Title: Webb v. Rivers

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  All the Justices 
 
SIDNEY M. WEBB 
 
 
            OPINION BY JUSTICE LEROY R. HASSELL, SR. 
v.  Record No. 980014 
November 6, 1998 
 
JASON W. RIVERS 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 
Randall G. Johnson, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the trial court erred 
in striking the plaintiff's claim for punitive damages. 
 
The plaintiff, Sidney M. Webb, filed his motion for 
judgment against Jason W. Rivers.  The plaintiff alleged that 
he was injured in an automobile accident and that his injuries 
were proximately caused by the defendant's "carelessness, 
recklessness and negligence."  The plaintiff sought 
compensatory and punitive damages. 
 
The plaintiff produced the following evidence at a jury 
trial.  On May 3, 1995, the plaintiff was operating a 
Chevrolet Blazer, and his wife and young daughter were 
passengers.  As the plaintiff, who was traveling on Hamilton 
Street in the City of Richmond, drove through the intersection 
of Hamilton and Grove Avenue, he observed a car driven by the 
defendant.  The defendant ignored a red light, drove through 
the intersection, and his car collided with the plaintiff's 
vehicle, which rolled over and "came to rest on its roof." 
 
Jacqueline Webb, the plaintiff's wife, testified that the 
defendant was driving his car at 90 m.p.h.  The legal speed 
limit at the intersection where the accident occurred is 25 
m.p.h. 
 
Officer Walter P. Wilhelm, a Richmond police officer who 
responded to the accident, testified that when he arrived at 
the scene, the defendant was "entirely intoxicated sitting 
behind the wheel of a wrecked automobile."  The defendant, 
whose car was on Grove Avenue, told Officer Wilhelm that the 
defendant thought he was on the Boulevard, another street in 
Richmond.  The defendant also stated that the time was 10:00 
p.m. when it was actually 11:50 p.m. 
 
Officer Wilhelm testified that "[i]t was hard to 
understand anything [the defendant] said" and that the 
defendant admitted that he had been drinking alcoholic 
beverages that night.  Officer Wilhelm described the defendant 
as "very" drunk and that he had a very strong odor of alcohol 
about his person.  Officer Wilhelm testified that the 
defendant was in a stupor because he was so drunk.   
 
At 1:39 a.m. on May 4, 1995, about two hours after the 
accident, a breath test indicated that the defendant had a 
blood alcohol level of .21%.  The blood alcohol level to 
establish a rebuttable presumption of intoxication in Virginia 
 
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at that time was .08%.  The defendant pled guilty to the 
charge of driving under the influence. 
 
The defendant made a motion to strike the plaintiff's 
claim of punitive damages after the plaintiff rested his case.  
The trial court sustained the motion, and the case proceeded 
to a jury which returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff 
and awarded him $350 in compensatory damages.  The trial court 
entered a judgment confirming the jury's verdict.  The 
plaintiff appeals, challenging that portion of the trial 
court's judgment which sustained the defendant's motion to 
strike the plaintiff's claim for punitive damages. 
 
Code § 8.01-44.5 states in relevant part: 
 
"In any action for personal injury or death 
arising from the operation of a motor vehicle . . . 
the finder of fact may, in its discretion, award 
exemplary damages to the plaintiff if the evidence 
proves that the defendant acted with malice toward 
the plaintiff or the defendant's conduct was so 
willful or wanton as to show a conscious disregard 
for the rights of others. 
 
"A defendant's conduct shall be deemed 
sufficiently willful or wanton as to show a 
conscious disregard for the rights of others when 
the evidence proves that (i) when the incident 
causing the injury or death occurred the defendant 
had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.15 percent or 
more by weight by volume (ii) at the time the 
defendant began, or during the time he was, drinking 
alcohol, he knew that he was going to operate a 
motor vehicle . . . and (iii) the defendant's 
intoxication was a proximate cause of the injury to 
or death of the plaintiff." 
 
