Mayberry Law represents people injured—and families who have lost someone—in collisions with semi-trucks, drayage trucks, delivery vehicles, and other commercial vehicles across Los Angeles County.
The injuries are usually worse—a loaded tractor-trailer can weigh 80,000 pounds—but the defining difference is who you are up against and where the evidence lives. In an ordinary vehicle accident, much of the key evidence is at the scene and in medical records. In a truck case, critical records often sit only on the trucking company's side: electronic logs, telematics, dashcam footage, driver qualification and drug-testing files, maintenance records, and dispatch and load records.
Major carriers may send investigators and defense counsel to a serious crash within hours. One of the first legal steps is therefore a focused preservation letter putting the carrier on notice not to destroy relevant evidence. Federal rules require carriers to retain driver duty-status records for at least six months, while some camera and business systems overwrite much sooner. A truck case that starts late can begin with avoidable gaps in its record.
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Truck drivers and carriers operate under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Violations do not automatically decide liability, but the carrier's own compliance records can provide a far stronger account than memory alone.
FMCSA Hours of Service regulationsProperty-carrying drivers are generally limited to 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour duty window, with required breaks and weekly limits. Fatigue issues are tested against electronic logging data and supporting records. See FMCSA's hours-of-service rules.
Carriers must maintain qualification, medical-certification, and drug-and-alcohol testing records. Gaps can support a negligent hiring, retention, training, or supervision theory.
Required inspections and systematic maintenance records can reveal brake, tire, lighting, coupling, or repair issues that a driver's account or basic collision report does not explain.
Shifted or improperly secured cargo can cause rollovers, jackknifes, and loss-of-control events—and may implicate the shipper, loader, carrier, or another contractor.
Most California truck-accident injury claims carry a two-year deadline from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure §335.1, and wrongful-death claims are generally subject to the same two-year statute. The California Courts deadline guide summarizes the general rules.
If a public entity is involved—such as a government vehicle or dangerous road condition—California generally requires a formal claim relating to death, personal injury, or personal-property injury within six months. See Government Code §911.2. In a truck case, the practical evidence deadline is often much shorter because federal duty-status records need only be retained for six months and other systems may overwrite sooner.
Commercial trucking involves a chain of companies. Each participant can have independent duties, records, and insurance, so the investigation should not stop with the driver or the name painted on the cab.
A carrier may answer for a driver's on-the-job negligence and may face separate claims for negligent hiring, training, retention, supervision, scheduling, or safety practices.
Depending on the facts and governing law, claims may examine negligent carrier selection, control over the work, or improper loading and cargo securement. These theories are fact-specific and heavily defended.
Brake failures, tire blowouts, lighting problems, coupling failures, and defective components can implicate the companies that inspected, serviced, supplied, or built the equipment.
An independent-contractor label is a starting point, not the end of the analysis. Contracts, leases, operating authority, dispatch, control, and the actual structure of the operation all matter.
Federal law generally requires interstate for-hire carriers transporting nonhazardous property in vehicles over 10,001 pounds to maintain at least $750,000 in public-liability coverage. The minimum rises to $1 million or $5 million for specified oil and hazardous-material operations. See 49 CFR §387.9. Many carriers maintain $1 million or more because commercial relationships require it.
California's passenger-auto minimum is now $30,000 for injury or death to one person. The contrast helps explain why serious truck cases draw an early, professional defense. Different rules can apply to intrastate operations, drayage arrangements, owner-operators, and layered policies. Determining which coverage applies is core early-case work and part of a free case evaluation.
There is no honest universal calculator. Value depends on liability evidence, available coverage, medical proof, and the complete documented loss—much of which is not yet known when the question is first asked.
Emergency treatment, surgery, specialists, therapy, rehabilitation, assistive devices, and reasonably supported future care may all be relevant.
Missed wages, reduced hours, lost opportunities, changed work, and diminished earning capacity require medical, vocational, and employment support.
Transportation, home assistance, accessibility changes, damaged property, and other documented expenses may form part of the economic loss.
The record may address pain, emotional distress, disability, scarring, sleep disruption, lost activities, and reduced independence. Catastrophic injuries require a careful long-term view.
Los Angeles and Long Beach form the busiest container-port complex in the Western Hemisphere. In 2025, the San Pedro Bay ports handled approximately 31% of U.S. containerized international waterborne trade, while the Port of Los Angeles alone moved more than 10 million container units. See the Port of Los Angeles facts and figures.
Freight leaving the ports moves through the I-710 and I-110 corridors and east toward the I-10, SR-60, and Inland Empire warehouse network. Port-corridor cases can involve chassis ownership, terminal pressures, drayage contractors, and layered owner-operator relationships. Last-mile delivery traffic adds another dense commercial-vehicle network across Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Mayberry Law represents injured people and families in serious commercial-vehicle claims across Los Angeles County and California.
You work directly with the attorneys responsible for preserving the evidence, mapping the commercial relationships, documenting the loss, and preparing the claim for negotiation or trial.
Brent and Quinn Mayberry work directly with clients rather than handing the relationship to a rotating case manager.
The firm brings more than 40 years of trial experience to claims involving insurers, businesses, and corporate defendants.
Commercial carriers and insurers evaluate the evidence and the firm's willingness to present it in court. Each claim is developed with litigation in mind.
The initial evaluation is free. For contingency matters, attorney fees are collected only from a recovery under the written fee agreement.