Title: Estes Express Lines v. Chopper Express, Inc.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 061302
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: March 2, 2007

Present:  Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Lemons, and Agee, 
JJ., and Stephenson, S.J. 
 
ESTES EXPRESS LINES, INC., ET AL. 
 
        OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 061302 
          JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
          March 2, 2007 
CHOPPER EXPRESS, INC. 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 
Randall G. Johnson, Judge 
 
The sole issue in this appeal is whether an indemnity 
provision in a vehicle lease agreement is void as against public 
policy insofar as the provision would entitle a party to 
indemnification for liability incurred as the result of personal 
injuries caused by its own negligence.1 
BACKGROUND 
The relevant facts are undisputed.  Estes Express Lines, 
Inc. and Estes Leasing (collectively “Estes”) engage in the 
business of leasing trucks.  On April 15, 1996, Estes entered 
into a written lease agreement to lease several trucks to 
Chopper Express, Inc. (“Chopper”), a trucking company. 
Section 18 of the parties’ lease agreement contains an 
indemnity provision stating, in relevant part, that: 
[Chopper] agrees to indemnify, defend and hold 
[Estes] harmless from: 
                     
1 We also address a similar issue regarding indemnity 
provisions relating to personal injury in W. R. Hall, Inc. v. 
Hampton Roads Sanitation District, 273 Va. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___ 
(2007) (this day decided). 
 
 
2
 
. . . . 
 
C. 
Any and all loss, cost, claim, expense, cause of 
action, loss of use and liability by reason of 
injury (including death) to persons or damage to 
property arising out of the use, operation, 
ownership, maintenance or control of a [leased] 
Vehicle whether covered by insurance or not, 
including claims in excess of insurance limits 
and all claims determined not to be covered by 
insurance irrespective of who, among [Chopper] or 
its insurance carrier or others, may be the cause 
for such failure of coverage or recovery in 
excess of coverage. 
 
D. 
Any liability by reason of any claim asserted by 
an agent or employee of [Chopper]. 
 
On December 11, 2001, James D. Davis, Jr., a Chopper 
employee, was injured while operating one of the trucks leased 
from Estes under the lease agreement.  Davis filed a personal 
injury action against Estes and a repair company, Redman Fleet 
Services, alleging that their negligence caused his injuries.  
Estes and Davis engaged in mediation and eventually settled 
Davis’ claim for $350,000.  In settling Davis’ claim, however, 
Estes did not admit negligence or liability. 
Thereafter, pursuant to the indemnity provision in section 
18(C) of the lease agreement, Estes demanded that Chopper 
reimburse Estes for the $350,000 settlement amount and 
$23,898.92 in attorneys’ fees Estes incurred in reaching the 
mediated settlement.  When Chopper refused this demand, Estes 
filed a motion for judgment against Chopper in the trial court 
 
 
3
asserting that Estes was entitled under section 18(C) of the 
lease agreement to indemnity from Chopper in the amount of the 
settlement and the attorneys’ fees. 
Chopper filed a demurrer to Estes’ motion for judgment.  In 
the demurrer Chopper asserted, inter alia, that Estes was not 
entitled to indemnification because section 18(C) of the lease 
agreement was “void as against public policy.”2  In a brief 
supporting the demurrer, Chopper elaborated that under Johnson 
v. Richmond & Danville R.R. Co., 86 Va. 975, 11 S.E. 829 (1890) 
and Hiett v. Lake Barcroft Community Ass’n, 244 Va. 191, 418 
S.E.2d 894 (1992), “indemnity agreements involving claims for 
personal injury are against public policy and void.”  Chopper 
asserted that section 18(C) was such an agreement and therefore 
unenforceable. 
After a hearing, the parties filed additional briefs at the 
request of the trial court.3  Subsequently, the trial court 
                     
2 Chopper’s demurrer also asserted that Estes was equitably 
estopped from bringing and/or waived its indemnity claim by 
failing to allege in the motion for judgment that it notified 
Chopper prior to settling Davis’ claim.  The trial court 
rejected this assertion and it is not at issue in this appeal. 
3 The trial court specifically requested the parties to 
address on brief whether Safeway, Inc. v. DPI Midatlantic, Inc., 
270 Va. 285, 619 S.E.2d 76 (2005), which was decided during the 
course of this case, modified the law so as to affect the issues 
presented.  Ultimately, the trial court correctly concluded that 
Safeway did not address the issue presented in this case.  In 
Safeway, although we held that the Virginia Workers’ 
 