 
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The plaintiff argues that the trial court erred by 
striking his statutory claim for punitive damages because he 
believes that he proved each of the aforementioned statutory 
elements.  The defendant argues, however, that the plaintiff 
failed to prove that "at the time the defendant began, or 
during the time he was, drinking alcohol, he knew that he was 
going to operate a motor vehicle . . . ."  Id.
 
We agree with the defendant.  Code § 8.01-44.5 required 
that the plaintiff prove each of the statutory elements 
contained therein.  Here, the plaintiff failed to produce any 
evidence that at the time the defendant began drinking 
alcohol, or during the time he was drinking alcohol, the 
defendant knew he was going to operate a motor vehicle.  The 
record is simply devoid of such evidence.  Therefore, we hold 
that the trial court correctly struck the plaintiff's 
statutory claim for punitive damages. 
 
The plaintiff contends that even if he failed to satisfy 
the requirements of Code § 8.01-44.5, he presented sufficient 
evidence to support a common law claim for punitive damages.  
The defendant, relying principally upon Puent v. Dickens, 245 
Va. 217, 427 S.E.2d 340 (1993), responds that the plaintiff 
failed to produce sufficient facts to support a common law 
claim for punitive damages.  We disagree with the defendant. 
 
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In Puent, Edward W. Dickens, who was operating a pickup 
truck, collided with the rear of a car in which Anne R. Puent 
was a passenger.  Puent filed a motion for judgment against 
Dickens, seeking compensatory and punitive damages.  According 
to Puent's evidence, which was struck by the trial court, 
Dickens had three drinks from a bottle of whiskey within 60 to 
75 minutes before the truck he was driving collided with the 
car in which Puent was a passenger. 
 
The car in which Puent was traveling had stopped at a 
traffic light, and the car's brake and rear lights were lit.  
A witness testified that Dickens was driving very fast and 
that apparently he did not apply his brakes before he collided 
with the Puent car. 
 
Immediately after the collision, Dickens consumed another 
drink of whiskey as he sat in his truck.  A short time after 
the accident, a test of Dickens' breath indicated that his 
blood alcohol content was 0.24% by weight which raised the 
presumption that he was intoxicated.  Dickens subsequently 
pled guilty to the charge of reckless driving. 
 
In Puent, we observed that "in order to create an issue 
of punitive damages where misconduct or malice has not been 
shown, a plaintiff must show that the defendant's conduct was 
of 'such recklessness or negligence as evinces a conscious 
disregard of the rights of others.'"  245 Va. at 219, 427 
 
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S.E.2d at 342 (quoting Baker v. Marcus, 201 Va. 905, 909, 114 
S.E.2d 617, 621 (1960)).  We stated that the evidence of 
record in Puent was insufficient to support an award of 
punitive damages and, thus, we held that the trial court 
properly struck the plaintiff's evidence. 
 
We hold that unlike the plaintiff in Puent, Webb has 
established sufficient facts from which a jury may infer that 
the defendant's acts of recklessness or negligence evinced a 
conscious disregard of the rights of others.  Viewing the 
evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the 
defendant was traveling 90 m.p.h. in a residential 
neighborhood with a 25 m.p.h. speed limit, and he drove his 
car through a red light.  Additionally, the defendant had a 
blood alcohol content of .21%, and he was so intoxicated that 
he did not know where he was, nor did he know the time of 
night.  Therefore, the trial court should not have struck the 
plaintiff's common law claim for punitive damages. 
 
We will affirm that portion of the trial court's judgment 
which held that the plaintiff failed to establish a claim for 
punitive damages under Code § 8.01-44.5.  We will reverse that 
portion of the trial court's order which dismissed the 
plaintiff's common law claim for punitive damages, and we will 
remand this proceeding for a trial only on the plaintiff's 
common law punitive damages claim. 
 
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Affirmed in part, 
reversed in part, 
 and remanded. 
 
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