The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued an amend to its regulations to require interstate commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders subject to the physical qualification requirements of the agency’s regulations to provide a current original or copy of their medical examiner’s certificates to their State Driver Licensing Agency (SDLA). The new…
Here is an interesting article from Auto Week about new and improved (?) electronic data recorders. EDRs currently obtain data from airbags, yaw and stability sensors, antilock brakes, traction controllers, throttle controls and engine monitors. They initiate only when sensors indicate that a crash is imminent or has occurred. Some also…
A defendant is permitted to argue that the light from the setting sun hindered his vision and that he was not negligent in failing to see (and then striking) plaintiff’s car. The Kansas Supreme Court rejected the argument of the plaintiff that the defendant was negligent as a matter of…
Grandstaff v. Bowman, No. E2007-00135-COA-R3-CV, (Tenn. Ct. App. May 29, 2008), is a case that reminds careful readers of the perils of filing a personal injury case on the eve of the statute and then simply sitting on it. As a result of this conduct, the plaintiff lost the opportunity…
The Court of Appeals for the Western Section has said that a plaintiff in a wrongful death case has made out a claim of negligent entrustment of a vehicle against the parents of a drunk driver. Here are some essential facts viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff: "Like the…
Here is a handy little decision that reminds of the existence and limits of the suspension statute. You know the suspension statute. It tells us that "[i]f at any time any cause of action shall accrue against any person who shall be out of this state, the action may be…
Walk into any courtroom in the state in any given week and there is a one-day trial underway in a soft tissue injury case. A defense lawyer is standing before the jury, waving a photograph of the plaintiff’s vehicle and saying "How can the plaintiff be hurt? The rear bumper…
The L.A. Times has written a major story on safety problems at U-Haul. An excerpt: "U-Haul, the nation’s largest provider of rental trailers, says it is "highly conservative" about safety. But a yearlong Times investigation, which included more than 200 interviews and a review of thousands of pages of court…
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association recently released a Large Truck Crash Causation Study in response to a federal law that required the organization "to determine the causes of, and contributing factors to, crashes involving commercial motor vehicles." From the Executive Summary: "A nationally representative sample of large truck fatal and…
Some people have found a way to turn a police chase case into a Sec. 1983 action. It was always tough – and it just got tougher. Here is the issue as stated by Justice Scalia: "We consider whether a law enforcement official can, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, attempt…