Case Title: Rascher v. Friend

Citation: 

Docket Number: 090193

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Hassell, C.J., Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, and 
Millette, JJ., and Carrico, S.J. 
 
WILLIAM P. RASCHER 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 090193 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
 
 
February 25, 2010 
CATHLEEN FRIEND 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY 
Herman A. Whisenant, Jr., Judge Designate 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the circuit court 
erred in striking the plaintiff’s evidence in a personal 
injury case arising from a motor vehicle accident on the 
ground that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a 
matter of law.  The plaintiff contends that the issue of his 
contributory negligence should have been submitted to the 
jury.  Additionally, the plaintiff contends that, even if his 
actions were negligent, the jury could have found that his 
negligence was not a proximate case of the accident that 
resulted in his injuries. 
BACKGROUND 
 
The well established standard under which a circuit court 
should review the evidence in a jury trial before granting a 
defendant’s motion to strike based on the assertion that the 
plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a matter of law 
requires the court to accept as true all the evidence 
favorable to the plaintiff as well as any reasonable inference 
the jury might draw from the evidence which would sustain the 
plaintiff’s cause of action.  McGowan v. Lewis, 233 Va. 386, 
387, 355 S.E.2d 334, 334 (1987); see also Austin v. Shoney’s, 
Inc., 254 Va. 134, 138, 486 S.E.2d 285, 287 (1997).  
Similarly, “[o]n appeal, we review a trial court’s judgment 
striking the evidence, considering the facts in the light most 
favorable to the plaintiff and drawing all fair inferences 
from those facts.”  Green v. Ingram, 269 Va. 281, 290, 608 
S.E.2d 917, 922 (2005). 
 
When so viewed, the evidence presented at trial 
established that around noon on September 2, 2006, William P. 
Rascher was traveling on his bicycle south on Antietam Road in 
Prince William County, a two-lane road running through a 
primarily residential area with a 25 m.p.h. speed limit.  
Cathleen Friend was driving her minivan north on the same 
road.  Antietam Elementary School lies west of the road and is 
reached though a circular driveway.  Although it had been 
raining earlier in the day and the pavement was wet, the 
weather was clear and visibility was optimal. 
 
As Rascher approached the intersection of Antietam Road 
and the school’s driveway, he observed Friend stopped in her 
minivan in the opposite lane approximately 50 feet away, 
apparently waiting to make a left turn into the school’s 
driveway.  Rascher, who was wearing a red riding jacket, 
 
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“stared” at Friend and was confident that she could see him.  
Rascher then looked down at his bicycle’s speedometer for “a 
half second to a second” and determined that he was traveling 
at about 19 m.p.h.  When Rascher looked up, he saw that Friend 
had turned left and that her minivan was about three to five 
feet in front of him in his lane of travel. 
 
Rascher struck the rear passenger side of Friend’s 
minivan.  From the force of the impact, Rascher was thrown 
forward over the handlebars of the bicycle and landed on the 
road.  As a result of injuries to his shoulder, thigh, and 
wrist, Rascher subsequently incurred over $15,000 in medical 
expenses. 
 
Following the accident, Friend told Rascher that she had 
not seen him and accepted responsibility for the collision.  
Friend was charged with failing to yield the right of way, 
Code § 46.2-825, and pre-paid the statutory fine for that 
offense. 
 
On October 1, 2007, Rascher filed a complaint against 
Friend in the Circuit Court of Prince William County.  Rascher 
sought $250,000 in damages for his medical expenses, pain, and 
suffering.  On October 25, 2007, Friend filed an answer 
denying liability for Rascher’s injuries and further asserting 
that she would rely on the defense of contributory negligence. 
 
