Larimer County Jury Awards $65 Million After Excavator Load Strikes I-25 Overpass and Kills Mother
After trial: The verdict was returned in late September 2026, shortly before this entry was written. No post-trial motions, appeal, judgment entry or payment had been reported, so the award is shown as returned and its collection is unconfirmed.
Won by Dan Caplis Law and Dulin McQuinn Young, LLP (co-counsel).
A Larimer County jury returned a $65 million wrongful death verdict in September 2026 for the family of Megan Arneson, a 32-year-old single mother killed on I-25 near Mead in August 2022. A semi hauling an improperly loaded excavator struck an overpass, and falling concrete came through her windshield. The jury found the driver and his employer liable after a five-day trial. Plaintiffs' counsel described it as the largest jury verdict in Larimer County history and the largest in a Colorado trucking crash case.
What happened
On August 8, 2022, Megan Arneson, a 32-year-old single mother and preschool teacher, was driving north on Interstate 25 near Mead, Colorado, with her 10-year-old son. The two were heading home from a day at Water World.
Ahead of them, driver Darnell Yingling was hauling an excavator on a flatbed trailer for his employer, Import Auto Inc., which does business as Import Towing and Recovery in Fort Collins. The Colorado State Patrol determined the excavator had been improperly loaded, so that its arm exceeded the clearance height of the Weld County Road 34 overpass. The arm struck the bridge, and concrete debris fell onto the highway. A large piece came through the windshield of Arneson's SUV and killed her. Her son, who was in the car, tried to call for help.
Arneson's estate and family sued Yingling and the company. The lawsuit alleged that the defendants recklessly and negligently failed to secure the load, and that the company failed to train its driver and to inspect the excavator before the truck left. Plaintiffs' counsel told jurors that Yingling had obtained his unrestricted commercial driver's license only the Friday before the crash, and called the collision 100 percent preventable.
The case was tried in Larimer County District Court by Dan Caplis and John Kellner of The Dan Caplis Law Firm, together with Kari Jones Dulin of Dulin McQuinn Young, LLP. After a five-day trial, the jury found both the driver and Import Auto liable and returned a unanimous verdict of $65 million in late September 2026. Coverage described the award as going to the family, and several outlets reported it as an award to Arneson's son, now 14; the published reports do not itemize it.
Caplis told reporters the boy lost his mother at 10, 'so you're talking about many, many, many years he will be without his mother.' Jones Dulin said no amount of money can make up for the loss. Arneson's father said he was grateful to the jury because the verdict 'says a lot about what an amazing mother and tremendous young woman our daughter Megan was.' Plaintiffs' counsel described the result as the largest truck-crash jury verdict in Colorado and the largest jury verdict in Larimer County history.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CBS Colorado, '$65M verdict awarded after Colorado mom killed on I-25 by improperly towed excavator', Sept. 2026·Archived copy
- 2.CBS Colorado, 'Northern Colorado jury awards $65M wrongful death verdict after bridge crash', Sept. 2026·Archived copy
- 3.Denver7, 'Larimer County jury awards $65 million to son of woman killed in I-25 crash in 2022', Sept. 2026·Archived copy
- 4.WRDW (Gray News), '14-year-old awarded $65M after mother dies in crash on way home from water park, reports say', Sept. 25, 2026·Archived copy
- 5.KHOW, 'Colorado Record $65,000,000 Jury Verdict in Wrongful Death Truck Crash Case' (firm press release), Sept. 30, 2026·Archived copy
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