Types of Damages You Can Claim After a Truck Accident

Truck accident damages fall into three types. Economic damages. Non-economic damages. Punitive damages. The final amount depends on the injury, who’s at fault, and how much insurance is available.

Large trucks caused over 117,000 injury crashes in a recent year, per FMCSA data, and nearly 1 in 9 traffic deaths nationwide involves a large truck. That’s why truck claims often carry higher stakes than typical car accidents.

Murfreesboro sits on I-24, a major freight route linking Nashville and Chattanooga, so commercial trucks pass through constantly. Rutherford County’s warehouses and distribution centers add even more commercial trucks to local streets. If you’ve been injured in one of these crashes, a truck accident lawyer in Murfreesboro can help identify which damages apply and who’s liable.

This article covers each type of damage you can claim in detail.

Medical Expenses

Medical costs are usually the largest part of any claim. They cover ambulance transport, ER treatment, surgery, and rehab, plus whatever long-term care follows. Spinal injuries and traumatic brain injuries often require years of ongoing treatment, so a solid claim projects future costs instead of stopping at the bills you already have.

Lost Income and Reduced Earning Capacity

Missed paychecks are recoverable. So is the harder-to-prove loss (an injury that keeps you from returning to your old job, or any job that pays the same). Insurers routinely undervalue this category because it requires forecasting years ahead, which is exactly why documentation from a treating physician or vocational expert matters so much.

Property Damage

This covers your vehicle and anything destroyed inside it. It’s the most straightforward part of a claim and typically resolves fastest, unless liability itself is contested.

Pain and Suffering

Tennessee doesn’t apply a fixed formula here. Insurers and juries weigh injury severity, recovery time, and how much daily life changed. A broken wrist heals in weeks. A crushed pelvis can mean permanent mobility loss, and compensation reflects that difference.

Loss of Consortium

Spouses can sometimes claim damages of their own when a serious injury disrupts the marriage. It’s a smaller category and easy to overlook, but it’s real and worth raising with an attorney.

Punitive Damages

These apply only when a trucking company’s conduct goes beyond negligence into something worse, like falsified driver logs, ignored brake failures, or forcing a driver past federal hours-of-service limits.

Punitive damages exist to punish that conduct, not just compensate the victim. Under Tennessee Code § 29-39-104, punitive damages are limited to two times the compensatory damages or $500,000, whichever is higher.

What Actually Determines Your Payout

A few factors drive the real number:

• The trucking company’s insurance limits, which run far higher than a typical driver’s policy.
• Whether fault falls on the driver, the carrier, or a third party like a maintenance contractor.
• How thoroughly the injury and its long-term impact get documented from day one.

Fault carries more weight than most people expect. Tennessee uses modified comparative fault, so your compensation drops by your percentage of blame and disappears entirely if you’re found 50% or more responsible. That’s why insurers move fast to shift blame onto the injured driver early on.

Conclusion

Trucking companies carry commercial policies, and their insurers often start pushing settlements within days of a crash, sometimes before the victim has even seen a specialist. That speed isn’t kindness. It’s strategy. Waiting for a full medical picture before accepting any offer usually changes the final number by a wide margin.

Every truck accident claim carries its own weight based on the injuries, the parties involved, and how well the evidence holds up. Knowing the categories of damages is the starting point. Building a claim that reflects the real cost of what happened takes more work than most people expect going in.

Key Takeaways

• Truck accident damages are categorized into three types.
• Economic damages cover actual costs like medical bills, lost wages, and property damage.
• Non-economic damages cover pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.
• Punitive damages apply only when the trucking company acted recklessly.
• If you’re 50% or more at fault, you get nothing under Tennessee law.