Case Title: Food Lion Inc. v. Cox

Citation: 

Docket Number: 980828

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1999-02-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present: Carrico, C.J., Compton, Lacy, Hassell, Keenan and 
Koontz, JJ., and Poff, Senior Justice 
 
FOOD LION, INC. 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 980828 
SENIOR JUSTICE RICHARD H. POFF 
 
 
 
 
February 26, 1999 
LINDA COX  
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SCOTT COUNTY 
Ford C. Quillen, Judge 
 
 
The dispositive issue raised in this appeal is whether a 
party in a civil action has a right to cross-examine witnesses 
called by another party as adverse witnesses. 
 
The plaintiff, Linda Cox (Ms. Cox), filed a motion for 
judgment against the defendant, Food Lion, Inc. (Food Lion), 
alleging that she had been injured by the defendant's failure to 
maintain its store in a reasonably safe condition.  At trial, 
she testified that she had slipped and fallen on the floor of 
the store.  Ms. Cox called four Food Lion workers as adverse 
witnesses.  The first, Kenneth Marshall, testified that he saw 
the plaintiff fall in a spot on the floor where he had been 
trying to remove "a little black substance" with a mop, water, 
and detergent. 
 
At the conclusion of Marshall's direct testimony, Food 
Lion's counsel prepared to cross-examine the witness.  The trial 
court ruled sua sponte that the defendant was not entitled to 
examine its own employees until Food Lion called them as 
witnesses for the defense.  Food Lion objected to that ruling 
and addressed the same objection as applied to the other three 
store employees Ms. Cox had called as adverse witnesses. The 
jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiff, and the trial court 
entered final judgment fixing her damages at $25,000. 
 
Ms. Cox invokes the general rule that the order of 
examination of witnesses lies within the discretion of the trial 
court.  But that rule does not apply to the order of cross-
examination of adverse witnesses. 
 
This Court has never qualified the rule defined and applied 
in Basham v. Terry, Administratrix, 199 Va. 817, 824, 102 S.E.2d 
285, 290 (1958), that cross-examination of a witness "is not a 
privilege but an absolute right."  The justification for an 
absolute right is that a rule in the converse would be 
prejudicial to the party denied the right of cross-examination. 
 
We find no merit in Ms. Cox's contention that any error in 
the trial court's ruling was "mere harmless error".  The right 
violated by that ruling is absolute; the adjective "absolute" 
definitively excludes exceptions.  Accordingly, we will reverse 
the judgment entered below and remand the case for a new trial 
on all the issues.*
Reversed and remanded. 
                     
* Because other errors assigned by Food Lion may not become 
involved in the conduct of a new trial, we need not reach those 
issues here. 
 
2