While I agree that we have become an overly litigious society and there are vulgar ambulance chasing lawyers (or did you mean “vultures”?), Morgan, and several others were seriously injured and one person died due to no fault of their own. Do you expect them to just suck it up?
And you also might consider that Morgan’s, the others’ and the limo company’s insurance companies are most likely forcing them file suit against Wal-Mart. Their insurance companies are not going to pay out on claims when it is pretty obvious that the Wal-Mart driver was at fault.
Walmart did nothing wrong. How can they verify if a driver has gotten the adequate amount of sleep before going to work? How many times a day does a person who drives a car to and from work party their ass off the night before, be kept up by a crying baby, and other reasons and then they have accidents? It's a double standard when it comes to drivers, cars and trucks. How many thousands of times do drivers in cars have accidents? Lastly, over 80% of wrecks involving trucks are caused by four wheelers. Don't believe it, look it up.
First of all, the driver was in their employ, driving their vehicle at the time of the accident. They most certainly have a responsibility to ensure their drivers are following DOT rules and driving in a safe manner. The driver lived in Georgia but worked out of a Wal-Mart distribution center in Delaware. Let’s say that the driver didn’t exceed the daily and weekly working hours and driving hours limit set by the DOT, kept an accurate log book, however, let’s also suppose that the driver worked 4 days on and was off for 3, given the 700+ miles he commuted each way, it might be reasonable to think that Wal-Mart was or should have been reasonably aware that their driver was not getting enough rest and sleep time. FWIW, the driver was also going 65mph at the time of the crash in an area were the speed limit was 55 mph but had been lowered to 45 mph because of construction. I’m sure during discovery, those log books are going to be gone over with a fine tooth comb.
Comparing a person driving their own personal vehicle to a long haul truck driver is comparing apples to oranges. And FWIW, more and more states have passed or are considering laws against Driving While Drowsy (DWD laws) and that applies to private vehicles, not just commercial vehicles.
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20031001/driving-drowsy
I believe that under New Jersey law, the first target of any lawsuit in this case would be the owner of the vehicle in which Morgan was traveling (in this case, the limousine company). The limousine company would then cross-claim for contribution against the truck driver and Wal-Mart. If Morgan wins a $10 million settlement and the limousine company has a $1 million limit under their insurance, then the limousine company's insurance carrier pays $1M and the other defendants would pay the rest. The limo's insurance carrier would then file for subrogation against the other defendants to recover their $1 million.
Morgan's damages will include compensatory damages and "pain and suffering," both of which would seem to be reasonable in this case. In most frivolous claims it is the "pain and suffering" part that's the scam, since you can't really measure it and it really is a crap-shoot with a jury. In this case it's real, but may end up being dwarfed by the compensatory damages anyway. Morgan's medical bills are likely to be astronomical, and he can surely demonstrate that he has lost a lot of potential income while he's recovering from his injuries.
My prediction is that this will never see the inside of a courtroom.
Smartest post on this thread.
It isn’t about the details of what might have caused the driver to mess up. Clearly there was a fault to this accident and it seems apparent it wasn’t the limo driver. It appears it was the Wal Mart driver. And since he was on the clock, Wal Mart is responsible, period.
And this case is not an example of litigious society, though there are millions of them all around.