Doug was interviewed by Dan Ronan on Road Dog Trucking Radio

And talking a great deal over the last several weeks since the Montgomery decision that came down from the Supreme Court of the United States, a huge decision indeed that now brings brokers into the question of liability in terms of what they need to do to hire good, safe carriers in the trucking industry. And joining us on the line is Doug Burnetti. He is the founder of a Central Florida injury firm with more than thirty years of experience representing victims of serious vehicle and commercial trucking accidents. We talked to the plaintiff’s attorneys. We also talked to the defense attorneys. And here’s a chance to talk to someone who, in some cases, Doug, I would imagine you’re probably not the most popular guy in trucking circles, you and others that do this, but, I would imagine, not to put words in your mouth, but your job is to hold people accountable, and that’s what you’re trying to do.

Yes. And I hey. I appreciate you having me on the show, but absolutely. I mean, our unfortunately, there are people that that look kinda look down on me for what we do, but what I try to emphasize is we’re really on the same side of the safety issue.

We we want safety. If I never had another wrongful death trucking case because of increased safety, I would be fine with that.

But the the trucking industry and those that are in this, they try to disparage you guys. They call you billboard lawyers. They they will make ridicule you sometimes on the type of advertising that lawyers who are plaintiffs do. But the Supreme Court of the United States many years ago said it’s legal for lawyers to advertise. We may not like the way that they do it, but more free speech is better than less free speech.

You’re exactly right. That’s what the Supreme Court said, and I’ll be honest with you. I I wish I we did not have to advertise, but, unfortunately, there’s so many lawyers doing it that we’re kinda forced to in order to stay in business because we are running a business at the same time.

However, you know, getting the word out there that I think is an important aspect of that because there are many people that never even understand that they can file a claim. And I’m not talking about trucking accidents only. I mean, any kind of claim.

In fact, even now with all the advertising, think it’s something like sixty percent of the potential claims just never get filed. People just don’t pursue them for whatever reason.

So we’re we’re only six and ten. Is that what you’re saying? Six and ten?

Well, we’re trying to get them all, but it just it just doesn’t work out that way. But and and I’m half kidding. What my my goal really and our firm goal is just to try to help people. And we figure if we keep trying to help people that we’re doing the right thing.

The relationship between plaintiff and defense attorneys is supposed to be somewhat antagonistic. It’s supposed to be professional, yes, where you can go down and have a beer with the lawyer at the end of the trial or the end of the settlement, but it is designed to be confrontational. That’s the way the system is set up because it’s it is ultimately a search for the truth, and sometimes finding the truth takes a little bit of work, and it takes a little bit of elbow grease.

That’s a fact.

It is interesting, though, that I I actually do have some friends that are defense lawyers, and we’re friends outside the courtroom, and we’re even get along inside of the courtroom, which, frankly, it’s hard to explain to some, you know, defendants especially who are being sued.

But that sometimes and often works in everybody’s favor because if it’s more as cordial as it can be, usually things get done easier.

On the other hand, sometimes you gotta pull, you know, pull off the gloves and go at it.

And it’s it does it does happen. And we do have, you know, a lot of firms that don’t wanna, you know, litigate with us. And I’m and just like I I have a lot of defense firms that I would rather not see just because, you know, they’re almost overzealous.

But that’s a fact of our system. You’re right. It’s an adversarial system, not just in trucking and in every civil controversy that there is.

When an accident occurs, when a crash occurs, what do the investigators look for first? What are they trying to figure out? Ultimately, they’re trying to find probable cause and then determine how to prevent this type of crash from ever occurring again. But what are they looking at?

Well and are we talking about from the perspective of the plaintiff’s investigators?

Yeah. Let’s let’s start let’s start with let’s start with your side because that that’s the side of the house you know pretty well.

Yeah. I can tell you that our investigators are fast about trying to preserve evidence. And I know the defense, their investigators are doing the same thing because as you can imagine, things slip away.

Black box data gets written over.

You know, the rain washes away evidence. So our investigators are aggressive about trying to identify the evidence so that we can try to protect it the best that we can. Often, you know, it’s depends on how soon we are hired. But let’s say we’re hired within forty eight hours or seventy two hours or whatever. I mean, we’ll we’ll have our engineer experts at the scene of the incident right away.

Is this a case where this evidence needs to be obtained from government agencies, or is it evidence that your end you and your team can obtain independently? Is there different files, different areas in terms of evidence? Maybe the government folks found this, but you guys found this.

Yeah. That’s a that’s a great point.

Oftentimes, you know, the police also are typically starting their investigation.

And as a government agency, the police have a little bit more power than we do to get evidence.

They can get warrants or subpoenas or whatever to to get thing access to things that that we can’t. For example, they’re gonna probably talk to the driver of the truck. Well, certainly, the employer of the truck or of the truck driver is not gonna allow us to do that. So they’re getting information like that. Also often we’re able to get the I call it black box data but basically all of the sensor the vehicle sensor data as well as the dash cams or inside cams.

You know, often we’re able to get the black box data and usually not the the dash cam data until we actually file a lawsuit because as a plaintiff, once we file a lawsuit, we have subpoena power. So we can then use the court to help us get that information. Whereas, of course, the trucking company, unless the the camera’s data is really good for them, they are not going to just usually give that up to us.

In conversation with Doug Burnetti, the founder of the Burnetti law firm Central Florida, more than thirty years of experience representing victims of serious vehicle accidents as well. And when we come back, we’re gonna talk about how dash cams have changed trucking investigations for both the plaintiffs and for the trucking companies. It is coming up to four forty six eastern time, Back with more of our conversation with Doug Burnetti, SiriusXM channel one forty six. It’s on the move.

