nice plot of land where they also kept horses.  In 2004, Tim put up a split rail fence around the stables to make a safe place for his girls to ride.  Tim was big, happy loving man. 

Tim logged a lot of miles on I-10 between Phoenix and L.A., leaving early in the morning and getting home late in the evening (if everything went right with his loads and traffic).  If he got held up, he would sleep in his tractor along the way somewhere.  Tim drove a 2001 Freightliner Century Class integrated sleeper cab and hauled a single full length trailer.  Unfortunately for Tim, his employer did not order the optional emergency exit door from Freightliner when they bought the truck.

 On January 18, 2002, Tim got held up in L.A. getting his load and by the time he made it through the rush hour traffic on I-10 westbound it was late and he decided to stop in Indio, California and get some rest.  He called Renee at 11:47 and told her he’d wake her in the morning when he got home.  After that call, motivated by wanting to get back home to his family, Tim took something to keep awake and got back on the road toward home.  A few miles later, for unknown reasons, Tim’s rig drifted off the road to the left, hit a bridge abutment and rolled onto its left side in a dry wash.  Another trucker, Mike H., was right behind him and saw the accident, parked his rig and ran to help Tim.

 By the time Mike got to Tim’s rig, it was already on fire – the fuel tanks had ruptured and the spilled fuel ignited by the metal sparks thrown off during the accident – and the front of the rig was engulfed.  Mike heard Tim banging on the skylight in the roof of the sleeper compartment which was now facing him with the truck on its side.  Since the truck did not have an emergency exit in the sleeper compartment and the front of the truck was on fire, Tim’s only possible exit was the skylight, which was not designed to open.  So Mike took a rock and broke the skylight window out and saw the Tim was unhurt and that the fire was moving in their direction quickly.  Mike grabbed Tim by the arms and pulled with all his might and Tim wiggled and pushed to try to get his big body through the small skylight opening.  Tragically, Tim never made it and died right there half in, half out of his burning rig. (picture 4)

 We sued Freightliner in federal court in Riverside, California for making the truck without any emergency exits - they sold emergency exits as “options” and said it was up to the purchaser to decide if it wanted them.  Unfortunately for them, their own expert’s statistics from a survey he did showed that almost 90% of the other truck manufacturers sold their trucks with emergency exits as standard equipment.  Freightliner’s own tests showed that Tim could have exited the vehicle through an emergency exit, if it had one, even with the truck overturned like it was in less than 25 seconds.  After a trial of several weeks, our jury found the Freightliner truck to be defective and returned a plaintiff’s verdict for $9 million dollars (the Appeals Court later reduced that amount considerably but did not overturn the favorable verdict).

If you or someone you know has been involved in a trucking accident, whether as a driver or passenger, or as another vehicle involved in the accident, a defective design may have resulted in more serious injuries or even death.  Contact our law offices today to learn about other major design flaws and what legal rights you or a loved one may be entitled to.  Call us toll free at 800-349-0004, or click here to contact our attorneys.