Common Defense Tactics And How To Dismantle Them
“ We Follow All FMCSA Regulations”
This is the default answer, and it means nothing without proof. Your response:
“ Let’ s go regulation by regulation. Show me how you comply with each one.”
Then walk through 391.23, 395.8, 396.3, 396.11, and 382.303 with the specific documents— or the absence of documents— for this driver and this vehicle. The gap between the claim and the evidence is where your case lives.
Blaming The Driver
The carrier will try to isolate the crash as one rogue driver’ s mistake. Your counter is systemic evidence: fleet-wide violation rates, inadequate training programs, lax supervision, a hiring process that failed to screen out a dangerous driver. The regulations impose the duty on the carrier, not the driver. The carrier cannot delegate its way out of liability.
“ Those Documents Don’ t Exist” Or“ They Were Destroyed”
Under 49 CFR 391.51, the driver qualification file must be retained for three years after employment ends. Under 49 CFR
395.8, records of duty status must be retained for six months. Under 49 CFR 396.3, maintenance records must be retained for one year and for six months after the vehicle leaves the carrier’ s control. If the company claims it does not have these records, pin down the safety director on why. The absence of records that should exist is itself evidence of noncompliance— and in many jurisdictions, it supports a spoliation instruction.
Conclusion
The safety director deposition is not about catching a witness in a lie. It is about building a methodical, regulation-by-regulation record that proves the carrier failed to do what the law required— and that the failure caused or contributed to a catastrophic crash. Prepare exhaustively. Know the regulations better than the witness does. And let the testimony speak for itself.
When you walk out of that deposition with a safety director who has admitted that the company did not verify a driver’ s employment history, did not review ELD data for HOS violations, did not repair a defect reported on a DVIR, or did not conduct post-accident drug testing within the required timeframe, you have not just taken a deposition. You have won the case.
A. J. Bruning is the founding partner of Bruning Law Firm in St. Louis, Missouri, where he represents plaintiffs in complex personal injury and commercial trucking litigation.
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