Title: Williams v. Harrison
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 970880
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: February 27, 1998

Present:  All the Justices 
 
HARVEY R. WILLIAMS, SR., 
ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE  
OF HARVEY R. WILLIAMS, JR. 
 
v.   Record No. 970880 
OPINION BY JUSTICE ELIZABETH B. LACY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
      February 27, 1998 
JEFFREY L. HARRISON 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 
M. Langhorne Keith, Judge 
 
In this appeal, we consider issues of contributory 
negligence and last clear chance. 
On the night of December 14, 1994, Harvey R. Williams, 
Jr. (Harvey), Jeffrey L. Harrison, and two of their friends 
were driving through a subdivision in Fairfax County in four 
separate cars.  Harvey's vehicle was second in the line, 
followed by Harrison's vehicle.  Harvey and Harrison were 
driving at speeds of approximately 60-65 miles per hour and 45 
miles per hour, respectively.  The speed limit was 35 miles 
per hour.  
Shortly after cresting a hill, Harvey braked suddenly, 
skidding in a straight line.  When Harrison crested the hill 
and saw the brake lights and the smoke emanating from the 
tires of Harvey's car, he moved from the right lane into the 
center turn lane, hoping to avoid Harvey's car by passing it 
on the left side.  But Harvey also turned his car to the left, 
in front of Harrison's car.  Both cars ultimately entered the 
far left lane where Harrison's car struck Harvey's car.  
Harvey died from injuries sustained in the collision.  
Harrison was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.  
 
Harvey R. Williams, Sr. (Williams), qualified as 
administrator of Harvey's estate and filed a wrongful death 
action against Harrison.  After a two-day trial, the jury 
returned a verdict in favor of Harrison.  Williams raises 
three issues on appeal:  (1) whether the trial court erred in 
denying his motion in limine and allowing Harrison to assert 
the defense of contributory negligence, despite Harrison's 
manslaughter conviction; (2) whether the trial court erred in 
refusing to instruct the jury on last clear chance; and (3) 
whether the trial court improperly limited the scope of 
Williams' cross-examination of Harrison.  We consider the 
issues in order. 
I. 
 
Prior to trial, Williams filed a motion in limine, 
asserting that the ex turpi causa doctrine should be applied 
to prevent Harrison from raising the defense of contributory 
negligence.  Williams relied on a circuit court case in which 
the ex turpi causa doctrine was applied to preclude a 
defendant convicted of manslaughter from raising the 
contributory negligence defense.  The trial court rejected the 
application of ex turpi causa concluding that the plea of 
 
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contributory negligence did not involve the wrongdoing of the 
defendant but rather the wrongdoing of the plaintiff, and 
denied the motion in limine.  
 
On appeal, Williams shifts the focus of his argument.  He 
no longer relies primarily on the doctrine of ex turpi causa, 
but argues instead that this case is directly controlled by 
Matthews v. Warner's Administrator, 70 Va. (29 Gratt.) 570 
(1877).  According to Williams, Matthews held that a defendant 
convicted of murder or manslaughter cannot assert the defense 
of contributory negligence in a subsequent wrongful death 
action.  Williams argues that, even if we do not adopt his 
interpretation of Matthews, we should not allow Harrison to 
assert contributory negligence based on the ex turpi causa 
doctrine that no one should profit by his illegal act.  
 
We reject Williams' position.  First, Matthews does not 
stand for the principle espoused by Williams and is not 
applicable to this case.  Second, we find that ex turpi causa 
should not be extended to preclude the contributory negligence 
defense in these circumstances. 
In Matthews, Franklin M. Matthews shot and killed 
Montesco Warner after Matthews received "abusive language" 
from Warner.  70 Va. (29 Gratt.) at 570.  In the ensuing 
wrongful death action, this Court refused to allow Matthews to 
raise the defense of contributory negligence because Warner's 
 
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death "was not caused by negligence; it was caused by violence 
-- by a wrongful act . . . . [W]hether it was murder in the 
first degree, or murder in the second degree, or manslaughter, 
it is still a wrongful act, which is actionable under the 
[wrongful death] statute."  Id. at 578.  Williams erroneously 
relies on this language for the principle that a manslaughter 
conviction precludes a contributory negligence defense in a 
subsequent wrongful death action. 
The import of this language must be determined in light 
of the entire proceeding.  Warner's wrongful death action was 
based on an intentional tort, not on negligence.  The motion 
for judgment alleged that Matthews "feloniously, willfully and 
of his malice aforethought did discharge and shoot" Warner.  
The language at issue and the holding of Matthews, therefore, 
simply reflect the familiar principle that contributory 
negligence is not a defense to an intentional tort.  
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 481 (1965).  As we have 
stated, in the absence of primary negligence by the defendant, 
contributory negligence cannot exist.  Andrews v. Chesapeake & 
Ohio Ry. Co., 184 Va. 951, 956, 37 S.E.2d 29, 31 (1946); 
Shumaker's Adm'x v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R. Co., 125 Va. 393, 
401, 99 S.E. 739, 741 (1919).   
The holding in Matthews, that an action for an 
intentional tort may not be defended with allegations of 
 
