. . and how much of this $87,818.07 should the (truck) Driver receive?

Watertown Daily Times | Trucking company sues the family of suicide victim

It said it was a lease, so I would imagine he should receive all of it, I find it odd that the company is sueing.

About $10,000 for his mental anguish. Other than that?.... be glad he's still alive!.... AND has a JOB!

The "company" is suing for damages to equipment, loss of revenue, and loss of image due to the way SOME will portray this. :hellno:

I'm just glad to see a company going AFTER one of these "suicides" that can have so much affect on our careers and our emotional lives! I'd like to see them get TOUGHER!

SOME trucks carry Hazmat, and most idiots who want to commit suicide don't KNOW that. The risks are just too high! I believe they should apply "anti-terrorist" measures against these idiots AND their families. This will make if PUBLIC real quick that you don't DO "suicide by TRUCK" because of the possible "unintended consequences."

Get a COP to shoot you, if that's what you want.... but leave us Truckers alone! We've got ENOUGH to do just keeping the idiots around us alive!

That's crazy.

I suppose his wife held a gun to his head and made him commit suicide.

Sorry, but unless she was the cause of his actions, she should not be held liable. Withholding sex, nagging about not enough money, demanding a divorce, was fat, sloppy, and lazy...

I can't imagine a woman telling her husband to borrow a car, go out and play in the highway, and see how much damage he can do. Unless she had a hand in making him do that, she's being made a victim twice over. There is little doubt that if she or the owner of the car knew what he had in mind, they'd have tried to stop him. This is nuts. Like sueing the gun maker for some nut that uses the gun to kill people. They weren't holding the wheel and controlling the car.

Swift is entitled to recover. They have to go after her because of the likelyhood that any marital assets are held jointly and any insurance proceeds probably name her specifically. They have to go after the guy that owned the car because that's where the collision insurance (if any) is.

I was kidding about the Driver . . if he has any sense, he's got his own lawyer going after them. While Swift will be limited to it's actual damages, the Driver can take this family to the cleaners, as well he should, assuming there's anything there to recover.

Ok... now, without knowing exactly what their relationship was like, first she loses her husband, then gets sued on top of that? That's a whole lot like adding insult to injury. Sort of like surviving a killer tornado, then having someone come up and shoot you in the head because you survived.

I agree that the family should not be able to get sued. However I do believe that if the guy had a will and left anything behind, the company and driver should be able to go after the estate, but not the family. Also being ruled suicide, his insurances are no longer valid.

Something tells me that, were the shoe on the other foot, say the Swiftie was feeling a little depressed that day, you'd both be singing a different song.

I don't understand why you say that. If a driver regardless of company decided to kill himself, and probably a few others too with his truck, in REALITY the only person that should be responsible is the driver, but we all know that in REALITY the families will sue the drivers family, the company, probably try to sue the manufacture of the truck even, today people don't care they will try to sue whomever they can. It is ridiculous. Same thing with CH Robinson having to pay $25m for some idiots mistake just because they brokered the load.

There is no such thing as responsibility anymore, and sadly even the judges allow it to happen every day.

If the trucking company wins and collects the truck driver will not receive a cent. Swift is suing for the loss of their the equipment they own, not for any wages or suffering by the driver.

Odds are that Swift attempted to recover this amount from the insurance company of the driver who committed suicide and then from the insurance company of the actual owner of the car and were turned away since the damage was intentionally cause by the suicidal driver's actions.

It is possible that Swift is really suing the insurance companies but had to name all parties involved in this, and with the stellar reporting that goes on anymore that little fact could have been easily left out to make Swift look like the bad guy for going after the widow.

If the driver of the semi, assuming he survived the collision, or his family want to collect anything they will need to file their own legal action.