Settlement Reached With Trucking Company During Trial of Personal Injury Case
Memphis Jackson V. Sentinel Trucking | Mobile County, Alabama, Circuit Court | CV NO. 2010-901075
Memphis Jackson, age 57, was severely and permanently injured when the vehicle in which he was seated as a passenger, was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler truck owned by Sentinel Transportation, LLC. The driver of the car in which Mr. Jackson was seated did nothing wrong as she was stopped at a red light in North Mobile County on U.S. Highway 43. The defendant driver was clearly at fault. However, the driver claimed he had a legal defense under the sudden emergency doctrine. He argued that he had a sudden seizure which excused him, under the law, for causing the injuries to Mr. Jackson.
However, Cunningham Bounds conducted an extensive factual and medical investigation, took numerous depositions and hired a team of experts to prove that the defendant trucking company was negligent in failing to conduct adequate background checks for its employees, implement an appropriate safety program for its drivers, training its drivers in the safe operation of over-the-road tractor-trailers and by otherwise violating the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (the regulations established by the Department of Transportation to protect the traveling public from such unsafe and medically unfit drivers).
On January 15, 2013, the case went to trial before Judge Joseph S. Johnston. The Cunningham Bounds team tried the case before a jury for three days until the defendants agreed to a fair confidential settlement for Mr. Jackson on January 17, 2013.
