Jeffrey Johnson has written novels and movies in addition to legal analyses of eminent domain and immigration law. His experience in writing engaging fiction makes him uniquely capable of making the most dry and academic legal topics interesting (or as interesting as possible).
Jeffrey Johnson, J.D.
Jeffrey Johnson has written novels and movies in addition to legal analyses of eminent domain and immigration law. His experience in writing engaging fiction makes him uniquely capable of making the most dry and academic legal topics interesting (or as interesting as possible).
Adam has resided at the intersection of legal and journalism for two decades. An award-winning journalist and legal strategist, he’s covered high-profile trials in Florida.
After law school, Adam and spent two years clerking for a U.S. District Court judge. He researched and wrote legal precedent in published opinions on behalf of the Court.
He has been an editor, columnist and journalist at the Miami Herald, The Dallas Morning News, The Oregonian, Golf Digest, FindLaw.com and other media outlets.
He lived in Colombia and Argentina teaching legal English to attorneys and law students. He is also a Spanish-language subject matter expert.
An avid waterman, he surfs and scuba dives frequently.
Reviewed
Adam Ramirez, J.D.
Adam has resided at the intersection of legal and journalism for two decades. An award-winning journalist and legal strategist, he’s covered high-profile trials in Florida.
After law school, Adam and spent two years clerking for a U.S. District Court judge. He researched and wrote legal precedent in published opinions on behalf of the Court.
He has been an editor, columnist and journalist at the Miami Herald, The Dallas Morning News, The Oregonian, Golf Digest, FindLaw.com and other media outlets.
He lived in Colombia and Argentina teaching legal English to attorneys and law students. He is also a Spanish-language subject matter expert.
An avid waterman, he surfs and scuba dives frequently.
Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Advisor. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations.
Philadelphia has tons of history, from the liberty bell and Independence Hall to the Penn Museum and Rocky Statue. It also, unfortunately, has a ton of traffic.
Finding the best Philadelphia truck accident lawyer doesn’t have to be a challenge, though. We’ve crunched the numbers and put together a list of the best personal injury lawyers in the area—all of whom specialize in truck accidents.
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Best Truck Accident Attorneys in Philadelphia, PA 2024
Compare Our Top Attorneys
Filing a Truck Accident Lawsuit in Pennsylvania
If you’ve been in an accident and need to find legal help, you may find yourself asking a question that seems silly at first: was the other vehicle in the accident a truck? Rest assured, this is not a silly question, as there are different laws and different kinds of lawyers at issue depending on the answer.
So, do you need to hire a truck accident lawyer in Philadelphia, or should you look for a car accident lawyer or another type of personal injury lawyer?
Truck accidents don’t include accidents involving pick-up or passenger trucks. Generally, when talking about trucks in the context of truck accidents, they include large commercial vehicles called:
- 18-wheelers
- Big rigs
- Box trucks
- Delivery trucks
- Semis or semi-trucks
- Tractor trailers
If you’ve been in an accident with a commercial vehicle that fits one of these categories, it’s important to make sure any lawyer you work with has experience with trucking accidents in particular.
Pennsylvania Statute of Limitations
A statute of limitations is how long the state allows between the injury and when you have to file a lawsuit. You’re probably most familiar with this idea from shows or movies about criminal law—the state has to decide to charge someone with the crime before the statute of limitations runs out. In criminal cases, the statute of limitations starts to run (tolls) when the crime is committed or discovered.
Similarly, personal injury statutes of limitations may start when the injury happens or when the injury is discovered.
There are two different starting points because sometimes the injury isn’t known for years or even decades, and it wouldn’t be fair for, say, someone prescribed the wrong medication to be barred from suing because the harm wasn’t known until five years later and the statute of limitations for personal injury is only three years. In that kind of case, the person would have the full statute of limitations to file a suit, starting when they discovered the injury that the medication caused them.
In Pennsylvania, the statute of limitations is two years for personal injury. This means that you have two years from a truck accident to file a lawsuit in court. It isn’t enough to have hired a lawyer at that time or to have negotiated a settlement—if there’s nothing in court when the statute of limitations runs out, you won’t be allowed to sue.
Pennsylvania Laws for Truck Drivers
Truck drivers are often engaged in driving across state lines. This usually means that truck drivers have to follow both federal laws and the laws of the state they’re in.
- Licensing: A truck driver must have a commercial driver’s license in order to operate any vehicle that weighs more than 26,000 pounds, is a school bus, can carry more than 15 passengers or is designated to carry hazardous materials. In Pennsylvania, there are different classes of CDLs that correspond to the weight of the vehicle driven.
- Driving Time: The federal government regulates the amount of time a driver can operate a truck in a 24-hour period.
- Drivers can only drive 11 hours out of 14—this 14-hour window begins after a driver has 10 consecutive hours of non-driving. So a driver can only operate 11 out of every 24 hours.
- Drivers must take a 30-minute break if driving for over eight hours.
- Drivers can operate 60 hours in a seven-day workweek or 70 hours in an eight-day workweek. The workweek resets after taking at least 34 hours off.
- Weight Limit: Pennsylvania caps commercial vehicle weights at 80,000 pounds. This includes the trailer as well as the truck pulling it and any cargo inside.
Identifying Fault for a Truck Crash
In Pennsylvania, fault is determined using the modified comparative negligence rule. This means that a plaintiff is limited in how much they can recover by how much they are responsible for the accident. However, if the plaintiff is more than 50% responsible for the accident, they can’t recover at all.