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contributory negligence, is inapplicable to the instant case 
because Williams' action here was premised on a negligence 
theory.  In his motion for judgment, Williams alleged that 
Harrison "had a duty to operate his automobile without 
negligence," that he breached that duty by operating his 
vehicle "carelessly and negligently," and that this breach 
resulted in Harvey's death.  Because Williams' wrongful death 
action is based on negligence, not an intentional tort, 
Harrison was entitled to raise the contributory negligence 
defense. 
Finally, we decline Williams' invitation to preclude 
Harrison's use of the contributory negligence defense based on 
the policy that no one should profit from his illegal act, the 
ex turpi causa doctrine.  Williams cites no appellate case 
from this Court or elsewhere which has extended this doctrine 
as Williams suggests.  This lack of precedent is 
understandable.  The defense of contributory negligence does 
not allow a defendant to profit from his misdeeds.  We find no 
persuasive rationale for applying the doctrine of ex turpi 
causa to prohibit the defendant from raising the defense of 
contributory negligence in this case. 
Accordingly, we find that the trial court did not err in 
denying Williams' motion in limine and allowing the defendant 
to raise contributory negligence as a defense. 
 
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II. 
 
We next consider Williams' second assignment of error, 
that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on 
last clear chance. 
 
Prior to our decision in Greear v. Noland Co., 197 Va. 
233, 89 S.E.2d 49 (1955), the law regarding the doctrine of 
last clear chance was "in a state of hopeless confusion."  
Pack v. Doe, 236 Va. 323, 328, 374 S.E.2d 22, 24-25 (1988).  
Greear clarified the doctrine.  Id.  The last clear chance 
doctrine applies in two situations:  (1) where the injured 
party has negligently placed himself in a position of peril 
from which he is physically unable to remove himself (the 
helpless plaintiff); and (2) where the injured party has 
negligently placed himself in a position of peril from which 
he is physically able to remove himself, but he is unconscious 
of his peril (the inattentive plaintiff).  Id. at 328-29, 374 
S.E.2d at 25. 
In the first situation, the plaintiff must be "physically 
incapacitated" to qualify as a helpless plaintiff, 
Vanlandingham v. Vanlandingham, 212 Va. 856, 858, 188 S.E.2d 
96, 98 (1972), and the defendant is liable if he saw or should 
have seen the helpless plaintiff.  In the second situation,  
the defendant is liable only if he actually saw the 
inattentive plaintiff.  In either case, however, liability is 
 
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further predicated upon a showing that the defendant realized 
or ought to have realized the peril of the helpless or 
inattentive plaintiff in time to avert the accident by use of 
reasonable care.  Pack, 236 Va. at 329, 374 S.E.2d at 25; 
Greear, 197 Va. at 238-39, 89 S.E.2d at 53.   
A final principle applicable to the last clear chance 
doctrine, is that last clear chance does not supersede 
contributory negligence.  A negligent plaintiff may recover 
only if his negligence was a remote rather than a proximate 
cause of the accident.  If the opportunity to avoid the 
accident is as available to a plaintiff as to a defendant, 
then the plaintiff's negligence is a proximate cause rather 
than a remote cause, and bars recovery.  Cook v. Shoulder, 200 
Va. 281, 285-86, 105 S.E.2d 860, 863 (1958).  The plaintiff 
has the burden of establishing each element of the doctrine by 
a preponderance of the evidence.  Pack, 236 Va. at 329, 374 
S.E.2d at 25. 
In all but one case in which we have considered this 
issue since 1955, Turner v. Railway Company, 205 Va. 691, 139 
S.E.2d 68 (1964), we have declined to require the application 
of the doctrine, and we decline to do so here.  Williams, like 
the other plaintiffs, has failed to provide evidence of each 
element necessary to invoke the last clear chance doctrine.   
 
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Williams argues that he was entitled to the last 
clear chance instruction under the second classification, 
the inattentive plaintiff, even though the jury 
instruction offered by Williams and denied by the trial 
court, instruction No. 13, described a helpless, not an 
inattentive, plaintiff.  Nevertheless, Williams was not 
entitled to the instruction on either ground because the 
record contains no evidence showing that Harvey was 
physically incapacitated or that he was unaware of the 
peril in which he had placed himself.  Further, the 
collision occurred after both Harrison and Harvey moved 
from the right lane, across the center turn lane, and 
into the left lane for oncoming traffic.  Harvey's action 
in crossing into the left lane was a proximate cause of 
the accident, not a remote cause.  Therefore, Williams 
was not entitled to the last clear chance instruction.   
III. 
Finally, Williams asserts that the trial court improperly 
limited his cross-examination of Harrison.  However, Williams 
did not proffer the additional questions he intended to ask or 
the additional testimony he expected to elicit from further 
cross-examination, nor was he prevented from doing so by the 
trial court.  See Brown v. Commonwealth, 246 Va. 460, 464-65, 
437 S.E.2d 563, 564-65 (1993).  In the absence of a proffer, 
 
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we will not consider this issue on appeal.  Clagett v. 
Commonwealth, 252 Va. 79, 95, 472 S.E.2d 263, 272, cert. 
denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 972 (1996); Chappell v. 
Virginia Electric and Power Co., 250 Va. 169, 173—74, 458 
S.E.2d 282, 284-85 (1995). 
 
Accordingly, because the trial court did not err in 
allowing Harrison to raise the defense of contributory 
negligence or in refusing to instruct the jury on last clear 
chance, we will affirm the judgment of the trial court. 
Affirmed. 
 
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