The client is a lumber yard out in a rural part of the country. Another company had sent over a driver to pick up a load of lumber using a flatbed semi truck. After all the lumber was loaded and strapped down, the driver left.
The driver left the lumber yard driveway, and then crossed a Railroad Track. (This was maybe 600 feet away from the lumber company office.) After crossing the bumpy Railroad Tracks, the driver stops again to re-tighten his load.
Then the lumber yard got a phone call from that driver’s employer, asking for him. They said, “Just a minute; we’ll see if we can grab him.” Then the lumber yard manager stepped outside, and honked the horn on his pickup truck to attract the truck driver’s attention, and then waved him back motioning that he had a phone call. The driver waved back to acknowledge.
So when the driver was done tightening his load, he got back into his truck, and proceeded to back up over the Railroad Tracks. Suddenly, a fast moving TRAIN smashed into the flatbed truck, killing the driver. It was a tragic accident.
And they sued the lumber yard suggesting the accident was their fault.
I’m not an attorney. I was the claims adjuster on the claim. I had our defense attorney file an Answer, and we also counter sued, based on a new statute pertaining to frivolous lawsuits.
What really ticks me off is that the management of the insurance company had some big push to dispose of cases because they felt our claim inventory was getting too large. They assigned a special team of adjusters to just throw fast money at each claim in an effort to CLOSE FILES. And they paid $5,000 to settle the claim.