In an unusual case, a lawsuit seeking justice for a truck-related crash death is targeting the receiver of the load, claiming it encouraged the overloading of the rig.

Two people were killed in a wreck last year in West Virginia when an overloaded coal truck hit their car from behind, spinning it into the path of an empty coal truck that crushed the car. The first truck weighed 165,000 pounds, well over twice the legal weight on the highway of 73,500 pounds.
According to The Charleston Gazette, one of the victims’ families is suing Kanawha River Terminals, a subsidiary of Progress Energy, which owns and operated the river dock where the truck was headed. The suit claims the company and its officers “negligently, carelessly and recklessly encouraged and participated in the overloading of the 2000 Peterbilt tractor trailer … by receiving and paying for coal that was knowingly delivered in illegally overweight coal trucks.”
Overloaded coal trucks have become commonplace in the mining region of West Virginia, as the government has done very little in the way of enforcement while coal trucks got heavier and heavier. This accident and others led to a statewide push to do something about the problem. Legislation that would have raised the legal weight limit to 120,000 pounds on certain coal routes in exchange for tougher enforcement and penalties died in a special session earlier this summer.