If you were hurt in a commercial truck crash anywhere in the St. Louis metro, you're up against trucking companies and insurers who move fast to limit what they pay. Our trial attorneys move faster.
A truck crash on I-44, I-70, I-170, I-64/Highway 40 or I-270 is not just a bigger car accident. A loaded semi can weigh up to 30 times as much as a passenger vehicle, and the people in the smaller vehicle are the ones who pay for it — often with life-altering injuries or the loss of someone they love. At Finney Injury Law, our St. Louis truck accident attorneys represent injured people and grieving families throughout Missouri and Illinois, and we prepare every case as if it is going to trial.
That preparation is what changes the number. When a top-50 national trucking company offered our client $1 million and tried to blame him, we tracked the totaled vehicle by VIN, recovered the data with our own Bosch Crash Data Retrieval tool, and settled for $2.95 million. In a separate wrongful-death case where the trucking company offered zero and blamed the victim's mother, we secured a $20,025,000 verdict.
Freight routes are not interchangeable. Each of these corridors fails in its own way, and the difference shows up in what a case has to prove.
I-70 is the main east-west truck route across the state, and the run from the downtown interchanges out through Earth City and over the Blanchette Bridge into St. Charles County mixes long-haul semis with commuters at every ramp. Two of the largest trucking results in this firm's history came from crashes on I-70: a $20,025,000 wrongful death verdict in St. Charles County, and a $2,950,000 settlement against a top-50 national carrier.
I-270 rings the metro and feeds the distribution and warehouse corridors in Earth City, Bridgeton, and Hazelwood before crossing the Mississippi on the Chain of Rocks Bridge. That puts trucks entering and exiting the loop at nearly every interchange, often at the start or the end of a driver's shift. Add the construction zones that are a near-permanent feature of this road, with shifted lanes and compressed shoulders, and merge conflicts land exactly where a truck's blind spot sits.
I-44 is the freight route toward Springfield and Tulsa, and the stretch through the city near the Hampton and Kingshighway interchanges combines tight curves, short acceleration lanes, and very little median. We recovered $795,199 for a client struck by a tractor-trailer while traveling westbound on I-44, where the force of the impact carried the car across the median and into oncoming traffic.
I-64/US-40 runs through Clayton and downtown with frequent lane reductions and merges, and crosses the Missouri River on the Daniel Boone Bridge at Chesterfield. A truck driver who misjudges a lane drop at highway speed has almost no room to correct, and the vehicle beside him absorbs the error.
I-55 carries north-south freight along the Mississippi toward Memphis, converging with I-64 and I-44 near the Poplar Street Bridge in one of the most compressed merges in the region, then running south through south county to meet I-255 and the Jefferson Barracks Bridge crossing. Tanker and hazardous-material traffic serving the riverfront industrial corridor adds a category of risk an ordinary car crash never involves.
Page Avenue shifts from a signalized surface road through Overland and Maryland Heights into a limited-access highway crossing the Missouri River into St. Charles County. On the surface portion, tractor-trailers have to swing across multiple lanes to complete turns at intersections built around passenger cars. We recovered $979,000 for clients seriously injured when a commercial truck driver made an unsafe left turn.
Past results do not guarantee a future outcome, and every case depends on its own facts.
Federal law allows most tractor-trailers to gross up to 80,000 pounds, roughly twenty times a typical passenger car. Federal highway safety guidance commonly describes a loaded semi's stopping distance at highway speed as about the length of two football fields. A professional driver is expected to keep that margin. When he does not, the physics stops being an excuse and becomes the negligence.
A commercial truck has areas, largest along the right side and directly behind the trailer, where the driver cannot see an adjacent vehicle. Defense teams reach for this constantly: our client was in the no-zone. But a licensed commercial driver is trained and required to account for the limits of his own vehicle before he changes lanes or turns. Under Missouri's pure comparative fault system, you can recover even if a jury assigns you part of the responsibility.
When a passenger vehicle strikes or is struck near the rear or side of a trailer, the height difference can allow the car to travel underneath, bypassing the crumple zones a car is engineered around. These crashes produce injuries wildly out of proportion to the speeds involved, which is one reason insurers dispute severity so aggressively.
Loop ramps on I-270 and the curves on I-44 through the city are where trailer instability shows up. Improperly secured or unbalanced cargo, worn brakes, and entry speed all feed into it, and each one points at a different potentially liable party: the driver, the carrier, the loader, or a maintenance contractor.
Federal hours-of-service rules cap how long a driver can operate, and Electronic Logging Devices are supposed to make that verifiable. Delivery pressure on the distribution corridors along I-270 and I-70 creates the incentive to push past those limits. The ELD record either confirms compliance or it does not, and it is one of the first things we move to preserve.
Our truck accident practice page goes deeper on FMCSA regulations, the parties who can be held liable, and how we build these cases from the first 48 hours forward.
On August 6, 2019, a 19-year-old known to his family as "Junior" was riding in the passenger seat of the family SUV on Highway 70 when a semi-truck struck the vehicle. The crash caused catastrophic injuries that ultimately took his life.
The Kansas trucking company denied responsibility. It offered zero dollars to settle, and it put forward an alternative explanation for how the young man died. It blamed his mother, who had been driving.
Three years after the crash, the case went to trial. Five days of expert testimony, witness accounts, exhibits, crash reconstruction, and cross-examination of the defense's experts. On Friday, August 5, 2022, a St. Charles County jury held the trucking company responsible and returned a verdict of $20,025,000.
Finney Injury Law represented the young man's father, serving as co-counsel with Toni and Craig Schlapprizzi of Schlapprizzi Attorneys at Law, who represented his mother.
