Nebraska Truck Accident Attorney

Defending Accident Victims in Omaha and Nationwide

The trucking industry is heavily regulated, yet deadly truck accidents still occur on a regular basis. If you or your loved one has been critically injured in a crash with a semi-truck, big-rig or other type of commercial vehicle, you deserve to receive fair and just compensation for financial, physical, and emotional losses.

The Nebraska truck accident lawyers at Domina Law Group have earned a reputation for helping victims of truck driver and company negligence across the country. Our motto is "Trial Practice. Not Just Talk." because we are ready and able to represent you in court from day one, not just as a last resort.

Why You Need an Experienced Truck Accident Law Firm

If you've been involved in a collision with a large truck, you may be tempted to work solely with the insurance company, trusting them to cover the expenses related to your injury and damage to your vehicle. Unfortunately, that path often results in truck accident victims receiving a much lower settlement than will actually cover their long-term medical expenses and loss of income.

When you work Domina Law Group, you get the advantage of a team of experienced truck accident litigators who can handle all aspects of your claim, including:

• Investigating the accident and retrieving evidence
• Filing necessary paperwork and ensuring your claim meets deadlines
• Negotiating with the insurance company and fighting for maximum compensation
• Defending your claim with testimony from medical experts and accident reconstructionists
• Taking the negligent party to court, if a fair settlement cannot be reached

While only about 5% of all personal injury cases proceed to trial, simply having an attorney representing your best interests can result in a settlement that is up to three times higher than you would have received on your own. Call Domina Law Group today at (888) 387-4134 to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation of your case.

Protecting the Victims of Big Rig Accidents from Big Insurance

Trucking companies are insured by carriers with special skills and prompt response to major truck collisions. Insurers often deploy investigators in the middle of the night, fly to crash scenes, and do all they can to preserve good evidence for the trucker and de-emphasize harmful evidence against their trucker customers.

The insurers also study families, injured parties, and their vulnerabilities. They try to pick the ideal time of greatest vulnerability to confront an accident victim and force the victim to make critically important decisions when decision-making skills are at low levels. Insured parties and their families need skilled legal help from a truck accident attorney as quickly as possible after a collision occurs to stand up for their rights against big insurance companies.

How Common are Truck Accidents?

Trucks move America's cargo. The American Trucking Association (ATA) says over nine billion tons of freight moved around the U.S. in trucks in 2004. Trucking revenues totaled more than $676 billion in 2017 alone, and that figure will likely continue to increase.

Trucking is good for the economy, but it is bad for drivers in cars, vans, and SUVs who share the road with big rigs. Someone is killed or seriously injured every 16 minutes in U.S. accidents involving 18-wheelers, tractor-trailers or semi-trucks. 98 percent of deaths in truck collisions are passengers in smaller vehicles.

Semi-trailer trucks accounted for 17 fatal accidents and 244 injury accidents in 2013, and other heavy trucks contributed to 7 fatal accidents and 286 injury accidents.

Why Do Large Truck Accidents Occur?

Truckers' logs, driver fatigue, failure to pull over in unsafe conditions. Misuse of cell phones and radios. Medical unsuitability. Intoxication and illegal drugs. All these are prominent causes of truck wrecks.

To make a difference in court, your story needs to be told well, which requires it to be well researched. That's what the Nebraska truck accident attorneys at Domina Law Group do. Our team utilizes our collective experience, investigators, accident reconstructionists, and medical experts to make sure your story gets told.

Different Types of Truck Accidents

How to Stay Safe from Neglect Truck Drivers

These tips may help motorists reduce serious injury in the event of a trucking collision, or even prevent them altogether:

• Be and stay visible. Stay out of the truck's blind spots. Be sure the driver can see you in both of
  the truck's side mirrors.
• Maintain a safe distance to ensure enough space and time to brake.
• Drive defensively and alertly. Expect the unexpected.
• Indicate turns or passing movements with signals and avoid sudden moves such as swerving to pass.
• Drive with lights on and be sure windshield wipers work.
• Keep windows and windshields clean
• Do not talk on a cell phone without a headset, or contrary to law, while driving.
• Do not drive when emotionally upset or unstable.
• Do not express emotions through the vehicle.
• Respect the differences in size between your vehicle and others.
• Remember, no amount of rage or rushing is worth the risks of recklessness.
• Wear your seatbelt and make your passengers do so.
• Be aware of highway shoulders and objects on or near them at all times.
• Don't cut in front of trucks.

Don't Cut in Front of Trucks

Trucks leave extra room behind the vehicles they follow because it can take them twice as long to stop. If you move into that space and have to brake suddenly, you cut the truck's available stopping distance in half placing you and your passengers in danger. Anticipate the flow of traffic before pulling in front of trucks. More than 60 percent of fatal truck crashes involve impacts with the front of the truck. Trucks are not equipped with the same type of energy-absorbing bumpers as cars. When a car is hit from behind by a truck the results are too often deadly.

