A Personal Injury Case Analysis: Sudden Medical Emergency Defense

Many times, following a semi-truck car crash, the trucking companies or their insurance companies will claim that the accident wasn’t their truck driver’s fault because he/she suffered a sudden medical emergency. They raise this defense in order to attempt to escape paying for the harm their drivers cause.

Most people are shocked that a semi driver, whose semi hits a passenger vehicle, can escape paying damages when they suffer a sudden, unexpected medical emergency. Even when the victims of the crash did nothing wrong and are injured or killed by a commercial motor vehicle, they could possibly recover nothing if the defense is successful. So, as a personal injury attorney who handles truck wreck cases, I often see this defense raised, even when it isn’t appropriate. In fact, in all the years that I have handled these cases, we have fought this defense, and it has never been successful against our clients.

This is exactly what happened several years ago to two of our clients. Our clients enjoyed traveling the country in their motor home. As they passed through northern Indiana, they stopped to get gas. The wife stayed in the motor home while the husband got out to fill up the vehicle with gas. At the same time, a semi tractor-trailer was running at a high rate of speed, out of control through the gas station parking lot. Unfortunately, the semi plowed into the side of the motor home.

The wife thought that the motor home had exploded. She thought her husband was dead. The husband had luckily moved at the last second and, was not killed. Unfortunately, both were seriously injured. The semi driver was found unconscious behind the wheel of the semi. Later, it was determined that he had a heart attack.

The trucking company immediately claimed a sudden unexpected medical emergency and initially refused to pay. They wouldn’t pay for the medical bills, pain and suffering, or even for the motor home that was totaled. The defense claimed that the wreck wasn’t the driver’s fault because he had a heart attack. When this defense is raised, it is imperative that you have the right attorney handling your claim. They must understand how to preserve evidence, and to aggressively investigate the defense.

Once hired, our law firm, Craig, Kelley, & Faultless, immediately began its investigation. We focused on doing an inspection of the semi. We wanted to do a download of the electronic control module (ECM) to determine whether the acceleration and/or brakes were being applied. If so, that would indicate that the driver was not unconscious the entire time. It was determined that the brakes and the accelerator were not applied. That confirmed that the driver had a medical emergency and was incapacitated as the truck ran out of control through the parking lot.

The next issue was whether the sudden medical emergency was unexpected. In order to determine this, the semi driver’s medical records, including prior medical records has to be requested and retrieved. Additionally, an expert on a truck driver’s physical requirements and qualifications had been hired.

Ultimately, it was determined that the semi driver had long standing health issues that he had failed to disclose these when getting his CDL. In fact, the trucking company that he worked for should have known this had they done their due diligence required when hiring a driver. Consequently, the insurance company for the truck driver and trucking company paid for all of the damages resulting from this accident.