Episode 56: Conversation with Dan Ramsdell

Dan Ramsdell: It’s all about putting profits over people. And I know everybody’s heard that. It’s a long song and dance, but it’s repeated, and unless and until the people who are in power in these trucking companies know that when they have their drivers violate these Federal Motor Carrier safety regulations and kill people, kill innocent people on the highways, it’s their fault and they’re going to pay.

David Craig – Host: I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of Craig, Kelly & Faultless. For over 35 years, I’ve dedicated my career to helping individuals and families who have been seriously injured or lost loved ones in devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle accidents. When tragedy strikes, life can feel chaotic, overwhelming and uncertain. Many people don’t even know where to begin or what questions to ask. That’s why I created After The Crash, a podcast designed to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate these challenging times. In each episode, I sit down with experts, professionals, victims, and others involved in truck wreck cases to give you insight, guidance and practical advice. Together we’ll help you understand your rights, protect your family, and move forward. This is After The Crash.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After The Crash. This is attorney David Craig, and today I’m excited to have Dan Ramsdell, the Ramsdell Law Firm, as our guest. Dan loves to sue bad trucking companies, dangerous trucking companies, and everybody else that has anything to do with putting a bad truck on the road and endangering the lives of all of us. And I’m going to go through more of his credentials, but what I think one of the most fascinating things is: why is he so passionate? Because I’ve met this man, I’ve known Dan for years, and you won’t find anybody more passionate about punishing bad trucking companies than Dan Ramsdell. And so before I go into all of his credentials, which are just astronomical, I would like to ask Dan, why don’t you tell the audience why is it that you personally feel so strongly about this particular subject?

Dan Ramsdell: Well, thank you David, and let me first thank you for the honor and privilege of being chosen to appear on this podcast. You’ve been a great friend for years and, more importantly for this audience, a great attorney for those that have been injured in truck crashes. The reason I got involved is…I’ll try to make a long story short.

I was taking my mom to the doctor one morning. I was 17 years old, and I was driving a Volkswagen. I was going down the highway, and a commercial box truck, it was icy, hit slick ice and crossed over the center line and immediately crashed into our Volkswagen. And it just changed my life forever. I looked over at my mom and she was dead, and then I’d pass out and I’d wake up. The reason I kept waking up was the jaws of life was there, and they got my mom out, and it turns out she wasn’t dead, but I thought she was.

Then I got taken to the hospital, and I was crippled up. I was a senior in high school, and I was an athlete. I had glass in my eye. I almost lost vision in my left eye. My left leg was critically injured. I had a bone sticking from my femur, sticking out through my leg, and it hurt like heck, man, that really hurt. I was laid up, and there was nothing I could do about it. I have never felt more helpless in my whole life than from that incident. So, my parents hired a lawyer, and the lawyer that they hired was really incompetent. Our lawyer dealt with my mother, and I had no idea that he was supposed to get our approval before settling a case or anything like that. He was terrible about returning phone calls. Just the exact opposite of the lawyer that the people on this podcast would want to hire. That’s who I had.

My mom and I were both nearly killed in the crash. We had medical bills that were close to $15,000. My car was totaled. I had severe physical injuries. I haven’t told you all of them, and my mom too. Finally, he picked up my phone call. He had settled our case, and he was feeling kind of cocky and proud. Now, I had no fault at all, absolutely no fault. It was a commercial box truck. They had lots of insurance. I told them, “You know what, I’m 17 and I think I could do a better job than you did.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you go to law school?” And I said, “I will.” And so I did. And when I graduated from law school, I got out and did criminal defense work for a while, represented a small company that lots of people have them; you probably have them there in Indiana called “the mob.”

I was too successful at it, and I thought, “well, why don’t I just do what I’m really passionate about and go after interstate trucking companies?” So, I shut down my practice for a couple of years and spent all my time and my money to put together what was then the largest plaintiff trial lawyers association in America that focused on interstate trucking litigation. That’s how I met David. David was one of the top lawyers in our group, served on the National Advisory Board and even got the Thurgood Marshall Award in that group. I’m just proud to know David and just really honored and humbled that he’s asked me to speak on his podcast.