Imagine a wreck where Tom, driving a sedan, is rear-ended by Mitch, driving a tractor-trailer that was following too closely. At trial, it turns out Tom had slammed on his brakes when he dropped his cell phone. The jury finds Tom 40% responsible for the accident, which means that he can only recover 60% of his total damages.
Another issue that can come up concerning fault in a trucking accident is whether there’s anyone responsible for the accident other than the driver of the truck. There are many possibilities as to who can be at fault, and fault could be shared by some or all of these parties:
- The driver could obviously be at fault for driving badly
- The company the driver works for could share some fault if they are requiring the driver to work too many hours or if they provided inadequate training
- The company that loaded the trailer could be at fault if the load is too heavy or improperly loaded. Thousands of pounds of cargo shifting during transit could easily lead to an accident that’s completely out of the control of the driver.
- The manufacturer of a part of the truck could also be at fault if the accident was caused by a poor design or manufacturing defect.
How Can an Attorney Help You?
Hiring a Pennsylvania truck accident attorney will immediately allow you to focus on recovering from your accident. Even if you’re not injured, an accident can cause plenty of complications like having to figure out payments for a car loan and making arrangements to repair or replace a damaged vehicle. If you’re hurt, there’s also treatment and recovery to consider.
That’s more than enough for most people, so being able to let an attorney handle negotiating with insurance, documenting the accident, communicating with all parties and the police, and making sure that all necessary procedures and laws are followed can be a huge relief. Your truck accident lawyer will have experience in these sorts of cases and can advise you on:
- What bills related to your accidents you should keep and in what format
- How to deal with documenting lost wages or other less-obvious damages
- The fairness, based on their experience and the facts of your accident, of any settlement offers you receive
Even if you decide to go through these steps all alone, you may come to the point where the other party and their insurance are not offering enough to cover your expenses. This is when having an attorney becomes invaluable. While you can try and negotiate with the insurance company on your own, your attorney’s counteroffers will have more weight—the insurance company may see the presence of a lawyer, especially one with a track record of success, as raising the possibility of going to court and potentially spending a lot of money on defense.
How to Find the Best Truck Accident Lawyer in Philadelphia, PA
The Philadelphia truck accident attorneys we listed above are all great, but there are many other great lawyers in Philadelphia who could help get you fair compensation for your injuries from a truck accident. There are some important things you should consider while choosing a truck accident lawyer, though:
- Experience: Trucking accidents may involve multiple companies and insurers operating in different states and under both state and federal guidelines. These are just some of the potential complications that make trucking accidents more complex than the average auto accident. Therefore, it’s essential that you find an attorney with experience in truck accidents.
- Organization: Your attorney is going to need to track bills and damages resulting from your accident while negotiating with one or more insurance companies and keeping track of evidence in preparation for potentially going to trial. They will probably be doing this much work for a few other cases at the same time. With that in mind, make sure your attorney and the team they work with seem organized and capable of keeping all the balls they have to juggle in the air. The best truck accident lawyers will make this seem effortless.
- Fee Structure: Most truck accident attorneys will offer free consultations and work on a contingent fee basis. This means that you shouldn’t have to pay them anything. They take their payment in the form of a percentage from the compensation they obtain for you—usually 25% to 35%. Make sure you understand how they expect to be paid and when. Be wary of a truck accident lawyer who charges for a consultation or by the hour.
- Communication: It can take months for a case to resolve, and sometimes there can be weeks or months between updates. Make sure you won’t be left wondering what’s going on by confirming how your lawyer will update you and how you can reach them.
Methodology
To come up with the Best Truck Accident Lawyers in Philadelphia in 2024, Forbes Advisor considered many factors. Forbes Advisor’s mathematical module considers and weighs the information collected to calculate a specific rating and reviews these results to find the best attorneys in a given practice area.
Within the model, we take into account factors that legal professionals and consumers value in an attorney’s qualifications. After assigning weighted scores to hundreds of data points, we narrowed the field down to our top choices based on:
- Legal experience
- Special licenses & certifications
- Ethics and bar disciplinary measures
- Legal thought leadership
- Education & employment background
- Scholarly lectures & writings
- Awards & honors
Forbes Advisor collects public data from a variety of sources, including state bar associations, court records and other published sources on the internet. This information should not be considered comprehensive, however. It might not include additional relevant information on an attorney’s legal skills and experience.
Each lawyer listed here has their own merits. Bear in mind that our list relates to these lawyers’ legal backgrounds, but does not evaluate their personalities or their knowledge of the law. One attorney may be more suitable than another for your specific legal situation.
One thing that can’t be quantified, though, is the rapport you establish with your attorney. Personality goes a long way when teaming up with an attorney, especially when going through a potentially difficult legal situation. These rankings should serve as a reference and potential starting point in your search for the right lawyer for you and your legal concerns.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are common causes of truck accidents in Philadelphia?
According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), most truck accidents (38%) occur due to poor decision-making on the part of the driver. This includes driving too fast for conditions, following too closely, or misjudging the speed of other vehicles.
The second most common cause (28%) is attributed to driver inattention or distraction.
The FMCSA also found that driver fatigue is a contributing factor in 13% of truck accidents.
Who can be held liable for a truck accident in Pennsylvania?
Responsibility for any accident in PA can rest with some or all of the drivers involved in the accident, but truck accidents have other possible responsible parties, too. The driver, driver’s company, cargo company, or manufacturer of truck parts may share some responsibility.
In Pennsylvania, a legal doctrine called respondeat superior can hold the company employing the driver responsible for the accident. This doctrine means that, if an employee is doing their job and causes damage unintentionally, the employer can be held responsible.
So, if the driver didn’t cause the wreck on purpose and was acting within the scope of employment, the employer may be responsible rather than the driver.
