We are proud to announce Tim Whiting as a named speaker for the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association Conference. Tim was asked to present on a major trending topic within truck accident litigation – Other Similar Incidents (OSI) and their use and application in trucking cases.
In this presentation Tim discussed the trending use of OSI’s in the trucking sphere, and how their historical use in product liability cases can be transferred into their use and application on a trucking case. The application of OSI’s to a trucking case are broad and varied, including both for the use of punitive and proving compensatory claims. OSI’s can be used to keep the defendant from admitting liability, obtaining evidence of “bad acts” that would make a jury angry, to make the harm greater than your individual case, to expose the seriousness of the system failure, to show the disregard for the safety of others, and to show the cause of the incident in question was foreseeable because of the prior OSIs.
Tim also discussed the threshold evidentiary considerations when using OSI in a trucking case, and that as a starting point the other similar incidents need not be identical but must be substantially similar to the facts of the crash. The OSI must also be other similar incidents that are substantially similar and which could or did result in harm. The next consideration is from a quantity viewpoint what is enough? How many other incidents constitutes sufficient evidence for the purpose of the OSI? Tim discussed this breakdown on a spectrum, and that depending on the severity of the other similar incidents there may be a lower frequency threshold, in other words, the greater the harm in other OSI’s the lower the number of OSI’s that may be required by the court when considering punitive damages.
For more information on the use and applicability of OSIs in truck accident litigation, please visit our Truck Accidents page, or contact a member of our team.