Case Title: Kohn v. Marquis

Citation: 

Docket Number: 131162

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2014-09-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT:  All the Justices 
 
PATRICIA KOHN, ADMINISTRATOR 
OF THE ESTATE OF JOHN KOHN, 
DECEASED 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 131162 
          JUSTICE S. BERNARD GOODWYN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    September 12, 2014 
BRUCE P. MARQUIS, ET AL. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NORFOLK 
Mary Jane Hall, Judge 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the circuit court 
erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants on a plea 
in bar which asserts that the plaintiff’s action is barred by 
the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act. 
Background 
Patricia Kohn (Kohn), the wife of John Kohn (John), is 
the administrator of her husband’s estate.  In a wrongful 
death complaint filed in the Circuit Court of the City of 
Norfolk, Kohn asserted that John died as the result of 
multiple blows to the head inflicted between September 20, 
2010 and December 9, 2010, during his training to become a 
City of Norfolk police officer.  She alleged that the simple 
and gross negligence of Norfolk Police Department Chief Bruce 
P. Marquis and Senior Assistant Chief Sharon Chamberlin, as 
well as the gross and willful conduct of Leldon Sapp, Stephen 
Bailey, L.L. Tessier and Michael Reardon, who were Norfolk 
Police officers and instructors at the Norfolk Police Academy, 
 
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caused John’s death (all defendants will be collectively 
referred to as “the City”). 
The City filed a plea in bar alleging that Kohn’s 
exclusive remedy is under the Virginia Workers’ Compensation 
Act, Code § 65.2-100 et seq. (Act).  Kohn requested a jury 
trial on the plea in bar, and the circuit court granted Kohn’s 
request.  However, before the trial on the plea in bar, the 
City moved for summary judgment on its plea based upon Kohn’s 
pleadings and her responses to requests for admissions and 
interrogatories.  After a hearing, the circuit court granted 
the City’s motion for summary judgment on the plea in bar and 
dismissed the case with prejudice.  Kohn appeals. 
Facts 
John started training at the Norfolk Police Academy as a 
recruit on September 20, 2010.  According to Kohn’s complaint, 
at various times between September 20, 2010 and December 9, 
2010, John was repeatedly and violently struck in the head 
during training.  She asserts that these repeated violent 
blows to the head proximately caused John’s death on December 
18, 2010. 
The following undisputed facts were established by Kohn’s 
responses to the City’s requests for admissions, pleadings 
filed, and arguments made to the circuit court.  Between 
September 20, 2010 and December 9, 2010, John was a police 
 
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recruit undergoing training at the Norfolk Police Academy.  
During his tenure at the Police Academy, John was a paid 
employee of the City of Norfolk, as were the individual 
defendants. 
Kohn admits that she is not aware of John’s seeking 
medical treatment for injuries experienced during his training 
as a police recruit prior to December 9, 2010.  On December 9, 
2010, John experienced several blows to his head while 
participating in training exercises at the Norfolk Police 
Academy.  He was involved in a head-to-head collision with 
another recruit, and he suffered several blows to his head 
while engaged in a defensive training exercise with Officer 
Sapp.  John began demonstrating serious neurological deficits 
during the training exercises and was transported to Sentara 
Leigh Hospital.  Medical records indicate John collapsed at 
the Police Academy.  In a brief to the circuit court, Kohn 
stated the facts upon which she relied more succinctly: 
[O]n December 9, 2010 Officer Leldon Sapp 
repeatedly struck Plaintiff’s decedent in the head 
with his fists to the point where Plaintiff’s 
decedent was no longer able to defend himself from 
Officer Sapp.  At this point, Officer Sapp 
suspended his attack and shortly thereafter Mr. 
Kohn was transported to Sentara Leigh Hospital and 
then to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. 
 
Upon evaluation at Sentara Leigh Hospital, John was 
documented to have a Glasgow coma scale of 3 upon arrival.  
 
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A CT scan was reported to show bilateral subdural hematomas 
with midline shift.  On December 18, 2010, John died of trauma 
to the head. 
Kohn contends that during his entire tenure at the 
Norfolk Police Academy, John suffered numerous blows to his 
head, all of which contributed to his death on December 18, 
2010.  In her opposition to the plea in bar and to summary 
judgment on the plea, Kohn referred the circuit court to an 
autopsy report which states that blows to John’s head on 
December 9, 2010 “may have played a significant role in Mr. 
Kohn’s terminal event but other blows to the head prior to 
this event cannot be excluded as contributing to his terminal 
head injury.” 
This Court granted an appeal on the following assignment 
of error: 
The trial court erroneously granted summary 
judgment despite the existence of a disputed 
material fact in the case.  Specifically, the 
question whether the death resulted from injury by 
accident presented a jury issue, and the trial court 
violated the widow’s constitutional right to trial 
by jury by granting summary judgment. 
Analysis 
 
 “If it appears from the pleadings, the orders, if any, 
made at a pretrial conference, [and] the admissions, if any, 
in the proceedings . . . that the moving party is entitled to 
judgment, the court shall enter judgment in that party’s 
 
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favor.”  Rule 3:20.  A party does not have a constitutional 
right to a jury trial if a case can be determined as a matter 
of law based upon material facts not genuinely in dispute.  
See W.S. Forbes & Co. v. Southern Cotton Oil Co., 130 Va. 245, 
254-55, 108 S.E. 15, 18-19 (1921) (noting that the Seventh 
Amendment of the United States Constitution is not applicable 
to the states, and upholding summary disposition without trial 
under Article I, § 11 of the Constitution of Virginia where 
the controlling facts are not in dispute).  However, summary 
judgment may not be entered if any material fact is genuinely 
in dispute.  Kasco Mills, Inc. v. Ferebee, 197 Va. 589, 593, 
90 S.E.2d 866, 870 (1956).  In an appeal arising from the 
grant of a motion for summary judgment, appellate courts will 
review the application of law to undisputed facts de novo.  
See Transportation Ins. Co. v. Womack, 284 Va. 563, 567, 733 
S.E.2d 656, 658 (2012). 
 
