The Flatbed Was Hauling 37,000 Pounds Against a 26,000-Pound Limit, Underlit, Crawling Uphill at 21 mph in the Dark. A 14-Year-Old Died Behind It.
After trial: Settled and court-approved; final. The $4,500,000 is split $3,000,000 from Quality Woods, Inc. and $1,500,000 from Allegheny Wood Products, Inc. West Virginia's noneconomic damages cap in W. Va. Code 55-7B-8 applies only to medical professional liability and had no bearing on a trucking case. One venue detail worth noting: the crash happened on Interstate 79 in Kanawha County, but the suit was filed and settled in the Circuit Court of Putnam County.
Won by Atkinson & Frampton, PLLC.
A 14-year-old high school freshman was riding home from a soccer match with her father on Interstate 79 when their vehicle struck the rear of a flatbed semi hauling lumber uphill at 21 mph in the dark. The plaintiffs' case was that the truck should never have been on that road: overloaded by more than 11,000 pounds, inadequately lit, and driven by a man not properly licensed for it.
What happened
On the night of August 31, 2022 a 14-year-old freshman at Herbert Hoover High School was riding home from a soccer match with her father on Interstate 79 near Clendenin, West Virginia.
Ahead of them, around a curve in the dark, a flatbed semi loaded with lumber was crawling uphill at 21 miles per hour. Their vehicle struck the rear of it. The girl was killed. Her father survived.
The case her parents brought was not about the moment of impact. It was about why that truck was on that highway at all in that condition, and it came down to three findings. The trailer was carrying roughly 37,000 pounds against a legal limit just under 26,000, an overload of more than eleven thousand pounds, which is the kind of weight that makes a loaded flatbed climb a grade at 21 miles per hour. It was inadequately lit for night operation on a highway, so there was little to see until there was no time. And the man driving it was not properly licensed to be driving it.
In April 2025 the case settled for $4,500,000, with $3,000,000 paid by Quality Woods, Inc. and $1,500,000 by Allegheny Wood Products, Inc.
The family was represented by Mark Atkinson of Atkinson and Frampton in Charleston.
The girl is not named here because she was a child. Her mother has spoken publicly about her and has founded a memorial foundation and an annual 5K in her name.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.West Virginia MetroNews, Apr. 21, 2025: the settlement in the wrongful death of the Kanawha County teenager; the August 31, 2022 crash on Interstate 79 near Clendenin while riding home from a soccer match, the flatbed hauling lumber uphill at 21 mph, the roughly 37,000-pound load against a limit just under 26,000 pounds, the inadequate lighting and the improperly licensed driver, the $3,000,000 and $1,500,000 split between Quality Woods and Allegheny Wood Products, and Mark Atkinson of Atkinson & Frampton, PLLC as counsel for the family
- 2.WOWK: the West Virginia teenager's family accepts the settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit, corroborating the figure and counsel
More proven verdicts from Atkinson & Frampton, PLLC
All Atkinson & Frampton, PLLC proven verdicts →Edmond Exline, 45, a paranoid schizophrenic apparently in the middle of a mental-health episode, was walking beside Interstate 81 near Martinsburg when three State Police troopers detained him. Tasers were deployed multiple times. He became unresponsive and was pronounced dead. The State Police settled for $1 million.
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