BarbriSFCourseDetails
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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    On-Demand

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

  • work Practice Area

    Personal Injury and Med Mal

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Tuesday, June 30, 2020

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    90 minutes

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

$197.00
CLE
ALL

The CLE course will show both plaintiffs and defense counsel in trucking accident litigation how to prevent a manufacturer whose product caused an accident from escaping its obligations to contribute its fair share of any recovery. As product liability issues routinely intrude into trucking cases, attorneys for all parties may have both a duty and the desire to seek adequate and just compensation from additional defendants under product liability theories.

Faculty

Seth McCloskey
Attorney
Law Offices of Steven C. Laird, PC

Mr. McCloskey  has experience as a bankruptcy litigator under a Chapter 7 Trustee and has worked as a Justice of the Peace, misdemeanor and felony prosecutor with the Ellis County & District Attorney’s Office. He has also worked as an Adjunct Instructor at Navarro College and Tarleton State University where he taught various legal courses.

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Bruno Renda
Shareholder
Fowler White Burnett, PA

Mr. Renda is a shareholder in the Insurance Practice Group in the Fort Lauderdale and Miami offices. He is a civil trial lawyer dedicated to defending businesses and individuals in matters involving serious personal injury arising from alleged conventional and professional negligence, product liability and toxic torts. Mr. Renda dedicates a significant portion of his practice to defending commercial motor carriers and commercial drivers in high damages, high exposure motor vehicle accidents with complex legal, scientific and medical issues. He is well versed in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act (or FMCSA), as well other federal, state and local regulations governing interstate and intrastate motor carriers and commercial drivers.

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Walter G. Latimer
Shareholder
Fowler White Burnett, PA

Mr. Latimer is an AV-rated trial lawyer who focuses his practice on complex high-exposure transportation, toxic tort, product liability, premises liability, professional liability, general liability, resort and maritime torts, and other risks, from pre-trial through appeal. He is licensed in all courts in Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Missouri, and has appeared in numerous other jurisdictions pro hac vice for trial. He has over thirty years of experience with both national and international clients in numerous successful high-exposure civil cases, in both state and federal courts around the country.

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Description

Operator negligence and the truck owner's negligent maintenance are traditionally the basis of most trucking accident cases. Increasingly, trucking fleets are using autonomous and semi-autonomous anti-collision systems composed of software, sensors, and hardware that will theoretically react faster than human drivers. These systems include automatic braking systems to avoid rear-end collisions, radar systems to detect lane departures, and camera systems to increase the driver's field of vision.

Design and warning defects are inevitable as these systems are not dependable and do not always make operating a large commercial vehicle safer. Unnecessary emergency braking plagues many vehicles, radar systems may not work with safety bumpers, and some systems cannot detect pedestrians who aren't moving.

When drivers relied on systems that failed, manufacturers may attempt to avoid responsibility by blaming the trucking company, the driver, and victims. Operating manuals point to the "attentive driver" as key to safety but market the system as reliable. Manufacturers may also assert that software is not a tangible "product." Still, manufacturers have a duty to provide instructions for the safe use of systems and what may happen if a system is not used as directed, either of which may require direction about manually overriding systems.

Listen as the panel explores claims for design defects and defective warning, breach of warranties and representations, and defeating product liability defenses raised by manufacturers selling their products as dependable and safe.

Outline

  1. Overview of products liability theory
    1. Design, manufacturing, warning
    2. How negligence differs
  2. Product defects found in traditional trucking equipment
  3. Product defects in software and sensor-driven safety systems
    1. Design and warning defects
    2. Foreseeability issues
  4. Countering manufacturers efforts to shift blame to drivers

Benefits

The panel will review these and other topics:

  • What types of "safety" systems are involved in claims?
  • What types of defects (design, manufacturing, warning) are most likely to present?
  • What substantive or definitional defenses are manufacturers putting up to avoid liability?
  • Can defense counsel benefit from using the plaintiff's tactics against manufacturers or other third-party defendants?
  • What is the impact of automation?