In this instance, the circuit court granted the City 
summary judgment on its plea in bar based upon the exclusivity 
provision of the Act.  Pursuant to the Act, an injured 
employee and his beneficiaries are precluded from maintaining 
a common law action against an employer or a co-employee for 
an injury sustained in the course of employment if the Act 
applies.  Code § 65.2-307(A); see also Hudson v. Jarrett, 269 
Va. 24, 29, 606 S.E.2d 827, 829 (2005). 
 
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The Act applies to injuries by accident “arising out of 
and in the course of” an individual’s employment.  Code 
§ 65.2-300(A).  An injury by accident is “an identifiable 
incident that occurs at some reasonably definite time, which 
is the cause of an obvious sudden mechanical or structural 
change in the body.”  Lane Co. v. Saunders, 229 Va. 196, 199, 
326 S.E.2d 702, 703 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted).  
To establish an “injury by accident,” a claimant must prove 
“(1) that the injury appeared suddenly at a particular time 
and place and upon a particular occasion, (2) that it was 
caused by an identifiable incident or sudden precipitating 
event, and (3) that it resulted in an obvious mechanical or 
structural change in the human body.”  Southern Express v. 
Green, 257 Va. 181, 187, 509 S.E.2d 836, 839 (1999). 
 
Kohn’s complaint alleges that John was an employee of the 
City of Norfolk’s Police Department who was injured by and 
died because of numerous blows to his head during his 
training.  It is not disputed that his injury and death arose 
out of and in the course of his employment or that the 
defendants were his co-employees. 
 
Additionally, it is admitted that John received several 
blows to the head and was injured during training on December 
9, 2010.  The parties agree that John suffered neurological 
deficits as a result of those blows and was taken to the 
 
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hospital.  Thus, there is no dispute that John suffered an 
injury by accident on December 9, 2010. 
Kohn contends that John’s death was caused not just by 
the injury that occurred on December 9, 2010, which 
contributed to it, but also as the result of other blows to 
the head John received earlier in his training.  In other 
words, she asserts that John’s death resulted from a series of 
head traumas over a period of time, rather than from a single 
identifiable event.  She contends that John’s death is 
therefore not compensable under the Act. 
Kohn asserts that the circuit court erred in granting 
summary judgment because there is a material question of fact 
regarding whether John’s death was caused by a single 
identifiable trauma or a series of traumas suffered over the 
course of his training.  Citing Dollar General Store v. 
Cridlin, 22 Va. App. 171, 175, 468 S.E.2d 152, 154 (1996), she 
posits that if John’s death was caused by a series of traumas 
rather than solely by one event it is “a gradually incurred 
injury [and] not an injury by accident within the meaning of 
the [Workers’ Compensation] Act.”  Id.  She notes that 
injuries that result from repetitive traumas are not “injuries 
by accident.”  Southern Express, 257 Va. at 186, 509 S.E.2d at 
839. 
 
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The City argues that John suffered an injury by accident 
on December 9, 2010, which was a proximate cause of his death.  
The City asserts that, whether or not John had preexisting 
conditions and injuries, his undisputed injury by accident on 
December 9, 2010, which Kohn alleges contributed to his death, 
entitles John to workers’ compensation benefits and bars this 
action. 
We agree with the City.  This case significantly differs 
from the gradually incurred injury and repetitive trauma cases 
referenced by Kohn in that John suffered an obvious mechanical 
or structural change in his body while engaged in a work 
activity which exposed him to an employment-related hazard 
that injured him and contributed to his death. 
 
In Byrd v. Stonega Coke & Coal Co., 182 Va. 212, 216, 28 
S.E.2d 725, 727 (1944), this Court stated that “if the injury 
or death results from, or is hastened by, conditions of 
employment exposing the employee to hazards to a degree beyond 
that of the public at large, the injury or death is construed 
to be accidental within the meaning of the statute.”  In the 
present case, John collapsed at work after the last blow to 
his head on December 9, 2010, and was rushed to the hospital.  
He died several days later.  It is undisputed that John was 
injured on December 9, 2010 during training.  Kohn’s complaint 
itself contends that John’s injuries on December 9, 2010 
 
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contributed to his death.  The training on December 9, 2010 
was a condition of employment that exposed John to the hazard 
of blows to the head beyond that of the public at large, and 
the injury John suffered during training on December 9, 2010 
was a proximate cause of his death.  Thus, his death is 
properly construed as accidental within the meaning of the 
Act. 
Conclusion 
 
Accordingly, the circuit court did not err in granting 
summary judgment on the plea in bar, and the circuit court did 
not err in holding that the exclusivity provision of the Act, 
Code § 65.2-307(A), bars this action.  As a result, we will 
affirm the judgment of the circuit court. 
Affirmed.