What began as a typical workday for a hard-working truck driver turned into a life-altering catastrophe that should have never happened. On the day of the incident, our client arrived at a South Carolina industrial yard, ready to pick up a load on his flatbed trailer and get back on the road. That morning, he was confident and focused on doing the job right. He had no idea that due to a dangerous lack of workplace safety procedures, a 1,000-pound roll would fall from the top tier of the load, some fifteen feet in the air, slamming him to the pavement. He was found confused, combative, and bleeding from his ears before he was urgently airlifted to a trauma center. He would never be the same man who had stepped onto the yard that morning.
When his family contacted Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers, they were terrified and overwhelmed. They knew the road ahead would be long and difficult, and they needed help from a team willing to stand beside them every step of the way until the case was closed.
Attorney Ryan LeBlanc immediately began pursuing workers’ compensation benefits. At the same time, Attorney Melissa Mosier from our Columbia office reviewed whether an additional third-party claim could be filed against the industrial yard. The deeper she dug, the clearer it became that the company involved had failed to follow even the most basic safety practices required to keep visiting workers safe.
She took on the case, knowing it would require navigating the complex overlap of workplace safety rules and trucking industry regulations, an area many attorneys avoid entirely.
1,000 lb. Load Crushes Unsuspecting Trucker
Our investigation found the heavy rolls being loaded onto our client’s truck were stacked directly on top of each other. This made them prone to shifting and created a ticking time bomb for vulnerable pedestrians, including truck drivers whose job it was to secure the load. After each row, it was the driver’s responsibility to strap the load. For the first two tiers, the forklift operator maintained the probe in the roll while it was strapped down, but for the top tier, the forklift operator simply placed the roll, snapped a photo, and moved on. He did not remain to steady the roll while the driver completed the final strapping. Instead, the loader moved on to the next truck waiting to be loaded, leaving the truck driver in a dangerous and vulnerable position with no bracing or assistance to make sure the load stayed in place during the securement process.
The loading procedure at the industrial yard was fundamentally unsafe. There was no written loading procedure. No standardized safety protocol. No monitoring. And when the roll fell, the company did not even know what had happened until another yard worker found the victim lying on the pavement – they denied any camera footage existed. The insurance company denied all liability, instead focusing on the truck driver’s duty to secure his load under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, but Mosier’s knowledge of employer worksites was key; she knew that the governing standard here was not the trucking regulations, but instead OSHA.
Catastrophic Injuries and a Long Road of Medical Care
Our client’s injuries were devastating. He suffered a fractured skull and multiple fractures throughout his spine, ribs, femur, heel, and temporal bone. His hip and lower leg were dislocated. After being airlifted by helicopter to a trauma center, he endured six surgeries, including a craniotomy to relieve swelling and cauterize an internal brain bleed. His early medical costs approached $1 million, and a life care plan projected another $1.2 to $1.8 million in future treatment. Yet despite the severity of his injuries, the workers’ compensation carrier refused to pay for any of his medical treatment.
Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers stepped in immediately to prevent his recovery from collapsing before it even began. Our client being out of state was of no concern to us; we worked with his medical providers and issued Letters of Protection (LOPs), a tool that ensures our injured clients can continue receiving treatment even when insurance refuses to pay upfront, and defendants deny claims.
“The whole reason Letters of Protection exist,” Mosier explained, “is because insurers count on the little guy running out of resources so they can force a cheap settlement. If you don’t secure treatment early, especially with a brain injury, the client never gets the chance to recover. What good is money if your quality of life is terrible, and what kind of lawyer am I if I can get my client medical treatment, but I am too scared to connect him with the best doctors to help him? I am a mother, and I am a Mama Bear when it comes to fighting for what is best for my clients. With the full support of our Litigation Department chair, Mark Joye, we are very proud of the great improvements our client made with cognitive and occupational therapy that we helped get him back in his home state.”