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A jury trial was held in the circuit court on September 8 
and 9, 2008 in which evidence in accord with the above recited 
facts was received.  Friend made a motion to strike Rascher’s 
evidence at the conclusion of Rascher’s case-in-chief and 
renewed that motion at the conclusion of all the evidence, 
contending that Rascher had failed to maintain a proper 
lookout because he looked at his speedometer after determining 
that Friend intended to turn left across his lane of travel.  
The circuit court granted Friend’s motion, ruling that while 
“[t]here’s no question that [Friend] was negligent in failing 
to yield the right of way,” “Rascher was contributor[ily] 
negligent in not exercising ordinary care to keep a reasonable 
lookout [when] he took his eyes off the intersection of the 
road and [Friend’s minivan] and looked down at his 
speedometer.”  The court reasoned that had Rascher not taken 
his eyes off the road to check his speed, “maybe he could have 
avoided the accident” because he would have seen Friend turn 
sooner.  On October 24, 2008, the circuit court entered a 
final order memorializing its ruling granting the motion to 
strike and entered judgment for Friend, with Rascher noting 
specific objections in writing.  We awarded Rascher this 
appeal. 
 
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DISCUSSION 
 
Rascher contends that the circuit court erred in granting 
Friend’s motion to strike because the jury could have 
determined from the evidence that Rascher had acted reasonably 
under the circumstances and, thus, had not acted with any 
negligence.  He further contends that even if his failure to 
maintain constant visual contact with Friend’s vehicle was 
negligent, the jury could nonetheless have found that such 
negligence was not a proximate cause of the accident.  We 
agree with Rascher on both points. 
 
The principles of contributory negligence are familiar 
and well settled.  “Contributory negligence is an affirmative 
defense that must be proved according to an objective standard 
whether the plaintiff failed to act as a reasonable person 
would have acted for his own safety under the circumstances.  
The essential concept of contributory negligence is 
carelessness.”  Jenkins v. Pyles, 269 Va. 383, 388, 611 S.E.2d 
404, 407 (2005)(citations omitted).  “The issue whether a 
plaintiff is guilty of contributory negligence is ordinarily a 
question of fact to be decided by the fact finder.  The issue 
becomes one of law for the circuit court to decide only when 
reasonable minds could not differ about what conclusion could 
be drawn from the evidence.”  Id. at 389, 611 S.E.2d at 407. 
 
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Contributory negligence consists of the independent 
elements of negligence and proximate causation.  Karim v. 
Grover, 235 Va. 550, 552, 369 S.E.2d 185, 186 (1988). 
Accordingly, “[w]hen a defendant relies upon contributory 
negligence as a defense, he has the burden of proving by the 
greater weight of the evidence not only that the plaintiff was 
negligent, but also that his negligence was a proximate cause, 
a direct, efficient contributing cause of the accident.”  Id. 
(internal quotations and citation omitted) 
 
Generally, when contributory negligence is asserted by 
the defendant in a motor vehicle accident case and it is not 
disputed that the plaintiff had the right of way, the 
defendant must show that the plaintiff was negligent because 
he actually saw or had the opportunity to see the defendant’s 
vehicle, but failed to maintain a proper lookout, and that 
this negligence was a proximate cause of his injuries because 
otherwise the plaintiff would have been able to avoid the 
accident.  See, e.g., Butler v. Yates, 222 Va. 550, 554, 281 
S.E.2d 905, 907 (1981).  Typically, the defendant prevails by 
showing that the plaintiff actually saw the defendant’s 
vehicle, but thereafter completely disregarded the possibility 
that the defendant would not yield the right of way, see, 
e.g., Branson v. Wise, 206 Va. 139, 141-42, 142 S.E.2d 582, 
583-84 (1965), or that the plaintiff reasonably should have 
 
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seen the defendant and could have easily avoided the 
collision, but was inattentive.  See, e.g., Sayre v. Shields, 
209 Va. 409, 410-11, 164 S.E.2d 665, 667 (1968). 
 
In this case, however, the evidence showed only that 
Rascher, clearly aware of Friend’s vehicle and that he had the 
right of way, looked away from his lane of travel only 
momentarily to check his speed.  While the circuit court 
presumed that had Rascher not done so he might have been able 
to avoid the accident, the evidence was by no means so clear 
on this point as to establish that Rascher was negligent as a 
matter of law.  Moreover, Code § 46.2-823 provides that a 
person operating “any vehicle traveling at an unlawful speed 
shall forfeit any right-of-way which he might otherwise have.”  
Accordingly, while a person operating a vehicle on a public 
road with the right-of-way has a continuing duty to maintain a 
proper lookout, he also has a duty to monitor his speed.  
Thus, the jury could have determined that Rascher’s action of 
momentarily looking at his speedometer to check his speed was 
a reasonable action under the circumstances. 
 
