Trucking Company Sued Over Negligent Hiring
An Illinois state police officer is suing a trucking company and one of its employees, claiming his jaw was broken after the man punched him in the face during an arrest.
The police officer, Michael Link, was attempting to arrest Ronald Fraction for driving under the influence and driving a commercial motor vehicle with a disqualified license when Fraction "struck Plaintiff in the face with his fist breaking Plaintiff's jaw in two places," according to the lawsuit.
Fraction was driving a company vehicle when he stopped at a bar, intending to complete his job after he left. Link responded to the scene of an accident wherein Fraction had become stuck on the side of the road on November 22, 2007.
Link is suing because of great pain, mental anguish and the time he missed from his job, including overtime. The suit states that TransAm Trucking failed to perform a background check on Fraction. Had they done so, they would have picked up his history of drunk driving and his prior record of attacking police officers.
Link is seeking $100,000, costs, attorney fees and whatever other relief the court sees fit to give him.
A proper background check would have cost TransAm Trucking a substantial amount less than this lawsuit.
The police officer, Michael Link, was attempting to arrest Ronald Fraction for driving under the influence and driving a commercial motor vehicle with a disqualified license when Fraction "struck Plaintiff in the face with his fist breaking Plaintiff's jaw in two places," according to the lawsuit.
Fraction was driving a company vehicle when he stopped at a bar, intending to complete his job after he left. Link responded to the scene of an accident wherein Fraction had become stuck on the side of the road on November 22, 2007.
Link is suing because of great pain, mental anguish and the time he missed from his job, including overtime. The suit states that TransAm Trucking failed to perform a background check on Fraction. Had they done so, they would have picked up his history of drunk driving and his prior record of attacking police officers.
Link is seeking $100,000, costs, attorney fees and whatever other relief the court sees fit to give him.
A proper background check would have cost TransAm Trucking a substantial amount less than this lawsuit.
Labels: driving history, driving record, drunk driving, employment screening, lawsuit, negligent hiring, trucking company
posted by JenWiehl at 8:00 AM
11 Comments:
I'm sooo glad I'm not the owner of this trucking company. Aside from the costs of the lawsuit, the PR hit is going to have to hurt.
I dunno... I think this is kind of a far stretch. I'll bet this officer and his lawyer had a nice long meeting, and came to the conclusion that the company he worked for was worth much more than this savage truck driver alone. People are so sue happy these days I barely want to leave the house.
I guess when you try to save a buck or two by not taking the proper pre-employment screening steps, you lose in the end.
Drinking on the job is never a great idea.
Ok, admittedly, I think the cop shouldn't be suing anybody -- he was hurt in the line of duty, it's part of his job -- but come on, the sheer outrageousness of this makes me hope the company loses so bad they go out of business. It's absolutely unacceptable for them to allow a driver like this on the road, and this is preventable with a comparably inexpensive background check. My company screens our drivers with Backgrounds Online and it usually costs less than $50 for a very thorough check.
I think the company should be held accountable to a point. The driver was not too smart to stop for a drink and intend to finish his job after.
Companies that don't run background checks on their drivers only have themselves to blame.
Less than $30 could have prevented this.
He should sue the individual and the trucking company. I didn't know background checks could be so important.
People need to utilize the sources that we have in the world to prevent things like this. Now this company will go out of business because of ones history. How many life's will this have an impact on by being in jeopardy of thier job.
Protect your other employees and the public and do a background check on anyone that you may have represent your business.
Mr. Fraction has a prior record of attacking police officers, he is crazy. TransAm Trucking is going to pay a big price for not checking him before he was hired. I'm sure they'll run motor vehicles record's on all their employees from now on.
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