Jury awards parents of crash victim $2.5 million

PORTLAND – A two-week civil trial has ended in a $2.5 million jury award to the parents of a Clinton man killed nearly three years ago when a delivery truck plowed into his pickup on the Maine Turnpike near the Wells-Kennebunk line.

The Cumberland County Superior Court jury deliberated for more than three hours Monday before finding that delivery truck driver Laura Morse of Scarborough and her employer were negligent in the Aug. 10, 2001, crash that killed Dale Caverly, 27.

The verdict was one of the largest in the state’s history.

Caverly was killed when Morse’s truck hit his pickup, smashing it into the back of a fish delivery truck. The impact reduced Caverly’s pickup to a crushed heap of metal buried under the frames of two trucks.

Morse was a driver for Portland News Co., which became Hudson RPM after a merger.

Jurors found that Cianbro Corp., which was doing construction work on the turnpike at the time of the crash, was not negligent.

The nine jurors unanimously decided to compensate Caverly’s parents, Francis and Suzanne Caverly, $500,000 for loss of comfort, society and companionship and emotional distress; $2 million in economic loss; $10,900 for damage to Caverly’s truck and tools and $8,704 for funeral expenses.

“The Caverlys feel relieved the trial is over and vindicated in their belief in what happened in this terrible tragedy,” said their lawyer, Malcolm Lyons. “I don’t think the Caverlys will ever get over the tragic death of their son Dale.”

Lawyers for Hudson RPM and for Cianbro were not immediately available for comment.

The crash that killed Caverly happened about 2 a.m., while vehicles were stopped in the northbound lane of the turnpike. Construction crews were moving a new steel bridge beam into place over the highway and a state trooper stopped traffic.

A tractor-trailer was stopped, and behind it, the fish delivery truck was stopped. Police believe Caverly’s pickup was behind that truck.

The newspaper delivery truck carrying out-of-state newspapers for distribution in Maine never stopped, and slammed into Caverly’s pickup.