 
4
entered an order sustaining Chopper’s demurrer for reasons 
stated in a letter opinion.  In the letter opinion, relying 
principally upon its interpretation of Johnson and Hiett, the 
trial court concluded that the indemnity provision in section 
18(C) of the lease agreement is void as against public policy.  
Interpreting Hiett to hold that only releases and 
indemnification agreements pertaining to property damage are 
enforceable, and that both releases and indemnification 
agreements involving personal injuries are void, the trial court 
ruled that section 18(C) is void as applied to Estes’ indemnity 
claim stemming from Davis’ personal injury settlement. 
The trial court permitted Estes to file an amended motion 
for judgment, which Estes filed again claiming that it was 
entitled to indemnification under section 18(C).  The amended 
motion for judgment was not materially different from the 
original motion for judgment, other than an added assertion that 
Estes was not negligent and that Chopper, Davis, and a third 
party were responsible for Davis’ injuries.4  Chopper again filed 
                                                                  
Compensation Act did not bar an indemnification claim pursuant 
to an indemnity provision nearly identical to section 18(C), the 
specific issue of whether the provision was void as against 
public policy was not before the Court.  Safeway, 270 Va. 288-
90, 619 S.E.2d at 79-80. 
4 Estes also added a contribution claim to its amended 
motion for judgment, but that claim is not at issue in this 
appeal. 
 
 
5
a demurrer to the amended motion for judgment.  By a final 
order, the trial court sustained Chopper’s demurrer to the 
amended motion for judgment for the reasons stated in its prior 
letter opinion.  This appeal followed. 
DISCUSSION 
Estes asserts as its sole assignment of error that the 
trial court erred in “ruling as a matter of law that indemnity 
agreements contained in contracts wherein a private party 
indemnifies itself against the possibility of its own future 
negligence for personal injuries are against public policy and 
void.”  Although the particular indemnity provision at issue 
here is drafted broadly so as to include both personal injury 
and property damage, under this assignment of error the question 
presented is whether Estes, the indemnitee, may enforce the 
provision and receive indemnification from Chopper, the 
indemnitor, when the loss was the result of a personal injury to 
a third party that was caused by Estes’ alleged negligence. 
Estes maintains that parties negotiating at arm’s length 
are free to make contractual indemnity agreements shifting 
losses incurred through damage to a third party.  Estes further 
maintains that such agreements are enforceable regardless of 
whether the indemnitee’s negligence caused the damage to the 
third party and regardless of whether that damage was to person 
 
 
6
or property.  With regard to Johnson and Hiett, which were 
relied upon by the trial court, Estes contends that those cases 
are applicable only to pre-injury release provisions,5 not 
indemnity provisions.  According to Estes, indemnity provisions 
do not give rise to the important public policy concerns 
implicated by pre-injury release provisions.  This is so, Estes 
contends, because pre-injury release provisions bar an injured 
party from recovering from the negligent tortfeasor, while 
indemnity agreements merely shift losses by means of an 
independent contractual relationship.  Upon this basis, Estes 
asserts that public policy does not forbid a party from 
indemnifying itself against liability for personal injury caused 
by future negligence. 
Chopper responds that the prohibition against pre-injury 
release provisions for personal injury announced in Johnson and 
Hiett applies with equal force to indemnity agreements relating 
to personal injury.  Chopper maintains that both types of 
provisions violate public policy by allowing a contracting party 
to put “at the mercy of its own misconduct” the other party to 
the contract.  Chopper points to our language in Hiett that 
                     
5 Estes alternatively refers to a pre-injury release 
provision as an exculpatory provision.  For all relevant 
purposes, these terms are interchangeable and, for consistency, 
we will use the term pre-injury release provisions. 
 
 
7
“this Court’s decisions . . . have been limited to upholding the 
right to contract for the release of liability for property 
damage, as well as indemnification from liability to third 
parties for such damage” to indicate that a party may only 
indemnify itself against losses from property damage, not 
personal injury.  See Hiett, 244 Va. at 195, 418 S.E.2d at 896. 
We begin our review of the indemnity agreement between 
Estes and Chopper with the principle that “the law looks with 
favor upon the making of contracts between competent parties 
upon valid consideration and for lawful purposes.”  
Shuttleworth, Ruloff & Giordano, P.C. v. Nutter, 254 Va. 494, 
498, 493 S.E.2d 364, 366 (1997).  Furthermore, although 
contracts that violate public policy are void, courts are averse 
to holding contracts unenforceable on the ground of public 
policy unless their illegality is clear and certain.  Id.; see 
also Jessee v. Smith, 222 Va. 15, 17-18, 278 S.E.2d 793, 795 
(1981); Ryan v. Griffin, 199 Va. 891, 895, 103 S.E.2d 240, 244 
(1958). 
In Johnson and Hiett, we held that the particular 
contractual provisions at issue were so averse to public policy 
as to be unenforceable.  In Johnson, the plaintiff was the 
personal representative of a deceased member of a firm of 
quarrymen hired by the defendant railroad company to remove a 
 