The law of proximate causation, as an element of 
contributory negligence, is also well established.  “ ‘The 
proximate cause of an event is that act or omission which, in 
natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient 
intervening cause, produces the event, and without which that 
 
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event would not have occurred.’ ”  Beverly Enterprises-
Virginia, Inc. v. Nichols, 247 Va. 264, 269, 441 S.E.2d 1, 4 
(1994) (quoting Coleman v. Blankenship Oil Corp., 221 Va. 124, 
131, 267 S.E.2d 143, 147 (1980)); accord Williams v. Le, 276 
Va. 161, 167, 662 S.E.2d 73, 77 (2008).  There may be more 
than one proximate cause of an event.  Williams, 276 Va. at 
167, 662 S.E.2d at 77 (citing Panousos v. Allen, 245 Va. 60, 
65, 425 S.E.2d 496, 499 (1993)).  As with questions of 
negligence, whether an act was a proximate cause of an event 
is best determined by the jury.  Kellermann v. McDonough, 278 
Va. 478, 493, 684 S.E.2d 786, 793 (2009); Moses v. 
Southwestern Va. Transit Mgmt. Co., 273 Va. 672, 679, 643 
S.E.2d 156, 160 (2007); Jenkins, 251 Va. at 128, 465 S.E.2d at 
799.  This is so simply because the particular facts of each 
case are critical to that determination. 
 
As indicated above, Rascher’s alleged failure to maintain 
a proper lookout when he had the right of way and could assume 
that Friend would not turn illegally in front of him would 
only have been contributorily negligent if the evidence 
established that he could have avoided striking Friend’s 
vehicle upon maintaining a proper lookout.  If the evidence 
established that he could not have avoided the collision, then 
any negligence on his part would not have been a proximate 
cause of the accident. 
 
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The evidence showed that Rascher was no more than 50 feet 
from the intersection of Antietam Road and the school’s 
driveway where the accident occurred when he glanced down at 
his speedometer to observe his speed, which was just under 20 
m.p.h.  At that rate of travel, Rascher would have covered the 
distance to the intersection in less than two seconds.  See 
Code § 46.2-880 (statutory speed table indicating that 20 
miles per hour equates to 29.3 feet per second).  On these 
facts, a jury reasonably could have found that Rascher would 
have had no opportunity to avoid the accident even if he had 
maintained visual contact with Friend’s vehicle.  Thus, the 
alleged negligence on his part would not have been a proximate 
cause of the accident as a matter of law. 
 
Having resolved the issues raised in this appeal, we take 
the opportunity to again stress the principle of tort 
litigation that issues of negligence and proximate cause 
ordinarily are questions of fact for the jury to determine, 
rather than questions to be determined by the trial court as a 
matter of law.  The trial court should overrule a motion to 
strike the evidence in every case in which there is any doubt 
that the party with the burden to do so has failed to prove 
negligence, contributory negligence, and proximate cause, as 
the case may be.  Brown v. Koulizakis, 229 Va. 524, 531, 331 
S.E.2d 440, 445 (1985).  The rule “avoids the delay and 
 
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expense to the parties when a plaintiff is successful on 
appeal and a new trial is required.  If the court overrules 
the motion to strike, submits the case to the jury and a 
plaintiff’s verdict is returned, the court may set the verdict 
aside as being contrary to the evidence or without evidence to 
support it.  If this Court reaches a different conclusion upon 
appeal, the record includes the verdict and we can enter final 
judgment, thus ending the case.”  Id. (citing Code § 8.01-
430). 
CONCLUSION 
 
For these reasons, we hold that circuit court erred in 
granting Friend’s motion to strike Rascher’s evidence on the 
ground that Rascher was contributorily negligent as a matter 
of law.  Accordingly, the judgment in favor of Friend will be 
reversed, and the case remanded to the circuit court for a new 
trial. 
Reversed and remanded. 
 
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