What do certain trucking companies look for when hiring a tractor-trailer driver upon employment? As discussed in my previous article, most trucking companies include the following when considering whether to hire a particular applicant:
- Employment Record;
- Education;
- Criminal History;
- Experience and Qualifications as a Driver;
- Accident/Crash Record;
- Traffic Convictions/Citations; and
- References
Some companies have an application process that is simple and follows the minimum federal regulations. Some companies, however, have a more in-depth application process in hiring commercial drivers. For example, some companies will interview the applicant in person, while other companies will rely on only the application itself. Given the influx of work in the Eagle Ford Shale area, it has been my experience that companies are hiring drivers with little experience and/or questionable driving records.
In all fairness, companies are required to only go back three (3) years in an applicant’s employment history to determine whether the applicant is someone the company wants to consider hiring. However, many times, companies do the very minimum in conducting this background investigation.
For example, a company may call and/or email/ and/or snail mail a verification form to the previous employer asking why the applicant left that job. This is supposed to be done to verify and confirm that the information provided by the applicant is consistent with the previous employer’s comments. But it is commonplace that if the previous company doesn’t reply, the current company will not follow up. Is it because the company is too busy, is understaffed, inadvertently forgets, or simply doesn’t care, we don’t know. But it is a tragedy when our firm prosecutes a claim where someone has died or been catastrophically injured and we find out that the defendant company never actively verified the past employment history of its defendant driver.
So what happens when there is a crash involving a commercial driver and another person(s). Our firm immediately conducts an investigation to determine fault. If we find that the adverse commercial company is at fault, we will file a lawsuit and allege various causes of action including, but not limited to, negligent hiring, supervision, and retention. Let’s discuss the negligent hiring claim. I’ve discussed in other articles the concept of respondeat superior (“course and scope of employment). A negligent hiring claim is not dependant on whether the commercial driver was in the course and scope of his employment with the company at the time of the crash. It is a claim against the employer based on direct liability. The focus here is whether the employer was negligent in hiring the applicant driver. In order to recover under a negligent hiring theory against the employer, the Plaintiff must prove the following:
- The employer owed the Plaintiff a legal duty to hire a competent employee;
- The employer breached that duty; and,
- The breach proximately caused Plaintiff’s injuries.
Under No. 1 above, the employer has a legal duty to hire a competent driver. This includes making reasonable and prudent inquiries into the driver’s past driving history, his/her competence to drive, and his/her driving qualifications. As discussed above, the inquiry into an applicant’s past must be sufficient. What is considered “sufficient” always becomes an issue of dispute. The defendant commercial company will always testify that it did its absolute best to verify the driver’s past history while the Plaintiff will testify that the defendant commercial company didn’t do enough.
It’s been my experience that some commercial companies don’t do enough to verify the defendant’s past driving history. Sometimes they luck out and walk through the raindrops and never get wet. Sometimes, the company is involved in a serious lawsuit involving many deaths and catastrophic injuries where it is later determined that the commercial tractor driver should have never been allowed to drive a golf-cart, much less an 80,000-pound tractor and trailer. Again, tragic situations that are now occurring pretty much on a weekly basis down here.
Written by:
Joey G. Gonzalez, Jr.
Watts Guerra LLP
4 Dominion Drive, Bldg 100, Suite 3
San Antonio, Texas 78257
Phone (210) 447-0500
© Watts Guerra LLP 2015
