A man has filed a truck accident lawsuit after his wife was killed and his 3-year-old daughter was injured.

Plaintiff Peter B. says his wife Mallory took their three-year-old daughter for a hike near their home in Lookout Mountain, Ga. on the morning of Feb. 17, 2018. They were on their way home headed south on Ochs Highway in Tennessee when around 10:30 a.m., a tractor-trailer carrying acid allegedly crossed the center line and slammed head-on into Mallory’s 2012 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck as she rounded a curve.

According to the truck accident lawsuit, James Andrew Wilson II of Texas “drove the tractor-trailer at an illegally high rate of speed down a mountain road, ultimately steering the rig illegally into the lane of the …pickup.”

At the time of the accident, Wilson was employed by Action Resources LLC to drive the truck that was hauling a trailer owned by CABB North America Inc. The trailer purportedly held more than 46,000 pounds of hazardous monochloroacetic acid, also owned by CABB.

Wilson was allegedly hauling the large load of acid from Texas to a chemical company in Tennessee. He allegedly was scheduled to deliver the acid at 9 a.m. on the morning of the accident. The truck accident occurred at a point when Wilson was more than 90 minutes late for his delivery.

The truck accident lawsuit alleges that after the head-on collision, the tractor trailer forced the family’s pickup truck down a mountain slope. The trailer ultimately landed on top of the pickup, where Peter’s wife Mallory purportedly suffered greatly before dying from her injuries at the scene.

Peter and Mallory’s three-year-old daughter was strapped into a car seat in the backseat. Acid allegedly leaked from the CABB trailer onto the pickup truck, and eventually onto the face of the child, “causing her to suffer burn injuries and to endure what may well be lifelong physical and emotional trauma.”

Monochloroacetic acid is a building block used as a thickening agent to make many products, including detergents, paper, herbicides, insecticides and PVC plastics, among other things.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, monochloroacetic acid can cause corrosion in the eyes and of the skin when the acid is highly concentrated. A toxic level of exposure can result in damage to the heart, central nervous system or muscles because the body can accumulate lactic acid and citric acid.

Allegations in Truck Accident Lawsuit

In Wilson’s hurry to deliver the acid, the family alleges, he allegedly drove at excessive speed as he headed north on the two-lane highway, which is purportedly why he lost control and veered into the oncoming lane.

The family has two other minor children in addition to the three-year-old who accompanied her mother on that fateful day.

Wilson received citations following the accident, including failure to maintain lane, failure to operate with due care and speeding.

The Truck Accident Lawsuit is Case No. 4:19-cv-00084 in the District Court of Harris County, Texas.