Title: Clohessy v. Weiler

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton, Stephenson, Whiting,
1 Lacy, 
Hassell, and Keenan, JJ. 
 
 
MEGAN D. CLOHESSY 
 
v.  Record No. 942035 
OPINION BY JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING 
                                      September 15, 1995 
 
LYNN M. WEILER 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH 
 
Robert B. Cromwell, Jr., Judge 
 
 
This appeal deals with issues of a motor vehicle driver's 
alleged willful and wanton negligence and a pedestrian's alleged 
contributory negligence. 
 
The defendant driver appeals a judgment confirming a jury's 
verdict in the plaintiff pedestrian's favor for $85,000.  
Consistent with familiar appellate principles, we state the 
evidence in the light most favorable to the pedestrian, who 
prevailed before the jury. 
 
On October 16, 1992, around 10:00 p.m., after attending a 
football game at Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Lynn M. 
Weiler, the plaintiff, was walking home with her husband, Gary 
Weiler, in a northerly direction on Tether Keep, a street in a 
Virginia Beach residential subdivision.  Since there were no 
sidewalks on Tether Keep, and debris had been left on the west 
side of the street on previous occasions when they had walked on 
Tether Keep, the Weilers walked on the east side of the street 
                     
     
1Justice Whiting prepared the opinion in this case prior to 
the effective date of his retirement on August 12, 1995, and the 
Court subsequently adopted the opinion. 
 
 
 
 
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with their backs toward approaching traffic rather than on the 
west side facing traffic, as required by Code § §46.2-928.
2.  Mr. 
Weiler was walking almost directly in the gutter, next to the 
concrete curb.  According to Mr. Weiler, his wife was walking to 
his left "directly shoulder to shoulder next to [him]."   
 
The speed limit on Tether Keep was 25 miles per hour and 
this flat, relatively straight asphalt street was well-lit by 
street lights in the vicinity of the accident.  It was a clear 
night.  Mr. Weiler was wearing a yellow jacket and the plaintiff 
was wearing a light-gray sweat shirt. 
 
Megan Dawn Clohessy, the defendant, a 16-year-old student at 
Cox High School who had driven her car in a parade at the 
football game, stopped the vehicle on Tether Keep just before the 
accident to remove balloons that had been attached to the 
antenna.  When the defendant stopped, she turned off the car's 
engine and headlights.  Upon restarting the engine, the defendant 
noticed that the windshield had become foggy from a mist rising 
from the road surface.  She turned on her windshield wipers and 
defroster in an attempt to clear the windshield.  However, the 
 
     
2As pertinent, Code 46.2-928 provides that "[p]edestrians 
shall not use the roadways for travel, except when necessary to 
do so because of the absence of sidewalks [and] [i]f they walk on 
the hard surface, . . . they shall keep to the extreme left side 
or edge thereof." 
 
 
 
 
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defendant did not turn on the car's headlights again, and drove 
down the street at a speed of approximately 35 miles per hour 
with a fogged windshield. 
 
The defendant and a teenaged boy who witnessed the accident 
estimated that the plaintiff was walking in the street, three to 
four feet from the curb.  The witness was one of several boys, 
some of whom were approximately 25 feet ahead of the Weilers, 
also walking from the football game on the east side of Tether 
Keep.  There were no other pedestrians on Tether Keep at the time 
of the accident. 
 
Although the defendant testified that nothing obstructed her 
view, she did not see the Weilers walking in the street until her 
car was about four feet from the plaintiff.  The defendant 
swerved her car to her left, but was unable to avoid striking the 
plaintiff. 
 
The trial court submitted the issue of the defendant's 
willful and wanton negligence to the jury.  First, we consider 
the defendant's contention that this was error.  The following is 
the standard to be applied in resolving this issue:  
 
 
Willful and wanton negligence is acting 
consciously in disregard of another person's rights or 
acting with reckless indifference to the consequences, 
with the defendant aware, from his knowledge of 
existing circumstances and conditions, that his conduct 
probably would cause injury to another.   
 
Griffin v. Shively, 227 Va. 317, 321, 315 S.E.2d 210, 213 (1984). 
 