David Craig – Host: I think that’s helpful. I mean, I think people understand that for a lot of good lawyers, there’s a passion there. It’s not about just making money, and there’s a root cause. They want to make a difference. I know with my practice, with my life, my goal has been from day one to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Whether that’s my employees, whether that’s my family or whether that’s my clients, is to make a positive difference. The great thing about that goal is you never get done. You never reach it because there’s always somebody else to make a difference in their lives tomorrow. That’s the thing I love about Dan, is Dan was passionate and he had a reason to be passionate about trucking. And I’d heard this story before and you could just tell that it meant something.

He went into an area…AAJ is a group, a national group that it’s been called different things. But AAJ is the national group for plaintiff lawyers, lawyers who represent victims of accidents. They have a trucking division, a trucking group. Dan was the president, elected president of that group of the trucking division. He then built what he just talked about, which is the first group that I ever knew of that was just focused on victims of semi-trucks, commercial motor vehicles and other big, large, heavy trucks. And he built this organization so that lawyers could learn because, like Dan said, there’s lawyers out there who don’t know anything about personal injury, but then there’s lawyers that know personal injury that don’t know anything about trucking. We’re going to get into what you should look for towards the end of this.
But I want to let you know that Dan is a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Forum, the Million Dollar Forum. He’s been a Super Lawyer. He’s been one of the highest ranked lawyers in the state that he’s from, in Missouri. His office is located in Springfield, Missouri, but this man has handled truck cases all over this country. He co-counsels with lots of other lawyers to help them figure out how to get all the money available from all the bad people, all the people who are the ones that put these bad, dangerous trucks on the road. It’s complicated. It’s not easy. It’s not just the truck driver; it’s not just the trucking company. There’s all kinds of people who could be involved. Dan helps lawyers figure out who in the world is there. How do you get other insurance? How do you get every single dime you’re entitled to, including punitive damages? Dan is very accomplished, he’s written, he speaks nationally. It is just my honor to have you, Dan, on our podcast today.

Dan Ramsdell: Well, thank you for those kind words, David. I appreciate it.

David Craig – Host: I want to talk a little bit about what people don’t understand. First of all, let’s talk about the root causes of these bad wrecks. I mean, because I think you and I both would agree that most truck drivers are good people. They are careful, they are professional, they’re responsible, but there’s a percentage of them with companies that are bad, that put profits ahead of safety. We see all kinds of causes for wrecks. Let’s talk about some of those.

Dan Ramsdell: Well, let me tell you something else you might not know about me. I used to drive a truck, and my father-in-law drove a truck, and a lot of my good friends and relatives are truck drivers. They’re the salt of the earth; they’re the hardest working people on the planet.

Everybody knows the obvious causes. Somebody runs a red light, or they failed to yield the right of way, or it’s too icy or snowy, or they were going too fast, or maybe there’s a rear-end crash. I mean, that’s obvious to anybody. You don’t need a lawyer to figure that out. Liability is usually a somewhat given thing.

David Craig – Host: The challenge though, Dan, with that is…Let’s say weather, for example, is one of the ones you just mentioned. What I see, and I represent tons of victims of semi wrecks, and I get hired every year, and unfortunately every year, every winter, every time there’s bad weather — and you and I both live in the Midwest — and when we see bad weather, snow, ice, even wet pavement, we see wrecks, and we see people getting injured. I see police reports that get it wrong on a regular basis because the investigating officer doesn’t know that the Federal Motor Carrier safety regulations require extreme caution when visibility or traction is affected. They don’t know that the CDL Manual says to decrease your speed by a third on wet payment, by 50% on packed snow, and to get off [the road] when there’s ice.

Dan Ramsdell: That’s exactly right.

David Craig – Host: Even when we have these kinds of cases, even though they should be simple, even though they should be something that you and I look at and say, “Okay, well, guys, what was this truck doing?” the police will still put the car driver at fault, even though the truck was going too darn fast for the weather conditions.

Dan Ramsdell: Well, yeah, the passenger vehicle, who is probably our audience, they’re not trained to know that stuff or required to know. They know they should slow down. I mean, it’s common sense. But the commercial motor vehicle operator has a regulation that requires him to know this, and requires him to do that. And when he doesn’t know it or do it, the blame is always on the motor carrier. Always, always, always. Because they’re supposed to make certain that when they put that guy out on the road, he understands all the Federal Motor Carrier safety regulations. And let me tell you, there’s hundreds of them.