What to Do After a Truck Accident

If a collision occurs:

1. Make all decisions in reasonable priority. Do not panic.
2. Make quality medical decisions your first priority.
3. Fulfill legal reporting requirements in a timely fashion. Get professional help to do so.
4. Give no information to persons with no need to know what is going on with you.
5. Give no statements except to law enforcement, your attorney, and medical professionals.
6. Make a prompt, intelligent search for a quality lawyer and engage counsel.
7. Hold off inquiries from the trucking company's insurer until all these steps are done.

Our law firm not only advocates for accident victims and families of those killed in tractor-trailer crashes, but also for effective remedies and action that will accomplish change.

Domina Law Group - Case Stories

Wrongful Death - Tragedy Strikes in the Early Morning On Interstate I-80

Parents juggling multiple jobs and making sacrifices to take care of their children is nothing new and always admirable. This was the case for Domina Law clients who were driving to work in the early morning of a snowy day in 2018.

Our client’s 5-year-old child was appropriately restrained in a car seat in the back seat while the father was driving with the mother in the passenger seat. This was necessary because the family only had one car, and this was their daily routine. The father would begin his day at work, and the mother would return with their son and get him ready for school.

On this day, tragedy struck, and our clients encountered black ice. The vehicle began spinning. Multiple cars that were paying attention were able to safely enter into other lanes and avoid any contact with our clients’ vehicle at all. Unfortunately, an 18-wheeler was driving in the fast lane on eastbound I-80 through Omaha which was behind the other vehicles that took action to avoid a collision collided into the rear of our clients care at a high rate of speed. The force of the 80,000 lbs. semi against the small family sedan was devastating and the young 5-year-old child suffered traumatic injuries and was later pronounced dead. The mother and father also suffered physical injuries as well as obvious devastating emotional and psychological injuries.

Domina Law was able to obtain multiple confidential settlements and is pursuing additional defendants for more recovery. When advising clients on a wrongful death, it is always an empty feeling to tell them they can only request money. While we all know money can never bring back a life or change a catastrophic injury or a life-changing event, it is the only method of compensation in our judicial system allows regardless of how empty and unsatisfying that answer is when it is given to grieving families.

Wrongful Death - Husband and Wife Die after Being Trapped in Burning Car Following a Multiple Vehicle Collision

Wrongful death cases arise from all types of factual scenarios. One of the most common are deaths following motor vehicle and 18-wheeler collisions. These types of accidents are all too common and are often the result of driver distraction or driving in dangerous conditions.

Domina Law Group and its lawyer, Brian Jorde, represented a family who lost their mother and stepfather in a terrible accident when their small SUV was t-boned by a semi traveling over 60 miles an hour southbound. Later the semi and SUV collided into another semi traveling northbound creating a giant fire that engulfed one of the semis and the SUV.

At the time of the accident, a Nebraska Department of Roads crew was changing a stop sign and had failed to put up a temporary stop sign and had a piece of equipment blocking one other stop sign at the intersection.

Domina Law filed suit against the surviving driver of the oncoming truck who struck our clients’ parents’ vehicle as well as the State of Nebraska for allegedly failing to follow procedure and protocol when changing traffic signs at an intersection on a state highway as well as allegedly failing to use the proper warning and traffic control devices to properly notify ongoing traffic of the work taking place. Multiple lawsuits by multiple parties were filed resulting from this tragic accident which also claimed the life of the northbound semi-truck driver.

Domina Law took the lead in handling nearly 20 depositions of parties, witnesses, and experts. After several years, our clients reached a settlement with the State of Nebraska.

Wrongful Death - Families Outing to Watch the 2017 Eclipse Turns Deadly

On August 21, 2017, millions of people around the United States took time out of their days and traveled hundreds of miles or more to a perfect place to view a very solar rare eclipse. One such family traveled to Iowa with their young daughter to watch the eclipse. While traveling to the location where they intended to watch the eclipse, they noticed a semi truck driver operating his 18-wheeler erratically and weaving in and out of traffic. Our clients were able to avoid contact with the 18-wheeler but thought to themselves that it was an accident waiting to happen and the driver was going to kill somebody.

About ten minutes later traffic began to slow as people were exiting the interstate and otherwise getting ready to prepare for the eclipse. Out of the rear-view mirror of our clients’ family sedan, the father saw a semi bearing down on them. Before he could take any action, the semi collided into our clients’ car pushing it more than 300 feet into the median between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Interstate I-80 in Iowa.

Although initially unconscious, when the father came to, he realized his daughter had been ejected from her car seat and dramatically injured. She later died. The mother was significantly physically injured as well and suffering traumatic brain injuries.

Domina Law got involved in the case and orchestrated a global mediation with multiple defendants and multiple parties as the semi-truck driver had initially side-swiped another vehicle with six inhabitants prior to fatally colliding into our clients’ car. After extensive negotiations, a resolution was reached with two defendants in confidential settlements. Domina Law is continuing to pursue action against other defendants for this heartbreaking loss.