Fatal Failure to Inspect Truck Tyre

Yadvinder Singh, a 30 year-old truck driver, was hired by ‘Destination Anywhere’ to haul aggregate materials from ‘Granite Construction Co’ to a construction site. Mr Singh drove his dump truck to Granite Construction where an employee loaded it with washed sand. As Mr Singh drove the truck toward its destination, it’s right front tyre suffered a blowout, causing the truck to leave the road and overturn.

Mr Singh  was taken to the hospital but died during the night, survived by his wife and two children.

The survivors (his wife and two children) sued Destination Anywhere and alleged that it failed to perform a mandatory safety check on the dump truck two days before the incident. The Plaintiffs alleged that such an inspection would have discovered that the front tyre’s tread depth was significantly below the legal limit (the effect being that the tyre was at much higher risk of blowing out without enough tread on it).

It was also alleged that the truck was negligently overloaded by Granite Construction Co. The Defendants (Destination Anywhere and Granite Construction) alleged that Mr Singh routinely instructed aggregate suppliers (such as Granite) to load his truck fully, and that maintenance of the truck was Mr Singh’s responsibility as he leased it.

Despite these defences, the Defendant’s settled for $3.75 million, of which Destination Anywhere paid $2.75 million.