Recent Recoveries
- $2,000,000Car crash — litigation settlement
- $1,750,000Slip & fall — litigation settlement
- $1,000,00018-wheeler — litigation settlement
- $850,000Tractor-trailer — litigation settlement
- $650,000Commercial collision — litigation settlement
- $650,000Trucking accident — litigation settlement
- $550,000On-the-job injury — litigation settlement
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is decided on its own facts.
Almost everyone who reads this page has been handed a police report, a phone number for an insurance company and very little else. What is below is what a fatal trucking case is actually made of — why these crashes happen, the people who can be held responsible for them, and what Texas law lets a family recover.
A crash involving an 18-wheeler is not a car crash with a bigger vehicle in it. The driver works to federal rules that count their hours and record them electronically; the company behind them keeps files on the driver, the load and the vehicle; and both are insured on a scale no car policy comes close to. That is what makes these cases provable — and it is why they are defended the way they are.
Nothing here needs a decision from you this week except one, and it is not whether to sue anybody. It is whether to have the truck and its records held before they are lawfully gone.
Free case review
You speak to the attorney who would try it, not to a screener.
No fee unless we win
Nothing up front, and the fee comes out of the recovery.
Evidence held the same week
Preservation letters to the carrier and its insurer before the logs age out.
The Figures
What these crashes actually do
Four numbers. The first three say who actually dies when a large truck is involved, and the last says why a claim against the carrier is a different thing from a claim against the person who was driving.
- 5,340people killed in crashes involving large trucks in the United States in 2024
- 62%of them were in a car or another passenger vehicle rather than in the truck
- 58%higher than the 2009 low of 3,380 — the trend is going the wrong way
- $750,000the least liability cover a federally regulated freight carrier may operate on
Crash figures: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, large trucks, 2024 — the most recent year published. Minimum cover: 49 CFR §387.9, which rises to $5,000,000 for some hazardous loads; carriers operating only inside Texas are held to lower state minimums.
Why They Happen
The five causes behind most of them
Fatal truck crashes are not random events, and on a commercial vehicle most of the causes have a federal rule attached to them. That is what makes them provable: a rule that was broken leaves a record.
A driver who has been at the wheel too long
Fatigue is the cause most often behind a fatal truck crash, and the one most often provable, because federal law counts the hours and a device in the cab records them.
Speed that a loaded truck cannot recover from
A fully loaded tractor-trailer at 60 mph needs something over 400 feet to stop — the better part of a quarter of a mile of reaction and braking.
A load that was not secured
Cargo that shifts changes what the vehicle does; cargo that comes off kills whoever is behind it.
Brakes and maintenance that were not kept up
Brake failures, tyre blowouts and steering defects on a vehicle of this weight are rarely bad luck.
Another driver, or the road itself
Not every fatal truck crash is the truck driver’s doing. An impaired or distracted car driver, a vehicle stopped in a live lane, or a work zone laid out badly can put a truck in a position it has no way out of.
Crash Types
The six ways one of these turns fatal
Almost any collision with a vehicle of this weight can kill somebody. These six do it most reliably.
- 01
Underride
A car slides under the trailer and the roof takes the impact. The deadliest of them all, and there is still no federal requirement for guards along a trailer’s sides.
- 02
Jackknife
The trailer swings out until the rig is folded across the lanes. Whatever is behind it has no time and nowhere to go.
- 03
Rear-end
A truck that cannot stop in the distance it left runs into stopped or slowing traffic. Stopping distance is the whole of it.
- 04
Rollover
Nearly half of the people killed inside large trucks in 2024 died in a rollover — a high load, a curve taken too fast, or a shifting cargo.
- 05
Head-on and wrong-way
A drift across a centre line at closing speed. In two-vehicle crashes, 32% of the passenger vehicle occupants killed were struck head-on.
- 06
Wide turns and blind spots
A right turn that swings left first, or a lane change into a vehicle the mirrors never showed. Fatal most often to riders and people on foot.
Responsibility
Who ends up in the case
A family that sues the driver has usually found the least insured defendant on the road that day. These are the others, and which of them belongs in a particular case is a question of records rather than of opinion.
The driver
For the driving itself: the speed, the following distance, the hours already worked, the phone, and the decision to keep going rather than to stop.
The motor carrier
For its driver’s negligence on the job, and separately for its own: hiring a driver whose record it should have read, training that was never given, a schedule that could not be run legally, or a vehicle it knew was unfit.
The company whose freight it was
Shippers and brokers choose who carries their goods. Where a carrier was selected despite a safety record that was there to be read, or where the load itself was the problem, that choice is part of the case.
Whoever loaded it
Warehouses and third-party loaders answer for what they secure. Where a defect in the load was concealed from the driver, responsibility for it does not move across to the driver for failing to spot it.
Whoever maintained it
Independent garages and fleet maintenance contractors are ordinary defendants where a brake, a tyre or a coupling failed and the records show why it was allowed to.
The manufacturer
Of the truck, the trailer, the tyres or the underride guard. A product claim is a different case with different experts, and it is worth asking about wherever a component gave way rather than wore out.
What It Covers
What a fatal truck claim can include
A death in Texas produces two claims: one belonging to the family and one belonging to the person who died. They are usually brought together and they are paid to different people.
The family’s claim
Brought by the surviving spouse, children and parents for what the death has cost them. It is their claim and what it recovers is theirs.
Lost income and support
What the person would have earned and brought home over a working life, and the support the household actually ran on.