And I feel sorry for them. Some of these guys are not really educated and haven’t spent as much time as I have studying them. It’s easy for me or someone with my experience to go into a deposition and pull their pants down, and it’s embarrassing for them.

I can get them to admit lots and lots of things, which ends up winning the case, and also things against their company. And the company is at fault for not training them and not supervising them and not firing them when they’re not qualified. They don’t pass the proper… They may have false information or DOT exams. They’re either disqualified when they hire them or they’re unqualified when they hire them, become disqualified later.

The trucking companies have to train these people. It’s all about putting profits over people. I know everybody’s heard that; it’s a long song and dance, but it’s repeated, and unless and until the people who are in power in these trucking companies know that when they have their drivers violate these Federal Motor Carrier safety regulations and kill people, kill innocent people on the highways, it’s their fault and they’re going to pay.

You know who pays now? Prosecutors are busy. The truck driver ran a red light or did whatever, and they give him the ticket, and they prosecute him for manslaughter. But guess who doesn’t get prosecuted? The motor carrier. Why? Because it’s a corporation. I’ve been known to even go after the individual board directors or managers of the corporations and bring them in as defendants. Now, that makes them squirm a little bit, David.

David Craig – Host: Sure, absolutely.

Dan Ramsdell: And what I try to do… “The Art of War” is a book written by Sun Tzu, and it’s about 2,000 years old, and a lot of people have read it, and I’ve read it, and I think it’s really great. One of the things that he teaches there is that all battles are won before they’re fought. I’ve been able to do that in my practice. I haven’t gone to trial in a trucking case yet. I’m waiting for the chance. But what I’ve been able to do is to get the defense attorneys and the insurance companies to pay me a lot of money to meet my client’s needs and goals to the point where my clients say, “Stop. Stop. I’m sick of them; go get them until they cut me off.”

And when they cut me off, oftentimes I’m disappointed because I’d like to go to trial, and I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m either a really good lawyer or a really bad lawyer, and my reputation stands for itself, and I’ve got a lot of happy clients. But you be the judge.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. And you and I both know, and a friend of ours says often it is not about us, it’s about the clients.

Dan Ramsdell: Exactly.

David Craig – Host: It’s about the clients. Lawyers, we all have egos. If you’re any good, you have an ego. And I don’t think you and I would ever be accused of not having an ego.

Dan Ramsdell: Oh, yeah. And that’s one thing I want to address, David, and I’m glad you mentioned that. I’ve been involved as co-counsel with lawyers across the United States, and a lot of them, they’ll get a settlement offer, and they’re the lead counsel or they bring the client in and then it gets complex, and they hire me. But they’ll get a settlement offer, which would probably be a life-changing event for the client, and they don’t tell the client about it. I don’t feel comfortable about that. And I say, “Are you going to tell the client?”

“No, it’s too low.”

Well, the client needs to make that decision, not that lawyer, because we don’t know what’s going on in the personal life of that client. It might be too low for the case, but it might not be too low for that client. That client may not be willing to risk going to trial and gambling. Once that client’s goals are met, we’ve done our job, and we need to be proud and happy for the client and not try to serve our ego and get some huge plaque on the wall because of this monster verdict.

David Craig – Host: Absolutely.

Dan Ramsdell: We can’t really guarantee the result, either.

David Craig – Host: Absolutely. I always tell my clients, “I don’t force you to go to trial, but I also don’t force you to settle. It’s your choice. I’m happy to do either.”

My job is just to make sure my clients are happy at the end of the day and give them my advice on whether I think it’s a good number or a bad number.

One of the other causes that we talked about, and you sent me, and you’ve discussed a lot of times, and I think you’re probably one of the top experts in this particular area, and that’s fatigue. You’ve done some things that no other lawyer has. Harvard did a study and had a forum on that, and you were the only lawyer that was invited to participate. I mean, you’ve studied fatigue, you’ve worked fatigue cases, and fatigue is a huge problem in the trucking industry. And maybe you could talk a little bit, share a little bit with our audience on that.

Dan Ramsdell: You know, if the wheels aren’t turning, the trucking company isn’t making any money. Generally, the truck drivers don’t get paid by the hour. They get paid by the load. So, if the trucking company can make the drivers drive long hours, it doesn’t cost them any more money, and they make more money. That pleases the broker or shipper or freight forwarder or whoever’s getting the goods because they get the product soon.

