If you’ve been involved in a truck accident in Ohio, you may be wondering what damages you can recover if you decide to file a claim. The potential value of every claim is unique, and understanding the factors that determine compensation can help you make informed decisions when pursuing your case. Attorneys David Chester and Jennifer Weeks discuss truck accident injury claim worth for semi-truck and commercial truck cases in Ohio.
Factors That Determine Ohio Truck Accident Compensation
The value of your truck collision case value in Ohio depends on several key factors:
Severity of Injuries
Truck accidents typically cause more devastating injuries than regular car accidents due to the sheer size and weight difference between commercial trucks and passenger vehicles.
“The truck is 80,000 pounds fully loaded, and the impacts are often catastrophic,” explains David Chester. “These collisions frequently result in life-altering injuries like severe trauma, permanent disabilities, and traumatic brain injuries. When a passenger vehicle collides with a commercial truck, the car’s safety features are often inadequate against such massive force, especially in underride accidents where the smaller vehicle slides beneath the truck.”
Common truck accident injuries include:
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Spinal cord damage and paralysis
- Multiple fractures
- Internal organ damage
- Severe burns
- Amputations
More severe injuries generally result in higher compensation because they require more extensive medical treatment, cause greater pain and suffering, and have more significant impacts on your life.
Documentation of Lifetime Injuries
For catastrophic injuries that will affect you for life, proper documentation is crucial to maximizing compensation.
“In order to prove a lifetime injury, you need three things,” explains David Chester. “First, you need medical documentation from the doctor stating the injury is permanent. Second, you need the client’s consistent testimony about their ongoing symptoms and limitations. Third, you need objective diagnostic tests like MRIs or X-rays confirming the permanent condition. When all three of these elements align to show a lifetime injury, that’s where the real case value is.”
Your case value increases substantially when your medical team can definitively state your injuries are permanent. This documentation transforms a case from one focused on temporary recovery to one that must account for decades of future impacts, including loss of wages, pain and suffering, and medical care.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are the quantifiable financial losses resulting from your accident. These include:
- Medical Expenses: This includes all past, present, and future medical care related to your injuries, including emergency treatment, hospital stays, surgeries, rehabilitation, ongoing care, and medication.
- Lost Income: Compensation for wages lost while recovering from your injuries, plus any reduction in your future earning capacity.
- Property Damage: The cost to repair or replace your vehicle and any personal property damaged in the accident.
For catastrophic injuries from truck accidents, the economic damages alone can reach millions of dollars, especially when factoring in lifetime care needs.
Non-Economic Damages
These damages can be harder to quantify but often represent the largest portion of substantial Ohio truck accident compensation:
- Pain and Suffering: Compensation for physical pain and discomfort experienced due to injuries.
- Emotional Distress: The psychological impact of the accident, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, and sleep disorders.
- Loss of Enjoyment of Life: Compensation for inability to enjoy previous hobbies, activities, and quality of life.
- Loss of Consortium: Damages paid to a spouse for loss of companionship, affection, and intimacy.
David Chester emphasizes how significant these damages can be: “The pain and suffering for the past, present, and future is where the substantial compensation comes from. If you’re permanently disabled, your lifetime medical care alone represents an enormous cost. But the compensation for ongoing pain and suffering can actually exceed those medical expenses by several times, especially in catastrophic injury cases.”
Available Insurance Coverage
When accidents involve serious injuries, identifying all possible insurance coverage becomes crucial. This is why semi-truck accident settlements in Ohio often involve detailed investigations into multiple insurance policies:
- The truck driver’s personal insurance
- The trucking company’s liability policy
- Excess or umbrella policies
- Insurance from other potentially liable parties
For trucks operating in interstate commerce, federal regulations require minimum coverage of $750,000, though many carry much more. When the truck is owned by a major corporation, their substantial assets may be available regardless of policy limits.
Why Truck Accident Cases Often Result in Larger Settlements
Truck accident claims typically yield higher settlements than standard car accident cases for several reasons:
Commercial Insurance Policies
“Commercial trucking cases typically result in higher settlements than regular car accidents, even for similar injuries,” explains attorney Jennifer Weeks. “The insurance companies for commercial carriers tend to place a higher value on claims than personal auto insurers like State Farm.”
This difference stems from several factors: commercial policies have much higher coverage limits, trucking companies face stricter regulatory scrutiny, and commercial insurers often prefer to resolve serious claims quickly rather than risk litigation that could expose company-wide safety issues.
Corporate Accountability
David Chester notes that truck cases focus less on the driver and more on company negligence: “When you take a case against a trucking company, it’s important to look at what the truck company did to facilitate the accident.”
This might include:
- Inadequate driver training
- Poor maintenance practices
- Encouraging drivers to exceed hours-of-service limits
- Hiring drivers with problematic driving records
- Failure to perform required drug testing
When these failures are exposed, companies often settle rather than risk larger jury verdicts and regulatory scrutiny.
Risk to Operating Authority
“If a trucking company gets in trouble and you can prove what they did wrong, they can end up losing their license,” explains David. “The federal government comes in to investigate what you find.” The threat of losing their ability to operate creates tremendous settlement leverage that doesn’t exist in typical car accident cases.
Insurance Companies Count on Your Inexperience–Don’t Let Them Win
If you’ve been injured in a truck accident in Ohio, you might be tempted to accept initial settlement offers from trucking companies. This is almost always a mistake.
Insurance companies typically offer just a fraction of what cases are truly worth, especially before victims have completed medical treatment.
Your truck accident injury claim worth depends heavily on the quality of your legal representation. Proper documentation, expert testimony, and litigation experience can mean the difference between a modest settlement and life-changing compensation.
Get a Free Consultation With Chester Law Group
If you’ve been injured in a truck accident in Ohio, contact Chester Law Group today for a free consultation. We’ll evaluate your case, explain your options, and fight for the full compensation you deserve.