Mental anguish and lost companionship
The grief, and the relationship that ended — the part an insurer’s first offer never contains.
Lost counsel, guidance and inheritance
What a parent or a partner gave, and what they would in reasonable probability have left behind.
Exemplary damages
Where the death was caused by gross negligence — a carrier that knew and dispatched the truck anyway is the case this is written for.
The estate’s claim
The survival action: the claim the person who died owned when they died. What it recovers passes with the rest of their estate.
Conscious pain and suffering
What they went through between the collision and the death, where there was any interval at all.
Medical expenses
Ambulance, air transport, trauma and hospital care from the crash to the death.
Funeral and burial expenses
Recoverable through the estate’s claim.
The vehicle and its contents
Valued as their property rather than as the family’s.
The Process
What happens when you call us
You will not be asked to decide anything on the phone. This is the whole of it, in order, and the second step is the one that cannot wait.
- 01
You call, and we listen
Tell us what happened and what you have already been sent. If there is nothing here for your family we will say so on that call.
- 02
The truck gets held
Preservation letters to the carrier, the insurer and anyone holding the vehicle, so the module, the logs and the damage survive long enough to be examined.
- 03
We take over the calls
The carrier’s adjusters, its lawyers and its investigators deal with us. No one from the other side needs to speak to your family again.
- 04
We reconstruct it and value it
The scene, the module data, the compliance records and the medical file, with the experts a case of this size needs, and an economist for what the loss actually is.
- 05
We resolve it, or we try it
Most cases settle. Carriers settle differently with a firm that tries cases, and we prepare every one as though it will be tried.
Client Reviews
What our clients say about us
Reviews left on Google by people this firm has represented, published as they were written. None of them is from a family in a fatal crash case — what they describe is how this office runs a case, which is the part we can honestly show you.
Rated five out of five stars
“Aaron was patient and had a calm demeanor; but a tenacious work ethic and court presence… This was my first experience with the legal system, and was even more daunting as we were going before a jury.”
Vu Nguyen
Rated five out of five stars
“Genthe Law Firm provided exceptional service for my family and I. Dealing with a stressful situation and not knowing what to do is overwhelming but Aaron and his staff help took the load off!”
Ramisha Jeffery
Rated five out of five stars
“My case was handled with great attention to detail, and I always felt well-informed and supported throughout the process… I was able to navigate a very complex situation with confidence and peace of mind.”
Adrian Contreras
Your Attorney
The lawyer who works your case
This page has said several times that you will speak to a real attorney rather than a call centre. It is only fair to say who that is.
Founder · Trial Attorney
Aaron Genthe
A Texas A&M graduate who went into personal injury straight out of law school, Aaron spent years as a litigator at one of the larger firms in Dallas — long enough to build a reputation as an aggressive and effective attorney, and long enough to watch how easily a client becomes a file number at a firm that size.
He started Genthe Law Firm so that the person a family speaks to about a death is the person who tries the case. Commercial trucking is on the firm’s ledger of recoveries twice, and these are the cases it prepares for trial first and negotiates second.
- Practising since
- 2015
- Cases handled
- Hundreds, in Dallas and across Texas
- Education
- Texas A&M graduate
- Fee
- Contingency — nothing unless you recover
Questions
Fatal truck accident FAQs
The questions families ask on the first call, answered the way we answer them on the phone.
Who can bring a claim after a fatal truck accident in Texas?
The surviving spouse, the children and the parents of the person who died. Any one of them may bring it, and it is brought for the benefit of all of them.
How long do we have?
Two years from the date of death in most Texas cases. The deadline is not the pressure, though — the electronic data, the logs and the footage that prove one of these claims have retention periods measured in weeks and months.
The police report blames my relative. Is that the end of it?
No. A crash report is an officer’s opinion formed at the roadside, usually without the truck’s own data, without the carrier’s records and without a reconstruction. Reports are amended, and they are not binding on anyone.
The trucking company’s insurer has already offered us something. Should we take it?
Not before somebody independent has read what it covers and what it gives up. An early offer in a fatal case is usually made before the family knows what the claim is worth, and accepting it releases every defendant — including the ones nobody has identified yet.
Can we sue the trucking company, or only the driver?
Usually both. A carrier is responsible for its driver’s negligence on the job, and separately for its own — the hiring, the training, the schedule, the maintenance.
Also Handled Here
Where to go from here
The rest of the firm’s trucking pages, and the neighbouring claims a fatal crash most often turns into.
- 01Truck AccidentsThe main practice page for crashes involving commercial vehicles
- 02Texas Truck Accident LawsThe rules carriers and drivers operate under
- 03Truck Accident LawsuitsHow one of these claims proceeds once it is filed
- 04Wrongful DeathWho may bring a Texas death claim, and what it covers
- 05Car AccidentsCollisions between passenger vehicles
- 06Construction AccidentsDeaths on site, including vehicle and machinery deaths
- 07Motorcycle AccidentsRiders struck by commercial and passenger vehicles
- 08Pedestrian AccidentsPeople struck on foot, including by turning trucks
Read more on commercial vehicle claims
- Top Causes of 18-Wheeler Accidents in TexasAnd how negligence is proved in one
- Texas Truck Accident Liability LawsWho answers for what, under Texas law
- Who Can Sue After a Construction or Trucking Death?The people the claim belongs to
- What Should You Do After a Truck Accident?The first week, in order
- 18-Wheeler Blind SpotsWhere a truck cannot see you
- Texas Truck Accident SettlementsWhat decides the size of one