If a trucker says, “Hey, wait a minute, you’re asking me to drive over the hours of service,” which varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, by the way, and whether it’s state or interstate. Well, fatigue used to be the number one cause of crashes in the United States, and I am an expert on fatigued driving. What happens is, you’re driving down the road as a truck driver, and you call into dispatch and you say, “Hey, I’m going over my hours, I’m going over my hours.”

Well, sometimes they have a just-in-time delivery load. A just-in-time delivery means they’ve got to get it there by a certain schedule, or these plants get these parts from these semis, and they use them as moving warehouses. There’ll be a car assembly, Mitsubishi Motor Company is one of them that I was involved with. And so the guy, this truck had parts for Mitsubishi Motor Company, it was up in Pennsylvania, and he’ll remain nameless, but they had to get those parts there on time. There’s a huge penalty that the motor carrier was going to have to pay if they were late because they had workers in that factory literally waiting on the delivery of those parts. It was a wonderfully orchestrated organization where they’d get done with one thing and then the parts would be delivered, and they’d do another, and it saved them thousands and thousands of dollars in warehousing fees.

But he got there a little bit late. It started snowing, and it started snowing pretty badly. This guy was right on the edge of his hours of service. He says, “Hey it’s bad weather, it’s getting snowy. I can hardly see, and the roads are getting icy.” And they say, “Well, keep driving, keep driving. This is just-in-time delivery.” He called them a couple more times. “Just keep driving, just keep driving.”

Finally, he called him and says, “I can’t see.” And they say, “You’re about 10, 15 miles away. Just keep driving. We don’t care.” Well, the reason we have that conversation available to us is my buddy got the dispatch tapes because he acted promptly to get all the discovery that he needed to get, and he made them pay. He made them pay big time. They didn’t care, and they don’t care.

That’s what’s wrong. Unless and until the managers, the dispatchers, the companies that are directly involved in making these decisions by having these policies and procedures in place need to be taken to task. Prosecuting attorneys are hesitant to do it. They’re very busy. They’ll just prosecute the truck driver. Ninety-nine times out of 100, they won’t go after a company. Why? They’re big multinational companies, and they don’t have the staff, quite honestly, or maybe the competence to go after them. It is just terrible. These guys [motor carriers], it’s a no-risk deal for them. Just let them go on kill people, and nothing’s had of it. What I do is, I like to pull their pants down in front of everybody and say, “Here’s the deal.”

Most lawyers, when they file a proffer for punitive damages… Which, you have to do a proffer; show the judge what proof you’ve got of punitive damage before they’ll allow you to amend your complaint to add punitive damages account because, once you add punitive damages, then you can get the financial information about the company and the individuals involved. You have to have proof to the judge that you’re just not harassing them for the sake of harassment. Most lawyers that do these proffers of evidence are making allegations and attaching documents and things to it, and affidavits, and they’re usually about four or five pages, maybe 10 to 12 pages long.

The last one I did — David, you’ll understand — my complaint was 40 pages long, and the proffer was over 1,000 pages long. One of the main topics of the negotiations, and this was a huge multinational company. If I told you the name, you would recognize it. It’s a name known to many households and to many companies across America. The whole basis of their negotiations after that point was, “Please don’t file that proffer in open court.” You know why? Because it would’ve exposed them to fraud. It would’ve exposed the board of directors to fraud. It would’ve exposed the company to fraud against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, IRS, lots of other entities. They paid us a huge amount, which was, I think, known to be one of the largest settlements, and there are confidentiality agreements in that state. That was recently, and I’m very proud of that. It took years to be able to dig that deep and get all that information. That’s what goes on every single day in the trucking industry.

David Craig – Host: I think that’s important. That’s why trucking cases are not like, ordinarily, personal injury cases.

Dan Ramsdell: No, they’re not.

David Craig – Host: And there’s a lot involved. Unfortunately, the worst equipment, the trucks that have the worst equipment and the worst drivers, a lot of times, are very small operations. Maybe it’s just a single driver, independent contractor, and what I see every day — which is really sad, and you see it — is that truck driver kills somebody or hurt somebody seriously. The ordinary personal injury lawyer looks at that and says, “Okay, well the most we’re going to get is whatever the limit is.”

