How to dodge the ambulance chasers

“Big trucks rule the road, they’re dangerous, and they can cause big, bad injuries.”

Those are the opening words from Atlanta-based personal injury plaintiff’s attorney Ken Nugent, standing atop a reefer trailer in a 2013 commercial. He continued: “Big trucking companies have big insurance, and I make them pay up.”

Advocates for our legal system’s tort law protection contend that civil lawsuits rein in reckless behavior by large corporations or other parties that otherwise would go unpunished. When it comes to trucking, however, many in the industry believe the punishments have gotten out of hand with the multimillion-dollar awards won by so-called ambulance chasers.

Transportation defense attorney Rob Moseley of the Smith, Moore & Leatherwood firm in Greenville, S.C., says that it’s almost like “a switch was flipped” in 2011. That year marked the advent of easy access to carrier information via the then-new Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

With easy public access to carrier data and other tools, plaintiff’s attorneys are “better equipped than they have been in the past” and are working harder, Moseley says. “They know more about companies.”