Commercial Liability - Trucking

In February 2007, Plaintiff, a commercial semi-truck driver, arrived at Defendant’s business, a truck-container service facility, to pick-up a container for transport. After Defendant loaded the container onto the truck, Plaintiff checked the outside of the container and locked the container into position on the chassis. After traveling a couple of miles down the road Plaintiff felt something shift inside the container as he was turning a corner and the truck flipped on its side. Plaintiff filed suit against Defendant seeking $575,000 in compensation for his injuries, including a wrist surgery. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant was negligent in failing to properly secure and load the container, failing to inspect the loaded container for improper loading, failing to warn plaintiff the container was improperly loaded, and providing a container that was improperly loaded in a dangerous and defective manner for transport.

Attorney Dylan Becker represented Defendant. Dylan obtained important testimony from Plaintiff in his deposition for use in a summary judgment motion. Dylan filed a summary judgment motion against Plaintiff claiming that Plaintiff had no evidence that Defendant was negligent and submitted evidence that Defendant did not load the inside of the container, did not own the container, did not install the lock on the container, did not have authority to open the container, and that Plaintiff admitted that when he locked the container into place he saw no problem with the container. Despite the fact that plaintiff filed an ORCP 47E attorney affidavit stating he had an expert to testify Defendant was negligent, the trial court concluded that Defendant did not have a duty to open sealed containers regardless of external appearances and granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment days before trial was scheduled to start.