Dan Ramsdell: A million dollars.

David Craig – Host: A million dollars is what most insurance companies have, $750,000 is the minimum required. Most carriers are only at a million-dollar policy nowadays.

Dan Ramsdell: That’s right.

David Craig – Host: They look at that, and that’s all they see. Where you and I know that, no, wait a minute. The question is, okay, this is a horrific event to our clients. Now, how do we find other people to pay? Who else is involved? Why did this terrible company have this load to begin with? Who brokered it, who shipped it? There’s so much more involved in a truck case than what ordinary personal injury lawyers deal with every day.

Dan Ramsdell: That’s correct. That’s why anybody that’s been injured in a truck crash — I know it sounds ghoulish to suggest this — but you’ve experienced a horrific loss. Someone in your family has died, and maybe more than one person. Or sustained horrific catastrophic injuries. You’re overwhelmed, and you want to be attentive to them. And that’s as you should; you should get them promptly in quick medical care and competent medical care. But the other thing you really need to think about, you need to have clear head at this point. You need to also hire a very, very, very good, experienced, competent, qualified attorney who has the time — not somebody who’s too busy to take your case. There’s a lot of qualified lawyers that are too busy to spend the time on your case, and that’s why I limit my practice.

You have to spend lots and lots and lots of time to dig down and get all this information, stop them from destroying evidence, stop them from doing all these things. There’s a movie called “Pulp Fiction,” and there’s a character in that movie called Winston Wolfe, and he shows up at the home of Quentin Tarantino, and I think it’s John Travolta and Samuel Jackson are involved, but Travolta ends up shooting a guy and his remains are scattered all over the car. And Winston Wolfe shows up at their door, they make a call, and he shows up at their door and says, “Hey, I’m Winston Wolfe. The insurance company sent me. I’m here to get rid of all the evidence.”

That happens in every major catastrophic trucking crash in this country. The reason I know that is I was at a conference of defense lawyers, and they had a Winston-Wolfe-type guy that got up and spoke in front of hundreds of lawyers. I didn’t have my name tag on because they would’ve known who I was. I’ve known that they hear my name, and they don’t know what I look like, but they didn’t know who I was. And I sat in on that, and gets up and brags and he says, “You know, whenever there’s a catastrophic truck crash, really bad, where the insurance companies and the motor carriers think they’re really going to get tagged big time, they send me out. They bought me my own private aircraft. They don’t complain about it. They paid for it, and they pay me a whole lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars to go out, and I screw the people that have been injured,” and that is the terms he used.

I apologize, but that’s what they said. And he said, “Well, what I like to do is I pull up,” and all these lawyers, the defense lawyers are laughing, and I’m appalled. I’m just sick to my guts about it, that’s what happened to me. And he says, “I’ll go in.” And he says, “We’ll take a picture of their house. We’ll have 20 or 30 people hit that house and don’t let them know we’re there.”

They’ll do background checks on them and see how much money they’re making and look where they’re living and try to figure out where the guy works and all that kind of stuff. They do all their investigative stuff and figure, “this is a really poor family.” We were, and just like these people were, and they’ll do an analysis of them. “These people think $100,000 dollars is a lot of money, but we got to get there before they hire an attorney.”

“We’ve got to keep them from hiring an attorney, and that way we can save the company millions and millions of dollars. They’ll think it’s great.” So, he says, “I’ll show up at the door, and I’ll knock on the door, and it’s sometimes three or four hours later because I fly in my jet and get going and they get all that material and they fax it or email it to me, and I get it all ahead of time. I’ll go, “Mr. Jones, I’m sorry about what happened. I represent this ABC trucking company and the insurance company, and it was our fault.”

“It was our fault because they ran a red light or did something,” and they don’t want us to find the root cause. And he said, “I’m here to offer you a lot of money, and I know money can’t make it go away, but I don’t want you to have to go through the grief and suffering and the pain and delays and everything that getting involved in a lawsuit would do. But I’m here to offer you $100,000.”

And he’ll let that sit for a while, and then they look and gulp, and he’ll say, “But you know what? I really like you guys. I don’t think that’s enough, but let me go outside and have about 10 or 15 minutes, I’ll try to talk to them and see if I can’t get them to give me a little bit more money.” And he goes outside and calls the company, and they say, “How’s it going?” He says, “Oh, is great. They bought it, hook, line and sinker. I told him I was going out,” and he smokes a cigar. He laughs and they laugh, and this is all in front of hundreds of lawyers.