Or not much monitoring hooked to them. And, you know, and those just record and and you can go back and look at the recording and see for yourself. The AI systems, like, I know there’s one called Samsara and and LYTX, These companies are actually AI is analyzing the driver and and the the the cam the maybe the front and the back views.

And and if they see anything that triggers an alert, like, for example, let’s say that a driver was on his cell phone, that that could send an alert. It could record the alert, first of all, but also send it to, you know, headquarters, dispatch, whoever. Yeah. And it so it’s it’s it’s almost like it’s creating evidence. So let’s say, for example, we go back we get all that data and we go back and look at it and we see that this particular driver had this same issue that was triggered twenty times in the last three weeks. You know, you can see how that creates a problem for the employer. So these AI cameras, yeah, they’re smart, but they’re creating a lot of data that now is almost creating evidence.

So very interesting.

Is it evidence, Doug, that can be trusted because ultimately it is interpreting the data that is being given?

Right. I I think that’s the part of the issue, and we’re seeing that in at all levels of AI, especially our firm is very AI driven.

And we you know, it’s AI is when people ask me about it because we’re really our firm is very much on the leading edge of it.

The it’s a I would call it about seventy five percent, meaning we’re not a hundred percent there yet.

You still have to have oversight and humans checking it, making sure it’s accurate. So, yeah, I I agree with what you’re saying that you still have to look at the the footage, the video, and talk to everybody about what all of that means before you can jump to too many conclusions.

At one eight eight eight eight seven six two three three six. Doug, before we get to our time and we conclude our time together, spend a moment and tell us how our folks in the community, probably not a trucking company, but those that might be interested in talking with you, can reach out to your law firm and they can find out more about what you do.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. First of I’m Doug Burnetti. Our firm is Burnetti, PA. We’re located throughout Central Florida.

We handle cases really all over the nation, but primarily in Florida, and we’re easy to find. It’s you Google us, Burnetti, or you can call me at one eight hundred Burnetti. It’s spelled b u r n e t t I.

So pretty easy to find, well known, been around for thirty two years. So pretty much everybody in this area at least knows who we are.

What are some of the things that you see coming up on the horizon in the courtrooms? AI, you mentioned that. That’s gonna be one that, will be a a very big factor. What are gonna be some of the other things? Because we hear about nuclear verdicts. We hear about these cases. Now bringing in the brokers through Montgomery, it would seem, Doug, that there’s going to be a lot more money on the table, and the stakes, if they weren’t high enough already, will be even higher.

Yes. I think also along those lines of creating even more potential parties is as self driving, it starts working it its way more and more into the trucking industry.

You know, there may be products cases.

So let’s say, for example, a trucker’s got a not not a full AI, you know, self driving vehicle, but there’s some Level three.

Driving assist or whatever that malfunctioned. You know, you’re gonna have somebody new there. So I I think that the technology is cool and it’s it’s interesting for us to watch it develop, but it’s really gonna create a lot of new and novel legal issues and bring in more and more parties, which, you know, it may or may not be a bad thing.

It’ll make it more complicated.

What happens though, Doug, if there is a collision involving a truck that is running fully autonomous? Obviously, the person that owns the truck, the company that owns the truck has to be involved involved. They’re in the front line of the lawsuit, but then I would imagine you get the OEMs and then you get those that made the AI systems, the lidar, the radar, the other things, the sensors on the truck, and you probably have eight, nine, ten codefendants on this lawsuit by the time it gets through the discovery phase.

Oh, yeah. It’s it’s going to make it’s already is, but it’s going to make it very costly to pursue these cases from both sides.

Because now if it’s if it’s a fully autonomous vehicle, you’re gonna have you’re right. Maybe ten different defendants, you know, the software developers, the the manufacturers, the sub manufacturers, the owners. It’s gonna be very complicated. And a lot of it, I think, computer engineers are gonna make a lot of money in this litigation because we’re gonna be forced to high have to hire them. It’s gonna it’s gonna be very difficult. It’s gonna make it more difficult for everybody.

What advice would you give to those that are in the trucking industry right now based on the environment? We’ve only got a minute or so left, but as a plaintiff attorney, what friendly advice would you give to those in the trucking industry to run their shops as well as possible?

Yeah. Number one thing is, obviously, people probably heard about the reptile attempt to Sure. Put the burden the burden on the employer. And so you have to think in terms of you’ve got to provide the best HR and safety oversight that you possibly can because that’s where I’ll be honest with you. That’s where we find some of the our biggest cases is they just drop the ball so bad in that area. So if they can that would be my one piece of advice. Spend the money to have a great HR person and a great safety consultant.

And if you have that, you probably at least can figure out some way to negotiate and reach a a fair settlement as well. Doug, it’s been a real pleasure talking with you. Thanks for joining us from Central Florida. Doug Burnetti, the founder of Burnetti Law, a Central Florida injury firm, more than thirty years of experience representing crash victims, as we said.

We talk a lot with defense attorneys on the broadcast, but, it is also important to hear the perspective of those that are doing the suing, the plaintiff attorneys, to sort of give you an idea of what’s in their head as well. Doug joining us from Florida, and we thank him for his contribution to the broadcast. Coming up to five PM eastern time. Five PM eastern time.

In just a few moments, we’re gonna be talking to the CEO and the president of the United States Hispanic Business Council, a leading voice and spokesperson for small business and entrepreneurship.