Case Title: Herr v. Wheeler

Citation: 

Docket Number: 051825

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2006-09-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
 
GENE ROBERT HERR, II 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 051825 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
September 15, 2006 
FRANCES STUART WHEELER 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ALBEMARLE COUNTY 
Paul M. Peatross, Jr., Judge 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the trial court erred 
in giving a “sudden emergency” jury instruction in an automobile 
accident liability case premised upon the defendant’s evidence 
that her vehicle “hydroplaned” during a rainstorm. 
BACKGROUND 
As this appeal is limited to the issue of whether the trial 
court erred in granting a “sudden emergency” jury instruction 
proffered by the defendant below, now the appellee, she is 
entitled to have the evidence, and all inferences that may be 
reasonably drawn from it, viewed in the light most favorable to 
her.  See Greater Richmond Transit Co. v. Massey, 268 Va. 354, 
359, 601 S.E.2d 609, 612 (2004); Rose v. Jaques, 268 Va. 137, 
150, 597 S.E.2d 64, 71 (2004).  Our summary of the pertinent 
evidence and our consideration of the issue presented are guided 
by these principles. 
At approximately 9:50 p.m. on June 20, 2001, Gene Robert 
Herr, II was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Jeffrey Scott 
Gibson traveling west on Route 250 in Albemarle County near the 
 
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intersection of that two-lane highway and Turner Mountain Road. 
Gibson was towing a boat on a trailer behind his vehicle.  At 
this location, Route 250 was straight and level with a right 
turn lane onto Turner Mountain Road branching off from the 
westbound lane.  The intersection was not controlled by 
stoplight or stop sign.  The speed limit on Route 250 at this 
location was 55 miles per hour. 
As Gibson approached the intersection, Frances Stuart 
Wheeler was operating her vehicle along Route 250 in the 
eastbound lane.  It was “pouring down rain,” and both Gibson and 
Wheeler were operating their vehicles between 35 and 40 miles 
per hour.  Wheeler lost control of her vehicle when it 
hydroplaned on the wet road surface, crossed the centerline, and 
struck Gibson’s vehicle.  The impact forced Gibson’s vehicle 
backward across the right turn lane and caused the boat on the 
trailer to jackknife as the vehicle came to rest on the side of 
the road.  Wheeler’s vehicle skidded back into the eastbound 
lane and came to rest on the opposite side of Route 250.  Herr 
was injured in the collision. 
Herr subsequently filed a motion for judgment in the 
Circuit Court of Albemarle County against Wheeler asserting that 
the accident was caused by Wheeler’s negligent conduct and 
seeking $400,000 damages for the injuries he received as a 
proximate result.  Wheeler filed her grounds of defense 
 
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generally denying the allegations of the motion for judgment and 
specifically asserting that, among other defenses, she would 
“rely on the defens[e] of . . . sudden emergency.” 
During the jury trial conducted in the trial court, Wheeler 
testified that she “was . . . being cautious because it was 
pouring down rain and when I started hydroplaning . . . my car 
slipped on water, lost contact with the road and I skidded into 
the other lane.”  Wheeler maintained that although she had both 
hands on the steering wheel, she was unable to bring the vehicle 
back into her lane of travel because “you can’t steer when you 
hydroplane.”  She further testified that her vehicle “drifted 
into the other lane . . . .  It was really fast . . . [T]he 
[other] car was right there when I hit – when I drifted over, so 
it happened really quickly.” 
Gibson testified that “when it’s raining, carrying a boat, 
I’ve always been taught to be cautious and I always [am].”  
Gibson further testified that while traveling on Route 250 that 
night his vehicle did not hydroplane and he did not observe any 
other vehicles hydroplaning until Wheeler’s vehicle did so, 
causing the accident. 
Herr and Wheeler agreed on standard jury instructions 
defining ordinary negligence and the plaintiff’s burden with 
respect to proving ordinary negligence.  Herr also proffered 
 
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jury Instruction No. 12, which the trial court granted over 
Wheeler’s objection.  This instruction provided that: 
When abnormal conditions are known and the 
heightened hazards they create are reasonably 
foreseeable, the standard of care the law imposes is 
higher.  Thus, where nature has created hazardous 
conditions on a highway, and such hazardous conditions 
are open and obvious, the operator of a motor vehicle 
is required to take care in the operation of his 
vehicle proportionate to the known dangerous condition 
of the highway. 
 
See Meador v. Lawson, 214 Va. 759, 762, 204 S.E.2d 285, 287-88 
(1974) (snowfall accumulated on road caused defendant’s truck to 
slide into plaintiff’s stopped car). 
Wheeler proffered jury Instruction No. 18, which the trial 
court granted over Herr’s objection.  This instruction provided 
that: 
The defendant contends that she was confronted 
with a sudden emergency.  A sudden emergency is an 
event or a combination of circumstances that calls for 
immediate action without giving time for deliberate 
exercise of judgment. 
 
If you believe from the evidence that the 
defendant, without negligence on her part, was 
confronted with a sudden emergency and acted as a 
reasonable person would have acted under the 
circumstances of this case, she was not negligent. 
 
