A Larimer County jury awarded $65 million in wrongful death damages this fall to a 14-year-old boy whose mother was killed when an improperly loaded excavator struck an I-25 overpass in 2022, sending concrete debris onto the highway. The verdict, which the plaintiffs’ attorneys say is the largest jury verdict in Larimer County and the largest trucking crash verdict in Colorado, followed a five-day trial over the driver’s conduct and his employer’s alleged failures in training and load inspection.
The plaintiff was represented by Kari Jones Dulin, lead counsel, and Travis Young of Dulin McQuinn Young, as well as by Dan Caplis and John Kellner of The Dan Caplis Law Firm.
The jury’s award now faces a separate legal question: whether a judge will find that the defendants’ conduct constituted “felonious killing,” an exception under Colorado law that could allow the full noneconomic damages award to stand despite the statutory cap.
Dulin, Young, Caplis and Kellner discussed the case with Law Week Colorado.
Law Week Colorado: What aspects of the evidence or testimony proved most important to the jury’s decision?
Dan Caplis: We can’t know exactly what was said in the jury room, but I believe the jurors were most struck by how preventable this was. Import (Auto Inc.) put a driver who had held his license for four days and who told them he wasn’t ready on the interstate with a load nobody had measured. He had no height pole in his truck, and no one could recall ever teaching him how to measure a load. Then Import’s own trucking expert agreed the crash came down to failing to measure the load and told the jury he keeps height poles in his own trucks, which made it clear this was a company that knew better and chose not to act.
Law Week Colorado: Were there any particularly challenging moments during the trial, and how did you address them?
John Kellner: The hardest part of this trial was telling the story of Megan Arneson’s son. He was 10 and in the back seat when his mother was killed, and we had to show the jury what that day did to him without putting him through it again. So we let the people who were there for him tell it. The paramedic who rode with Megan’s son to the hospital described a little boy who kept asking where his mom was and who had to be kept from the answer. Then the family who stepped in to raise him described the years since: how he goes quiet when he’s missing her, and how big moments like his first football season and homecoming came without his mom there to share them. Our goal was to give the jury a full picture of the loss without turning the courtroom into a spectacle.
Law Week Colorado: What was your strategy for presenting the damages claim, particularly given the size of the award?
Dan Caplis: It was critical to tie the damages request to the specific elements in the jury instruction, including the extraordinarily close relationship between this wonderful mother and her only child, the number of years the child will be without her and the aggravated way she was killed, which makes the loss of his mom even more damaging.
Law Week Colorado: How did you address the statutory limits on noneconomic damages in framing your case and presenting damages to the jury?
John Kellner: Under Colorado law, the jury isn’t told about damages caps, so the caps didn’t shape how we presented the case. Our job was to ask the jury to fully and fairly value what Megan Arneson’s son lost, and we built the damages case through the testimony of the family who has raised him since. In jury selection, we asked people directly whether they could award an amount equal to the harm, and we respectfully excused those who couldn’t.
Law Week Colorado: How did you approach proving the significance of the loss to a child?
Travis Young: Every case is different. In this case, Megan Arneson’s son was 10 years old at the time of the crash. He witnessed the death of his mother. As such, the case was not just about losing his mother, but how he lost his mother. Furthermore, Megan Arneson was a single parent. With respect to the significance of the loss moving forward, though, we thought of all the milestones Megan’s son will have that he will not be able to share with his mother. Each year he will have to celebrate birthdays and holidays, such as Mother’s Day, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s without his mother. He will also not be able to enjoy vacations, including camping trips, with his mother. We also discussed other significant events, such as his first girlfriend, first love, graduation, his first job, his wedding and the birth of his children, which he will also not be able to share with or rely on his mother for support. We explained that you cannot put a price on the memories and support that were stolen from him, but in the end, we asked for $2 million each year from the crash for 51 years as compensation for his loss.
Law Week Colorado: What could this verdict mean for how trucking companies approach driver training, load inspections and responsibility for transporting heavy equipment in Colorado?
Travis Young: Trucking companies frequently preach about safety and often have standard operating procedures and/or manuals that promote safety. However, far too often, trucking companies do not follow their own procedures because they are more interested in the company’s bottom line. Here, this crash would never have occurred if the companies involved followed the procedures those companies created to ensure the excavator was transported properly and safely. Consequently, we hope this verdict forces trucking companies to practice what they preach regarding safety being the No. 1 priority or face the harsh economic consequences of their failures.
Law Week Colorado: What was your overall strategy in presenting the case to the jury, and how did you approach framing the defendants’ conduct?
Kari Jones Dulin: Our strategy was to focus on the conduct of the defendants because it was only then that the jury could understand how and why Megan Arneson was killed. We called the defendants in our case-in-chief. Defendant Import took no responsibility for the death of Megan Arneson and blamed their former employee Defendant (Darnell) Yingling as being solely responsible. Defendant Yingling blamed Ms. Arneson’s death on his lack of training by Defendant Import. We then had two defendants pointing their fingers at each other after a child was orphaned. With no one taking responsibility for Ms. Arneson’s death, the message was clear that this was going to happen again unless this verdict sent a message to the trucking industry. Our clients brought this case to trial to send that message and to prevent this from happening to anyone else.
Law Week Colorado: What is the legal significance of your request for a finding of “felonious killing,” and how unusual is that argument under Colorado law?
Kari Jones Dulin: At the time of Megan Arneson’s death, there was a $250,000 statutory cap on the amount of noneconomic damages recoverable under Colorado’s wrongful death act (WDA). C.R.S. § 13-21-203(1)(A). The $250,000 cap on wrongful death noneconomic damages was adjusted for inflation, so as of Aug. 8, 2022, the cap was $598,350. This means that because the jury awarded more than $598,350 in wrongful death noneconomic damages at trial the presiding judge, Chief Judge Daniel St. John II, could reduce the jury’s $65 million wrongful death noneconomic damage award to $598,350.
However, Colorado’s WDA has an exception to the noneconomic damages cap if the act causing the death constitutes a “felonious killing,” which lifts the cap on damages. The jury awarded $65 million in noneconomic wrongful death damages against the defendants in the following proportions of fault: Defendant Import, 46%; Defendant Yingling, 52%; and nonparty Titan Machinery Inc, 2%.
Simply put, it is because the jury awarded Megan Arneson’s son a wrongful death noneconomic damage award far above the $598,350 cap that Judge St. John is now tasked with determining whether the wrongful acts of defendants Import and Yingling constitute a felonious killing.
Our request that Judge St. John find that defendants Import and Yingling are felonious killers is pending. The significance of a felonious killing determination is that it recognizes the extremely reckless conduct of the defendants Import and Yingling and gives the jury’s verdict its full weight. The felonious killing argument is not unusual, as it is the only vehicle a plaintiff can use to remove the cap on wrongful death damages in Colorado.
Law Week Colorado’s Trial Talk series highlights notable verdicts, trial strategies and insights from attorneys across the state. Attorneys are encouraged to submit their recent cases for consideration to be featured in the series.