The defendant contends the evidence in this case is such 
that no reasonable person could conclude that her conduct was 
 
 
 
 
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sufficiently egregious to meet the Griffin standard of willful 
and wanton negligence.  Hence, the defendant concludes that the 
court erred in submitting this issue to the jury.   
 
On the other hand, citing the defendant's negligence in 
operating "her vehicle without headlights at night in a 
residential area where she knew pedestrians were walking [and in 
driving] her automobile in excess of the posted speed limit with 
fogged windows and obscured vision," the plaintiff maintains that 
the cumulative effect of those acts raised a factual issue of the 
defendant's willful and wanton negligence under the Griffin 
standard.  We disagree with the plaintiff.  The facts in this 
case do not indicate that the defendant's conduct could be 
reasonably considered as anything more culpable than ordinary 
negligence. 
 
On brief and in oral argument, the plaintiff's counsel 
claimed that the football game had just ended, implying that 
numerous pedestrians were walking home in the streets of this 
subdivision.  However, Mr. Weiler testified that: 
 
Even though the game was over, because Todd [the 
Weilers' son] was playing, we typically would wait 
until after the game and see him, so almost all of the 
game traffic had already left and we were walking down 
that street, and it was a very quiet evening, only one 
car had passed, as I said. 
 
And the plaintiff testified that there was no one else walking on 
the roadway but the boys ahead of the Weilers.  Thus, we find no 
factual predicate in the record to support the plaintiff's 
contention that the defendant "knew pedestrians were walking" in 
 
 
 
 
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the residential area, particularly pedestrians walking on the 
wrong side of the street with their backs toward approaching 
traffic in violation of Code § 46.2-928.  
 
Hence, the evidence in this case does not support a finding 
that the defendant had prior knowledge of specific conditions 
that would likely cause injury to others.  Compare Huffman v. 
Love, 245 Va. 311, 315, 427 S.E.2d 357, 360 (1993) (highly 
intoxicated driver's knowledge that continued driving was 
dangerous shown in part by earlier collision shortly before 
subject collision) and Booth v. Robertson, 236 Va. 269, 270, 272-
73, 374 S.E.2d 1, 1, 2-3 (1988) (highly intoxicated driver's 
knowledge that driving wrong way on interstate highway was 
dangerous shown in part by near collision with another vehicle 
shortly before subject collision) with Hack v. Nester, 241 Va. 
499, 506-07, 404 S.E.2d 42, 45 (1991) (no prior accident or 
warning of dangerous driving to intoxicated driver before subject 
collision).  And this case has none of the aspects of willful and 
wanton conduct shown in part by (1) the intoxications and prior 
incidents giving notice of danger in Huffman and Booth, (2) the 
willfulness in Friedman v. Jordan, 166 Va. 65, 68, 184 S.E. 186, 
187 (1936) (motorist's intentional collision with bicyclist), or 
(3) the grossly excessive speed and erratic driving evident in 
Mayo v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 644, 648-49, 238 S.E.2d 831, 831-33 
(1977) (driving about twice posted 35 mile-per-hour speed limit 
in residential area resulting in involuntary manslaughter 
 
 
 
 
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conviction). 
 
We have said that "each [of these cases] must be determined 
`on its own set of facts.'"  Huffman, 245 Va. at 315, 427 S.E.2d 
at 360.  In our opinion, while the facts and circumstances of 
this case raise factual issues of the defendant's negligent 
operation of her car, they are insufficient to support a finding 
that this negligence was so willful, wanton, and reckless as to 
show a conscious disregard of the rights of others.  Accordingly, 
the court erred in submitting that issue to the jury. 
 
Next, we consider the plaintiff's contention that the 
defendant must show that the jury's verdict was based on a 
finding of willful and wanton negligence rather than ordinary 
negligence in order for the error to be prejudicial.  However, a 
substantial error such as this one "is presumed to be prejudicial 
unless it plainly appears that it could not have affected the 
result."  Spence v. Miller, 197 Va. 477, 482, 90 S.E.2d 131, 135 
(1955); see also Dunn v. Strong, 216 Va. 205, 210, 217 S.E.2d 
831, 834 (1975); Kimball & Fink v. Borden, 95 Va. 203, 207, 28 
S.E. 207, 207 (1897).  Thus, the defendant has no burden to show 
on which issue the jury returned its verdict. 
 