And then he goes back in, and he says, “Listen, I’ll offer you $250,000, and we’ll give you a brand-new car, and we’ll pay for the funeral, and we’ll pay for the college for one of your kids. Not all of them, but one of them. That’s all we can do for you. And this never really happens. It’s amazing. But you’ve got to take this offer tonight.”

He says, “You know what, nine times out of 10 they do it,” and they laugh and laugh and laugh. And then the company goes on and does the same thing the very next day, and he flies to somebody else’s house. And that’s what really goes on. It’s scary.

David Craig – Host: A lot of people don’t realize, when a truck driver hits and kills somebody or maims them, the first call that the truck driver makes, oftentimes, is dispatch.

Dan Ramsdell: That’s right.

David Craig – Host: Not 911. It’s dispatch. Oftentimes, the defense, the insurance companies, the trucking company, they have their claims adjuster — and often their attorneys — at the scene before my client’s bodies have been removed from the vehicle. And it’s sickening. It truly is sickening. I’ve had case after case after case where they have influenced the witnesses. They have influenced their driver on what he says or she says. It is something that most people, if you’re listening to this and you have the unfortunate luck that your family is involved in this type of tragedy, you would never guess the lengths that these companies will go to protect their own money and their driver and their assets.

And you just can’t take it for granted. Unfortunately, I had a case where somebody — this was years and years and years ago — and the closest valued case in Indiana was about $50, $60 million. This was years and years ago, and a guy was paralyzed from a semi backing into him and pinning him. And his life care plan at that time was $12, $15 million. This was years and years ago. They contacted a lawyer who didn’t do trucking, and that lawyer talked to him and he moved — that family couldn’t take care of him, so they moved him down to a trailer down in Arkansas. The trucking company sent this guy, like probably the guy you’re talking about, super nice person, very personable-

Dan Ramsdell: Oh yeah, Winston Wolfe.

David Craig – Host: Oh my God, just so nice. He goes to this guy’s trailer and said the same thing, and said how horrible it was. And they were like, “Well, he’s got IVs. We can’t buy the medicine, we can’t buy the supplies. We’re worried. We need help. We’ve got to build ramps to my trailer. We just barely got him in today. We need this and that.”

And the guy [says], “Well, we’re so sorry. It’s clearly our fault.” This is a giant, humongous company that had plenty of money. They sat down and they said, in this case, they said, “We’ll give you a million dollars.” Well, the brother who was taking care of this guy called this personal injury lawyer and said, “Hey, we don’t need you after all, it’s a million dollars.”

Well, at that point, that lawyer says, “Well, I don’t think that’s good enough.” He goes, “Let me call David Craig. He does trucking.” He called me and I couldn’t [believe it]. They told the guy, they said, “Look, David says he’ll hop on a plane and be in Arizona and be down there as soon as possible,” but I couldn’t get out. The next flight I could get on, I’d be in the next morning. The lawyer told the family that. The brother then told the insurance person, and they raised to $2 million. The case settled before I could get on an airplane.

Dan Ramsdell: Wow.

David Craig – Host: This lawyer had been talking to this family for almost two, three weeks, almost a month. If he had contacted you or me or someone who does trucking, they would’ve been down there and taken care of that family and explained to them to watch out for the people that show up at your door who look like they’re trying to do you a favor.

Dan Ramsdell: Yeah, you’ve got to move quickly. It is unfortunate. They take advantage of your fragility at the time of your loss. I just lost my brother last week. It’s been a horrible time for me. You’re weakened by it. You’re human. A lot of times, the people that are defending these cases are not human. Unfortunately, the lawyers that you contact may not be having your best interest in mind. It’s not that they’re intentionally doing that, it’s just that they don’t know enough. You’ve already been catastrophically injured. Don’t be catastrophically injured a second time from this crash by getting the wrong lawyer.

David Craig – Host: When people are listening to this, and they want to try to decide… they’ve got to pick a lawyer, they’ve got to find out, okay, we’ve been this horrible truck wreck. What I tell people is that a lot of times it’s not the people, it’s not the victims, it’s not the immediate family because they are devastated. Just like, and I’m sorry for your brother, but-

Dan Ramsdell: Well, thank you.

