Got a really good insurance quote today....

ok, so there were a few strings attached.

 

I have been following this for a while but haven’t read the appeal. It doesn’t surprise me that they lost that. CHR went way beyond the typical broker “fines for late” relationship. If you look at some of the original discovery it really is amazing what was said. And with all that they may have gotten out of it had they not owned the product.

But this is taking the initial point to the extreme. As a carrier or broker you can be, and likely will be, sued when something goes wrong. The GL insurance will be paying for the attorney to get you dropped from the case. And if the case is being brought by an attorney that understands the trucking industry, it is less likely that you will be named once they see that you have a GL policy. Without it, typical process is a quick settlement with you having to agree to testify against the carrier.

 

Ownership of the product should not have made a difference in liability. It is the individual that should have borne responsibility. The problem with today's judicial system is that lawyers and plaintiff's will file suite against everyone remotely connected to a company or individual.

Quite a number of years ago there was a local congressman who used to fly out of the same facility as I did at the time. He was involved in a crash and killed. I was told that the lawyers sued everyone from the airplane manufacturer to the propeller manufacturer. As it turned out the propeller had a nick out of it and broke. He didn't do a proper pre trip before getting into the plane or he would have easily found the problem. It would only have taken a few minutes, but he was in a hurry. His widow got a healthy settlement. While a tragedy, it was not the fault of anyone but the pilot.

Those who were sued and not found to be at fault should have recourse against the lawyers and widow or the pilot's estate. Instead, they all incurred significant legal expenses and had no means of recovering those costs. It isn't right. If defendants had more recourse there would be less litigation.

 

Totally 100% agree here. These @#$## lawyersdon't have a lot to lose and millions to gain over 1 lawsuit. Then some company looks at the settlement and say's we cant do things this way anymore. So they hire THEIR lawyer to figure out how to keep from getting sued. Years ago I used to deliver to a place where they didn't care if you unloaded yourself. My company's drivers unloaded many loads with 0 incidents, but eventually their lawyers nixed the whole thing. Now when you have to wait till a machine operator can get the time to unload you.Basically costing them his time from production and driver's time waiting.