Nor can we say that submitting the issue of willful and 
wanton negligence to the jury "could not have affected the 
result" because we are unable to determine on what issue the jury 
returned a verdict for the plaintiff.  If an issue is erroneously 
submitted to a jury, we presume that the jury decided the case 
 
 
 
 
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upon that issue.  Green v. Ruffin, 141 Va. 628, 641, 125 S.E. 
742, 746 (1924); see also Gardner v. Phipps, 250 Va. ___, ___ 
S.E.2d ___ (1995)(this day decided); Ring v. Poelman, 240 Va. 
323, 328, 397 S.E.2d 824, 827 (1990).  And if the verdict was 
based on the defendant's willful and wanton negligence, we 
presume that the jury did not consider the issue of the 
plaintiff's alleged contributory negligence, because of the trial 
court's instruction that "[a] defendant who is guilty of willful 
and wanton negligence cannot rely upon contributory negligence as 
a defense."  Since the defendant was entitled to have the jury 
consider the issue of the plaintiff's contributory negligence as 
a bar to her ordinary negligence claim, we conclude that the 
defendant was prejudiced by the instructions on willful and 
wanton negligence and that the case will have to be remanded for 
a new trial. 
 
Because the issue may arise upon a new trial, we finally 
consider the defendant's contention that the court erred in 
granting Instruction 16 on the issue of the plaintiff's 
contributory negligence.
3  Instruction 16 provided: 
 
 
When the negligence of the defendant is the 
proximate cause of the accident and that of the 
plaintiff the remote cause, the plaintiff may recover 
                     
     
3On oral argument, the defendant abandoned her contention 
that the court erred in failing to instruct the jury that the 
plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of 
law.  Hence, we do not consider that issue. 
 
 
 
 
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notwithstanding the plaintiff's negligence.  It is the 
immediate or proximate cause which directly produces 
the accident, injury or damage, not the remote cause 
which may have antecedently contributed to it. 
 
 
The plaintiff argues that Instruction 16 was proper since it 
"was taken directly from the language in Thomas v. Settle, 247 
Va. 15, 20, 439 S.E.2d 360, 363 (1994)."  Although Instruction 16 
correctly states the law, it is simply another example of "the 
danger of the indiscriminate use of language from appellate 
opinions in a jury instruction; a danger often referred to in our 
opinions."  Blondel v. Hays, 241 Va. 467, 474, 403 S.E.2d 340, 
344 (1991). 
 
The language in Instruction 16 was used in Thomas to explain 
why the violation of a statute regulating traffic was not a 
proximate cause of the accident as a matter of law.  It was not 
written as a definition or explanation of remote cause.  As such, 
"[i]t was appellate language, used to explain a point and not 
intended to be employed in an instruction."  National Union Fire 
Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania v. Bruce, 208 Va. 595, 601, 
159 S.E.2d 815, 820 (1968). 
 
In Bruce, we held that after giving the traditional 
definition of gross negligence in an instruction, the trial court 
should not have further expounded upon gross negligence in 
language that was argumentative, confusing, and misleading to the 
jury.  Id.  Similarly, in this case, the court correctly defined 
proximate cause in Instruction 15, which provided: 
 
 
A proximate cause of an accident, injury, or 
damage is a cause which in natural and continuous 
 
 
 
 
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sequence produces the accident, injury, or damage.  It 
is a cause without which the accident, injury, or 
damage would not have occurred. 
 
In its attempt to further explain the concept of proximate cause 
in Instruction 16, the court introduced the principle of remote 
cause and used language that could have confused and misled the 
jury.  Since we conclude that Instruction 16 was erroneous and 
prejudicial to the defendant, it should not have been given.   
 
Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment and remand the 
case for a new trial. 
 
Reversed and remanded.