Plaintif | Legal Blog.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules That Car Dealership Sales Personnel and Mechanics Are No Longer Entitled to Overtime Pay: Are You Being Cheated Out of Being Paid Overtime?

Posted by Staff | Apr 9, 2018 | Work |

The highest court of the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court, made an industry-changing ruling last Monday, April 2, 2018 that changes the pay structure and income of people working at over 10,000 U.S. car dealerships. They ruled that a car dealerships’ service advisers, which include both car dealership salesmen and mechanics working at car dealerships, aren’t required by federal law to receive overtime pay. The ruling affects more than 100,000 of these service advisers in the U.S.. Car dealership service advisers have been through tumultuous times when it comes to overtime pay. At first, since about the 1980s...

Easter Weekend Is Filled With Happy Family Times, but Also DUIs: Here’s What You Should Know

Posted by Staff | Apr 2, 2018 | Auto |

It’s Easter Sunday, which is a time of religious celebration and hunts for chocolate-coated Easter eggs. But all the jubilee means there’s a lot of drinking and a lot of driving to get to family and friends. This year, the holiday coincides with April Fools’ Day, which adds a little bit of potentially risky mischief. If you’re going to drive today, you should be more aware of your alcohol consumption. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are more car accidents caused by drivers driving under the influence (DUI) during the holidays, like Easter. Why? Research...

Truck Catches Fire in Redding and Forces Shutdown of Highway Off-Ramp: Why the Truck Driver May Be Liable

Posted by Staff | Mar 31, 2018 | Accidents |

On March 30, 2018, a semi-truck carrying 50,000 pounds of 10 four-by-four units of lumber was flagged down by an ambulance that saw the truck’s tires smoking. The truck pulled over on the shoulder of the off-ramp of Redding, CA Southbound Interstate 5’s South Bonnyview exit. The truck caught on fire there around midnight, which forced authorities to close down the off-ramp. The Redding Fire department was able to contain and quell the fire without incident – no person suffered injuries. But officials reopened the ramp almost 12 hours later, at around one o’clock p.m.. The fire department gave...

The Electronic Logging Device Rule (ELD) Extension Ends in 1 Day! On April 1, 2018, Police Can Delay Your Haul by 10 Hours or More

Posted by Staff | Mar 30, 2018 | Auto |

Doctors aren’t forced to use computers at their workplace, nor are they forced to keep medical records. But the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will be forcing most truck drivers to install an electronic logging device (ELD) in their trucks to record their Hours of Service (HOS). The sweeping mandate has been announced as early as 2015, and most of the truck driving industry has heard about it prior to 2017. Why Are Truck Drivers Being Forced to Use Computer Loggers in Their Trucks? The FMCSA has looked through their gathered statistics and studies and found that truck...

Lucky Owner-Operator Trucker SuperFan Wins a Free Peterbilt Rig – The Pros and Cons of Being an Owner-Operator

Posted by Staff | Mar 25, 2018 | Auto |

On March 23, 2018, Peterbilt announced at the 2018 Mid-America Trucking Show that owner-operator Rick McClerkin was the winner of the one-millionth truck Peterbilt has manufactured since the company’s inception. Peterbilt’s giveaway included 1,500 contestants spanning the U.S. and Canada, but only McClerkin was ultimately deemed worthy of the “SuperFan” title. McClerkin has been a truck driver since he was 17 – now he’s 61. Throughout his trucking life, he’s become a steadfast, loyal fan to Peterbilt. He uses two Peterbilt rigs for his owner-operator business, but has a collection of 11 other Peterbilt rigs – of which, seven...

Trump Bans Transgenders From the Military on a Technicality – But Can Your Employer Get Away With It?

Posted by Staff | Mar 24, 2018 | Work |

Trump’s new memo today, March 23, 2018, marks the end of transgendered citizens signing up and joining the U.S. military. The memo unilaterally interprets and applies governmental policies to ban people suffering from gender dysphoria from joining the military because they require “substantial medical treatment,” like daily medications and even surgery. The memo argues that only transgendered citizens suffering from gender dysphoria, which is the psychological condition where you’re convinced you’re the opposite gender of your birth biological gender, are barred from military service. But that’s just a technicality – by definition, almost 100 percent of transgendered citizens have...

Are You Being Paid Fairly When Your Truck Breaks Down?

Posted by Staff | Mar 23, 2018 | Auto |

Breakdown pay is when you’re paid for downtime while your truck is being repaired because it broke down or had a significant mechanical issue while you were delivering a haul. Truck driving companies have varying policies on breakdown pay: some pay $100 per downtime day, while others have no breakdown pay policy and pay their truck drivers $0 even if they had to wait days away from home. If you’ve broken down while doing a haul for your employer and they decided not to pay you, a truck driver attorney can help you get compensation and back pay. Why...

Truck Driver Killed When He Stopped for Breakdown – What You Need to Know About How to Handle a Breakdown

Posted by Staff | Mar 22, 2018 | Accidents |

Today in Massachusetts, the heart of the trucking industry showed its beautiful truth as hundreds of tow truck drivers gathered at the scene where just a week ago a fellow tow truck driver was struck and killed during a breakdown. The deceased tow truck driver, Daniel Coady Jr., was responding to a highway breakdown that resulted from two cars interacting unexpectedly with each other. He was busy loading one of the disabled cars onto his flatbed when a drunk driver came speeding down the highway and struck the other disabled car, pushing it into Coady. The drunk driver and...

Truck Driving Industry About to Boom in Value

Posted by Staff | Mar 21, 2018 | Auto |

Stock market reports show that many trucking stocks have fallen significantly since February. Experts are saying this is the time to either invest in truck driving companies or join the industry’s workforce. They’re forecasting that these stock prices will rise sharply and there will be more money pouring into the truck driving industry. Why? They cite that many trucking companies, like Navistar, PACCAR, and Meritor reported an impressive growth in their last quarter earnings. Trucking orders are soaring across the board too. In fact, North American heavy-duty Class 8 orders increased by over 75 percent over the last few...

Self-driving Trucks May Be Delayed for Another Decade After Self-driving Uber SUV Kills Woman. Experts Say Truck Driving Might Become a Hidden Cash Cow for Millennials

Posted by Staff | Mar 20, 2018 | Accidents |

Earlier today, March 19, 2018, a middle-aged woman was struck by a self-driving Uber Volvo SUV while crossing a crosswalk. She was rushed to the hospital, but ultimately died of her injuries. Some preliminary review of the footage shows the self-driving SUV with a smashed front and a crumpled bicycle – which leads to speculation that it was the self-driving car that was grossly malfunctioning. This is the first fatality caused by a self-driving car! Uber immediately suspended its self-driving operations and a whole host of government agencies related to transportation are heading to Arizona and California to investigate...