07/10/2026
B. Shannon Saunders, PA recently secured a settlement of $3.2 million for our client who was catastrophically injured in a head on collision with a log truck. After two years of hard fought litigation we were able to prove liability, not only on the log truck company, but also the landowner and broker. Evidence showed that the log truck involved in the crash was travelling too fast around a curve with a load of timber substantially exceeding the maximum weight limit for log trucks by thousands of pounds. In addition, inspection of the log truck revealed that the brakes were defective, the load was not properly secured, and the log truck driver was positive for methamphetamine . The log truck company had an extremely poor safety history, with over 50% of their trucks inspected in the two years leading up to the crash being taken “out of service” for safety violations. The land owner was one of the largest landowners and timber producers in the state of Florida operating a large scale timber business, harvesting thousands of acres annually. Evidence showed they had full time foresters on staff that were at the jobsite daily overseeing and supervising, along with the broker representatives. While the landowner and broker attempted to designate the log truck company as an “independent contractor” evidence revealed that the land owner and broker exercised such an extreme level of control over the log truck company their relationship was, in fact, an employer-employee relationship. Through hard fought litigation we were successful in proving both theories of liability pled in the complaint, which was negligent hiring and also an agency theory. Through two years of hard fought litigation we were able to get justice for our client.
