Wisner Baum
Wrongful death suit filed on behalf of boy who lost his father alleges fatalities were caused by “inadequately trained, ill-equipped driver/carrier.”
LOS ANGELES, CA – CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, October 11, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Wisner Baum law firm filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week on behalf of a young boy who lost his father in a truck crash that attorneys say, “could have been avoided.”
Attorneys Clay Robbins III and Matthew P. French filed the complaint (Case No. 23CV-01061) on October 3, 2023, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Merced. The lawsuit was filed in response to a 2022 truck crash in Merced County that killed 33-year-old Ieli Paulo Ieli, Jr. and one other motorist.
The plaintiff in the case is Desiree Montes, the mother and guardian of Ieli’s minor son. The defendants are truck driver Tanpreet Singh and trucking companies JS Badwal Transport Inc., McLeod Express LLC and its logistics unit, SS Freightway Inc., Trueway Transport Inc., and Morton Salt, Inc.
On the morning of June 21, 2022, Tanpreet Singh was driving a tractor-trailer northbound on State Route 59 in Merced County when he suddenly turned into southbound lanes, directly into oncoming traffic. Singh’s truck collided with multiple vehicles, including a 2005 Hyundai Santa Fe driven by Ieli, Jr., who was pronounced dead at the scene.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) investigation disclosed that Singh had been operating the commercial vehicle for several hours, so fatigue played a part in this tragedy, as did an inadequate safety program.
At the time of the crash, Singh was driving for JS Badwal Transport, a trucking carrier that did not have a safety rating with the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Attorneys say McLeod Express was supposed to transport the load for Morton Salt, Inc., but McLeod re-brokered to S&S Freightway, which then re-brokered to Badwal. Both McLeod Express and S&S Freightway re-brokered the haul “without authority, permission, or consent,” per the allegations.
According to the complaint, the crash that killed Mr. Ieli was caused by reckless negligence on the part of multiple trucking companies that brokered the haul to an unproven carrier and driver. McLeod and the other trucking entities allowed an inadequately trained, ill-equipped, and incompetent driver/carrier combination to operate the truck to transport a load that weighed several thousand pounds, over the highways of the state of California, the lawsuit says.
“Badwal and Singh should never have been permitted to transport this haul,” says attorney for the plaintiff, Clay Robbins III. “If McLeod and S&S couldn’t handle the job, they shouldn’t have taken it. Their zeal to make a buck combined with their failure to perform the bare minimum of due diligence cost lives, and they need to be held accountable.”
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Wisner Baum is a Los Angeles law firm that represents more than 18,000 plaintiffs across a broad range of practice areas, including commercial transportation cases involving truck collisions, aviation disasters, bus crashes, and train derailments. Since 1985, the firm has won more than $4 billion in verdicts and settlements, earning a reputation for breaking new legal ground, holding major corporations accountable, influencing public policy, and raising public awareness about important safety issues. Learn more at https://www.wisnerbaum.com/.
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L.J. Williamson
Newsroom PR
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