The first 12 to 18 months are absolutely critical to recovering after a brain injury. Our firm took the financial risk of guaranteeing our client’s care because Mosier knew this was a case worth the risk. “I take big risks in cases I believe in,” Mosier said. “That’s the way I roll. If we didn’t step in, he may have never had a chance at recovering and trying to return to some semblance of a normal life.”
His road to recovery was excruciating. He initially received occipital nerve blocks for debilitating headaches. These are grueling injections that must be inserted through the nose. Unfortunately, they lost effectiveness over time. While Botox eventually helped reduce the frequency of his headaches, the cognitive issues from his traumatic brain injury, memory loss, mood swings, sleep disturbances, and difficulty concentrating persisted. He could no longer safely work, even in a simple, local driving position.
For a man who took pride in being a strong, independent, and capable provider in a lucrative driving job, the loss of his physical and cognitive abilities was beyond devastating for both him and his family.
Our client grew up in Texas, where his father instilled in him the importance of faith, family, and hard work. So, it was shocking when they saw each other again after the accident. The man could barely recognize the son he’d raised. When Attorney Mosier traveled to Texas to take the father’s trial deposition, he struggled to hold back his emotions. He was heartbroken, describing the surgical incision across his son’s head like he had a zipper down his scalp.
At home, his wife and stepson felt the changes deeply. His stepson said he had finally found a man he could look up to, only to have that role model taken away by the brain injury that took his stepdad from a teddy bear to a grizzly bear. His wife described walking on eggshells because of his memory lapses, confusion, and unpredictable moods.
A Preventable and Foreseeable Job-Site Risk
From the start, the supply yard blamed the trucker, our client, insisting it was his responsibility to secure the load. This case required an in-depth understanding of where OSHA regulations end and trucking regulations begin, an area most attorneys never touch or consider.
Despite the company’s insistence that nothing like this had ever happened before, as Mosier pressed the defendants during discovery, she found they had attempted to conceal critical information. The company had experienced two prior incidents involving falling top-tier rolls. They had even created warning signs acknowledging the danger. Yet, they still had no written loading procedure and had never evaluated the risks in a meaningful way.
After our client’s injury, the company finally changed its process, instructing forklift operators to keep the probe inside the top roll until the driver finished strapping the load. It was a simple step that should have been in place all along.
Pushing Toward Trial and Uncovering the Truth
Attorney Mosier took full control of the litigation. Our team noticed every deposition, filed various discovery motions, and supplemented discovery nineteen times. The defense, by contrast, did not conduct any depositions until the last two months leading up to the trial, and attempted to delay the trial twice. With each hearing, Mosier pushed the case forward, determined to uncover the truth and get the case to trial.
As the trial date approached, pressure mounted. The evidence was overwhelming: the company had known about the danger long before our client was crushed.
Shortly before the set trial date, after reviewing the strength of the evidence and the lifelong needs of our client, the defense relented and agreed to a $9 million settlement. This result provides our client with the security and medical care he will need for the rest of his life. Although his cognitive and physical limitations will never fully heal, the settlement ensures he and his family have a stable future and access to the treatment required for his long-term quality of life.
Our Commitment to Fighting for the Underdog
This case represents exactly why Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers has fought for injured workers since 1968. “We are not ambulance chasers, we are truth chasers,” explains Mosier. We fight to expose dangerous practices, uncover hidden evidence, and protect people who would otherwise be left behind.”
Rules are meant to keep workers safe. When companies ignore them, and lives are destroyed, we step in. Our responsibility is not only to secure recovery, but also to care for the client every step of the way and to help prevent others from suffering a similar fate.
If you or someone you love has suffered a serious workplace injury or catastrophic accident, you deserve an advocate who will fight for you from day one. Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers is an award-winning South Carolina injury firm with more than five decades and over 350 years of combined experience standing up for the underdog.
We offer free consultations, and you never pay a legal fee unless we recover compensation for you. Our team, including bilingual legal professionals, is available 24/7 to help you get started on your case.
Disclaimer: Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