The jury returned its verdict in favor of Wheeler.1  In a 
post-verdict motion, Herr argued, among other points, that the 
                                                          
 
1 The trial court entered an order dated March 31, 2005 
reciting the jury’s verdict, but in that same order expressly 
continued the case to permit Herr to file a post-verdict motion 
to set aside the jury’s verdict.  Accordingly, the order entered 
 
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verdict should be set aside because the trial court erred in 
instructing the jury on sudden emergency.  In a final order 
dated May 26, 2005 and confirming the jury’s verdict, the trial 
court denied Herr’s motion to set aside the verdict.  The trial 
court expressly found “that there was sufficient evidence 
presented at trial for the sudden emergency instruction to be 
given and for that issue to be resolved by the jury.” 
Herr timely noted an appeal to this Court.  We awarded Herr 
an appeal limited to the following assignment of error: 
The trial court erred in giving a Sudden 
Emergency instruction (no. 18) to the jury, and in 
denying plaintiff’s motion to vacate the jury’s 
verdict and grant a new trial based upon giving said 
instruction. 
 
DISCUSSION 
This case presents as an issue of first impression the 
question whether the “hydroplaning” of a vehicle on obviously 
wet pavement creates a jury question requiring the trial court 
to give a proffered sudden emergency instruction.  We most 
recently addressed the application of the “sudden emergency 
doctrine” in Velocity Express Mid-Atlantic v. Hugen, 266 Va. 
188, 585 S.E.2d 557 (2003), succinctly summarizing the doctrine 
and its application as follows:  “The sudden emergency doctrine 
relieves a person of liability if, without prior negligence on 
                                                                                                                                                                                           
on that date was not a final order, and the trial court retained 
jurisdiction to consider the post-verdict motion. 
 
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his part, that person is confronted with a sudden emergency and 
acts as an ordinarily prudent person would act under the 
circumstances.”  266 Va. at 193, 585 S.E.2d at 560. 
In Cowles v. Zahn, 206 Va. 743, 746-47, 146 S.E.2d 200, 203 
(1966), we stated that “[o]rdinarily the question of application 
of the sudden emergency doctrine is for the triers of fact.  
When evidence is conflicting or different inferences may be 
drawn from the evidence, it is for the jury to say (1) whether 
the defendant was confronted with an emergency; (2) whether the 
emergency, if one existed, was created by the defendant’s own 
negligence; and (3) whether the defendant conducted himself as 
an ordinarily prudent person might have done under the same or 
similar circumstances.”  In Garnot v. Johnson, 239 Va. 81, 85-
86, 387 S.E.2d 473, 476 (1990), we explained that emergency 
within the meaning of the sudden emergency doctrine is a sudden, 
unexpected and unforeseen happening or condition that calls for 
immediate action.  We have further explained that “where a set 
of circumstances has existed and the party has been exposed to 
them before, the situation is not ‘unexpected.’”  Harrah v. 
Washington, 252 Va. 285, 294, 477 S.E.2d 281, 287 (1996).  
Moreover, trial courts must use particular care when determining 
whether to grant a sudden emergency instruction because, as is 
the case with an “unavoidable accident” instruction, it has the 
tendency to afford a jury “an easy way of avoiding instead of 
 
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deciding the issue made by the evidence in the case.”  Cf. 
Mawyer v. Thomas, 199 Va. 897, 901, 103 S.E.2d 217, 220 (1958).  
Accordingly, we have observed that “the grant of a sudden 
emergency instruction is rarely appropriate.”  Jones v. Ford 
Motor Co., 263 Va. 237, 263, 559 S.E.2d 592, 605 (2002). 
In Harrah, where fog reduced visibility, we held that the 
driver of a vehicle who “was thoroughly familiar with the 
weather conditions” along his route of travel was not entitled 
to a sudden emergency instruction because he knew or should have 
known of the hazard presented by the foggy weather conditions.  
Harrah, 252 Va. at 294, 477 S.E.2d at 287.  Herr urges this 
Court to adopt the same rationale we applied in Harrah to the 
facts of this case.  Herr asserts that Wheeler, by her own 
testimony, conceded that she was aware of the dangers of driving 
in the “pouring down rain” on wet pavement and was familiar with 
her route of travel when such conditions prevailed.  Herr 
contends that when a vehicle hydroplanes on obviously wet 
pavement, the issue for the jury to consider is whether the 
hydroplaning resulted from the driver’s negligence in operating 
the vehicle too rapidly or with inadequate control given the 
road and weather conditions.  In this case, Herr maintains that 
the general instructions on ordinary negligence, and Instruction 
No. 12 regarding a heightened duty of care when a driver is 
faced with “abnormal conditions,” correctly framed the issue for 
 