David Craig – Host: People aren’t thinking clearly when they have a loss, but somebody in that family, somebody, a daughter or a son or a relative has got to step in and say, “Look, I know you’re grieving. I know you’re sitting in the hospital with your loved ones, but somebody needs to take the initiative to hire a qualified trucking attorney.”

What should they look for? What should they look for in a trucking attorney?

Dan Ramsdell: They’ve got to hire somebody that, number one, you’ve got to like them, and you’ve got to trust them because, ultimately, you’re going to trust them for the final decision on what might be one of the biggest decisions in your life: whether or not to take the offer. He may tell you to take it, but you may think, “well, I’ve already met my needs and goals, and I really feel like I need to take it.”

No lawyer, when the money gets up high enough to where we’ve met the needs and goals can tell you, can guarantee you the result. They really can’t. They can make suggestions. You need to look and see what kind of experience the trucking lawyer has, whether he’s written papers or spoken to trial lawyer associations or been elected to positions as trial lawyers. I know David has, I have, educated thousands of lawyers on interstate trucking, and they have qualifications.

You want to check and see if they’ve had trials. Like I told you guys, I haven’t had very many trials because I’ve always been able to reach my client’s goals. I think that’s a credit to me. I’m always really ready to go, and I just don’t get the chance to because I work really hard on these things. It’s important that they be honest.

Really and truly, can you trust these people? Will they work hard? What’s their work ethic? What do other lawyers have to say about them? What do people in the community have to say about them? Google them and check out their qualifications. There’s all kinds of different things that you can learn about people and don’t just… Interview two or three lawyers. Pick the guy that you want. I’ve had people come in and insist that they wanted to hire me, and I’d say, “No, I don’t want you to hire me.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t want you to hire me today. I want you to go out, and I want you to talk to two or three other lawyers.”

“What? You’re telling me, we want to hire you, but you want me to talk to two or three?”

And I said, “Yeah, because I feel like you owe it to yourself to make sure that I’m the guy that meets your needs. This is your only case. I’ve got other cases, but this is your only case. You need to make sure that who you’re working with is somebody that you can really work with.”

The lawyer needs to kind of love you because unless he does, if he thinks you’re a rotten, no-good S.O.B., he’s not going to work until 3:00 in the morning on your case. But if he loves you and he’s got that dog in the hunt, he’ll work his rear end off to make sure that you get a full measure of justice. That’s what it takes, somebody that’s passionate, someone that’s been there and someone that’ll do that for you. That’s what I would recommend.

David Craig – Host: I think that’s important. I think that’s fantastic advice. I think if you’re out there, you’re listening, and I do, I agree, you should interview. If you have a lawyer who doesn’t want to be interviewed or a lawyer doesn’t want to answer your questions, then move on. Find somebody who does. If they’re so arrogant that they think that you should just listen to them tell you how it is and you don’t need to ask them questions, then she or he is the wrong lawyer. Most of us who are really passionate about this will be happy to sit down and talk with you. You want to make sure they have the experience, the knowledge, the expertise and the resources to fight the trucking company. And that they’ve done that; that it’s not their first rodeo. I think most good lawyers will sit down and talk to you and answer those questions and share their experience with you.

Dan Ramsdell: And take their time, not rush you out of there. I mean, oftentimes I’ll be visiting with a client — I’m a talker — and after about 30 minutes, they’re squirming around. Maybe they want to leave, and I don’t blame them, but I want to make sure they know everything. And I’ll say, “Just a minute, I want to do my impression of what many doctors do.” I walk out of my conference room and open the door, walk in with a pad, and I said, “Hello.” I looked down, “Mr. James, no, Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones. Oh yeah, you have blah, blah, blah.” And he’s reading the chart, and he says, “Well, if I were you, I would blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I’ll see you later in three months.” And he walks out. I said, “How many of you had that experience with the treating physician?”