Past results do not guarantee a future outcome, and every case depends on its own facts. These are public-record results against commercial carriers and their insurers that show what trial-prepared representation can produce.
A semi struck a family SUV on Highway 70, killing a 19-year-old passenger. The carrier offered $0 and blamed his mother for three years. After a five-day trial, the jury awarded $20,025,000. Co-counsel case. Read full story →
Rear-ended on I-70 by a national carrier whose driver claimed she cut him off. We tracked her totaled car by VIN to the Missouri bootheel and pulled the crash data ourselves. It disproved him. A $1M offer became $2.95M. Read full story →
A serious commercial truck collision left our client facing a long recovery. We documented the full scope of the harm and settled for $1,525,000. Read full story →
A commercial truck driver made an unsafe left turn, causing serious, life-altering injuries to our clients. $979,000 recovered. Read full story →
Struck westbound on I-44 and forced across the median into oncoming traffic. Medical bills well over six figures. The opening offer was $50,000. We settled at $795,199. Read full story →
A jury awarded $250,000 following a truck accident case tried by Finney Injury Law. Read full story →
Photograph the door placard, the USDOT and MC numbers, the trailer number, and the plates on both the tractor and the trailer. A motor carrier is far harder to identify weeks later, and that identification is what a preservation letter has to be addressed to.
Your own car holds data that can disprove the trucker's account of your speed, braking, and lane position. Once it goes to salvage, that data can be gone. Tell us before you sign anything releasing it.
The weight difference in a truck collision produces injuries that do not always announce themselves at the scene, and adjusters read a gap in treatment as evidence you were not hurt. A documented medical record protects both your health and your claim.
We move immediately to preserve ELD data, engine control module downloads, driver qualification files, dispatch records, maintenance and inspection history, and post-crash testing results. The first 48 hours often determine what evidence still exists by the time a case is tried.
We have taken trucking companies to verdict in Missouri courtrooms, including a $20,025,000 wrongful death verdict in St. Charles County against a carrier that offered nothing. That posture is what creates leverage for a fair settlement, and it is why our results speak for themselves.
See how we've resolved trucking cases for our clients.
View Our ResultsI-70 as the main east-west freight route across Missouri; I-270 as the outer belt feeding the Earth City, Bridgeton, and Hazelwood distribution districts and crossing the Mississippi on the Chain of Rocks Bridge; I-44 heading southwest toward Springfield and Tulsa; I-64/US-40 through Clayton and downtown; I-55 running north-south along the river toward Memphis; and Page Avenue, Route 364, between north St. Louis County and St. Charles County. All of them put long-haul semis in the same lanes as local commuters.
A commercial crash brings in evidence and parties that do not exist in a car case: FMCSA regulations on driver qualification, hours of service, and maintenance; ELD and engine control module data on the truck itself; and liability that can extend past the driver to the motor carrier, the cargo loader, maintenance contractors, and parts manufacturers. That evidence can be overwritten or released within weeks, which is why an early investigation matters more here than in almost any other claim.
Substantially longer. Federal law allows most tractor-trailers to gross up to 80,000 pounds, roughly twenty times a typical passenger car, and federal highway safety guidance commonly puts a loaded semi's stopping distance at highway speed at about the length of two football fields. A truck driver who follows too closely or drives too fast for traffic and weather on a corridor like I-270 has given up the margin the law expects a professional to keep.
Not on its own. A no-zone is real, largest along the right side and directly behind the trailer, but a licensed commercial driver is trained and required to account for the limits of his vehicle before changing lanes or turning. And under Missouri's pure comparative fault system, you can still recover damages even if a jury assigns you part of the responsibility.
Potentially the driver and the motor carrier both. On the signalized surface stretch of Page Avenue through Overland and Maryland Heights, tractor-trailers swing across multiple lanes to finish turns at intersections designed around passenger cars. These claims look at the driver's conduct and also at the carrier's routing, training, and supervision. We recovered $979,000 for clients seriously injured by a commercial truck driver's unsafe left turn.
ELD records, engine control module and black box data, dispatch communications, dashcam video, driver qualification files, and post-crash drug and alcohol testing results. Some are retained only for a matter of months under federal rules. The vehicles are at risk too: once a totaled car is released to salvage, its crash data can be lost. In one case we tracked our client's released vehicle by VIN to the Missouri bootheel and downloaded the data with our own Bosch Crash Data Retrieval tool, and it disproved the trucker's version of events.
Yes. In August 2022, after a five-day trial, a St. Charles County jury returned a verdict of $20,025,000 in a wrongful death case arising from a Highway 70 crash in which a semi struck a family SUV and killed a 19-year-old passenger. The carrier had offered zero dollars and spent three years blaming the young man's mother. Finney Injury Law represented the father as co-counsel with Schlapprizzi Attorneys at Law. Insurance companies price claims differently when they believe the firm across the table will actually try the case.
Missouri sets specific filing deadlines for personal injury and wrongful death claims, and they can vary with the facts, including whether a minor or a wrongful death is involved. Trucking cases carry a second clock as well: the federal retention periods on the carrier's own records. Because either one can end a claim's best evidence or the claim itself, it's best to speak with an attorney as soon as possible.
Tell us what happened. A member of our team reaches out within one business day, an attorney evaluates every case, and there is no cost or obligation for the review.
Don't face the trucking company and its insurance adjusters alone. The decisions you make in the days and weeks following a crash greatly impact your ability to recover fair compensation. We serve injury victims throughout Missouri and Illinois. English- and Spanish-speaking staff available.