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the jury and, thus, the trial court erred in instructing the 
jury on sudden emergency.2 
“[H]ydroplaning results from a combination of factors 
including the depth of the water, the speed of the vehicle, the 
depth of the tire treads, and the type of road surface.”  Holmes 
v. Doe, 257 Va. 573, 577, 515 S.E.2d 117, 119 (1999).  In 
Holmes, we held that expert testimony is admissible to establish 
the variables that may cause a particular vehicle to hydroplane.  
However, we further observed that “the danger of hydroplaning is 
a matter of common experience.”  Id. at 578, 515 S.E.2d at 120.  
Clearly, a reasonable driver knows, or should know, that tire 
traction is greatly reduced on wet roads and that the exercise 
of ordinary care requires the driver to respond appropriately 
when proceeding along a wet roadway to avoid hydroplaning. 
The issue for the jury in this case was not whether 
hydroplaning on an obviously wet road constitutes a sudden 
emergency.  Once a vehicle becomes involved in hydroplaning, the 
driver has little, if any, control of the vehicle.  The issue 
was whether Wheeler exercised reasonable care in the operation 
of her vehicle under the prevailing conditions prior to the 
                                                          
 
2 Wheeler did not assign cross-error to the trial court’s 
granting of Herr’s “abnormal conditions” instruction and, 
accordingly, we do not address whether the instruction was 
appropriate under the facts of this case.  Rather, we will treat 
it as “the law of the case.”  Landmark Communications, Inc. v. 
Macione, 230 Va. 137, 140, 334 S.E.2d 587, 589 (1985). 
 
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hydroplaning of her vehicle so as to avoid the collision with 
Gibson’s vehicle. 
In this regard, Wheeler stresses that neither the rainy 
weather nor the wet roadway were the unexpected or unforeseen 
happenings for which she requested the sudden emergency 
instruction.  Rather, she contends that a sudden emergency 
instruction was warranted under the specific facts in this case 
because the evidence supports the conclusion that she 
“encountered a dangerous accumulation of standing water in one 
isolated spot on the roadway,” and she had “neither observed nor 
experienced the accumulation of standing water in the roadway 
until her vehicle encountered the same.”  We disagree. 
The occurrence of standing water on a roadway during a 
heavy rainstorm is simply another matter of common experience.  
The hazard this occurrence presents, including the possibility 
of hydroplaning, is one the driver of a vehicle along the 
roadway must anticipate and exercise reasonable care to avoid.  
Although Wheeler had not encountered standing water on the 
roadway as she traveled along Route 250 and may not have seen 
the accumulation of water at the point on the roadway her 
vehicle began to hydroplane, just as in Harrah, such an 
occurrence was not an “unexpected happening,” 252 Va. at 294, 
477 S.E.2d at 287, that would warrant giving a sudden emergency 
instruction.  Cf. Banks v. McGee, 475 S.E.2d 733, 734 (N.C. Ct. 
 
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App. 1996) (holding, under similar facts, that the “evidence 
simply cannot support a conclusion that the defendant’s contact 
with the puddle of water was an unanticipated event”).  Whether 
Wheeler exercised reasonable care under these circumstances was 
adequately addressed by the instructions given to the jury 
regarding ordinary negligence. 
Finally, Wheeler further contends that Herr’s own evidence 
supports her contention that the hydroplaning of her vehicle was 
an unexpected happening in this instance because Gibson 
testified that neither his vehicle nor any other vehicle he 
encountered that evening had hydroplaned.  Again, we disagree. 
In Gardner v. Phipps, 250 Va. 256, 260, 462 S.E.2d 91, 94 
(1995), we held that even though the evidence showed that 
another vehicle previously had “fishtailed” several times during 
the defendant’s journey along a snowy road, the defendant was 
not entitled to a sudden emergency instruction when the evidence 
showed that a similar occurrence resulted in his vehicle 
striking the plaintiff’s vehicle.  However, nothing in Gardner 
suggests that the absence of prior occurrences of “fishtailing” 
on the road would have warranted giving a sudden emergency 
instruction.  Standing alone, evidence that other drivers were 
able to proceed without incident for some time under adverse 
conditions does not warrant a sudden emergency instruction just 
because there is evidence that Wheeler lost control of her 
 
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vehicle under the same adverse conditions.  See Allen v. Efird, 
474 S.E.2d 141, 143 (N.C. Ct. App. 1996), review denied, 483 
S.E.2d 702 (N.C. 1997). 
Accordingly, we hold that the trial court erred in granting 
Wheeler’s sudden emergency instruction.  “If an issue is 
erroneously submitted to a jury, we presume that the jury 
decided the case upon that issue.”  Clohessy v. Weiler, 250 Va. 
249, 254, 462 S.E.2d 94, 97 (1995); Monahan v. Obici Med. Mgmt. 
Servs., 271 Va. 621, 637, 628 S.E.2d 330, 339 (2006); see also 
Hot Shot Express, Inc. v. Brooks, 264 Va. 126, 138, 563 S.E.2d 
764, 770 (2002).  The judgment in favor of Wheeler cannot be 
upheld. 
CONCLUSION 
For these reasons, we will reverse the judgment in favor of 
Wheeler and remand the case for a new trial. 
Reversed and remanded.