A lot of people have that, and it’s not so bad anymore because I think a lot of lawyers have inquired about that in depositions of people. But you need to have somebody that’s really setting aside all the time that you need to ask him all the questions. By the way, we’ll return your phone calls promptly. It might not be a big deal to him. It’s a routine call, but either he will return it or, if he’s really busy, he can have a paralegal return it and have her tell him, “If you’re not satisfied with that information, I’ll have Mr. Craig or Mr. Ramsdell, whoever, call you right back,” and then you know that’s a red flashing light and get back to him. He might be in the middle of a deposition or in the middle of a trial or something, and he can’t, but [the clients] need to be important.

David Craig – Host: I think that’s huge. I mean, it is so funny because my daughter’s a lawyer in my firm. My son’s a lawyer in my firm. My wife runs my firm. And so, after hours, so I give out my cell phone number to my clients, but a lot of times clients don’t want to bother me on my cell phone, but they’ll call my office after hours in the evening or on the weekends. Well, those phone calls go to my wife. Now, I don’t know how many practices… So here recently, I’m having ice cream with my grandson and my wife, and we’re having ice cream and we’re eating, and one of those calls comes in, and my wife says, “Your grandpa’s got to step out,” because my whole family understands the significance when someone calls you.

We don’t say, “Hey, an answering service is going to take your call.” She answers the phone, I step out, and I sit outside, and my ice cream melted by the time I got back. But I can do other things. You could do other things, but we do this because we want to. We are passionate, we care. I think that returning emails, returning cell phone calls, taking your calls, listening, explaining things, not making people feel like they’re dumb… I’m not capable of making people feel like they’re dumb because I’m right down there at the lower level, but-

Dan Ramsdell: I know a lot about a small area, and so I’m a big nerd about most things. So, I learn a lot from other people. Every day I learn something new.

David Craig – Host: I guess one last thing is, some people don’t even know what a commercial motor vehicle is because — and I think some lawyers don’t understand what a commercial motor vehicle is. Maybe we could end with you explaining to us, because you were talking about the Federal Motor Carrier safety regulations apply, EDL. What is a commercial motor vehicle?

Dan Ramsdell: A commercial motor vehicle is sometimes not what you think it is. A pickup truck hauling a large load of cattle might be a commercial motor vehicle because you add the gross vehicle weight rating together. If it’s over 10,000 pounds, it’s a commercial motor vehicle. And if it’s over 26,000 pounds, they have to have a Commercial Driver’s License to operate it.

David Craig – Host: That’s the point I was trying to make, is that what you just said is that, we always think of a semi-tractor trailer, which is 40 tons, 40 tons of steel out there on the highway, but it can be other things. It can be a box truck, it can be, like you said, an F350, pulling a trailer with something on it.

Dan Ramsdell: It can be a trailer. I sued the largest company that all they did was lease trailers, and I had their vice president in a deposition, and I had him admit that all of his trailers met the definition of what a commercial motor vehicle was. Once I did that, that made them a motor carrier, and we tapped into all of their millions of dollars of recoveries. In order to be a commercial motor vehicle that is subject to the regulations, it has to be over 26,000 pounds. A lot of these commercial trucks are. The gross vehicle weight rating on a box truck will be 24,500 pounds. Well, that’s a scam. The actual gross vehicle weight rating of the truck would be 26,000 or more, but they dumb it down 500 pounds just so they can evade these regulations. And that’s another scam that’s being put on the public.

I’ve been known to pierce that little game too. Look at the vehicle and look at what a commercial driver is. It’s really playing with those definitions and with what an employee is and what an employer is, and what an independent contractor is, too. The contracts between these companies are critical. They’ll defraud everybody in those agreements. An inexperienced lawyer will look at those and they’ll just say, “Oh, well, it says they’re an independent contractor. Well, we can’t go after them.” Well, no, it says that, but their practice and actions speak louder than their words, and they meet the definitions of an employer or an employee under the regulations.

David Craig – Host: Well, Dan, I really appreciate [it], again. How do people reach out if somebody wanted to look out and try to find you? How does somebody find you, Dan?

Dan Ramsdell: Well, Dan@RamsdellLaw.com, and it’s three Ls together, R-A-M-S-D-E-L-L-L-A-W.com. I also do consulting work for law firms, Dan@RamsdellConsulting.com. And, David, I appreciate this, and I would suggest that you all are listening to David’s podcast, he’s truly a gentleman and a scholar and a wonderful person. I heartily recommend you use David if you can. He’s a wonderful guy, and he will not steer you wrong.

David Craig – Host: This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After The Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, “Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families,” which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website.