 
8
granite bluff from its right of way.  86 Va. at 975-76, 11 S.E. 
at 829.  The decedent was killed when struck by a wheelbarrow 
that had been hit by an oncoming train.  Id.  At trial, the jury 
was instructed as to a pre-injury release provision in the 
agreement between the firm and the railroad company whereby the 
railroad company would “in no way be held responsible for any 
injuries to or death of any of the members of the said firm, or 
of any of its agents and employees, sustained from said work, 
should such death or injury occur from any cause whatsoever.”6  
Id. at 976, 11 S.E. at 829.  The release agreement had been 
executed by the decedent so as to act as an individual release 
by him in favor of the railroad company.  The jury rendered a 
verdict in favor of the railroad company, and the trial court 
entered a judgment affirming that verdict. 
We reversed, holding the release provision to be void to 
the extent that it “stipulates for exemption from liability even 
for the consequences of the [railroad] company’s own negligence 
. . . [and] precludes a recovery by the plaintiff, whether the 
company was negligent or not.”  Id. at 978, 11 S.E. at 830.  We 
                     
6 The agreement also contained an indemnity provision 
whereby “in the event of any suit being brought against the 
[railroad company] or any judgment being obtained against the 
same, then the [firm] shall resist said suit, and pay such 
judgment, together with all costs incident thereto.”  However, 
 
 
9
stated that to “uphold the stipulation in question, would be to 
hold that it was competent for one party to put the other 
parties to the contract at the mercy of its own misconduct; 
which can never be lawfully done where an enlightened system of 
jurisprudence prevails.  Public policy forbids it, and contracts 
against public policy are void.”  Id. 
Over one hundred years later, in Hiett, we reiterated the 
principle stated in Johnson.  In Hiett, the plaintiff was 
seriously injured while participating in a triathlon sponsored 
by the defendant.  244 Va. at 192, 418 S.E.2d at 894-95.  Prior 
to the event, the plaintiff had signed an entry form in which he 
agreed to “waive, release and forever discharge any and all 
rights and claims for damages which I have or may hereafter 
accrue to me against the organizers and sponsors . . . for any 
and all injuries suffered by me in said event.”  Id. at 192-93, 
418 S.E.2d at 895.  We held the provision to be unenforceable 
based on the principle that pre-injury release provisions 
pertaining to future negligence are void as against public 
policy.  Id. at 194-95, 418 S.E.2d at 896.  In doing so, we 
noted that the cases decided since Johnson were “limited to 
upholding the right to contract for the release of liability for 
                                                                  
the indemnity provision was inapplicable under the circumstances 
of the case. 
 
 
10
property damage, as well as indemnification from liability 
to third parties for such damage.”  Id. at 195, 418 S.E.2d at 
896 (discussing C & O Ry. Co. v. Clifton Forge-Waynesboro 
Telephone Co., 216 Va. 858, 224 S.E.2d 317 (1976); Nido v. Ocean 
Owners’ Council, 237 Va. 664, 378 S.E.2d 837 (1989), Richardson-
Wayland Elec. Corp. v. VEPCO, 219 Va. 198, 247 S.E.2d 465 
(1978), Appalachian Power Co. v. Sanders, 232 Va. 189, 349 
S.E.2d 101 (1986), and Kitchin v. Gary Steel Corp., 196 Va. 259, 
83 S.E.2d 348 (1954)). 
While Johnson and Hiett clearly prohibit pre-injury release 
provisions relating to personal injury, we agree with Estes that 
such provisions are substantively different from indemnity 
provisions with regard to their purpose, effect, and public 
policy implications.  The purpose of pre-injury release 
provisions such as those in Johnson and Hiett is to 
prospectively extinguish one party’s right to recover for future 
bodily injuries caused to that one party by the other party’s 
negligence.  The effects of such provisions are twofold:  a 
party suffering personal injury is barred from seeking a 
recovery from the tortfeasor, likely depriving the injured party 
of all possibility of recovery, and the released party’s 
motivation to exercise ordinary care to prevent harm to the 
releasing party may be diminished because the possibility of 
 
 
11
legal liability is removed.  In both Johnson and Hiett, these 
concerns were realized because, had the release provisions been 
enforced, the plaintiff would have been left with no possible 
recovery for the defendant’s alleged negligence and those same 
defendants would have been, essentially, judgment-proof despite 
their negligence.  As we stated long ago in Johnson, such 
provisions cannot be tolerated under an enlightened system of 
jurisprudence. 
In contrast, the purpose of an indemnity provision is to 
pre-determine how potential losses incurred during the course of 
a contractual relationship will be distributed between the 
potentially liable parties.  See Safeway, 270 Va. at 289, 619 
S.E.2d at 79.  Moreover, indemnity provisions, including those 
indemnifying a party against future liability for personal 
injury caused by its own negligence, do not invoke the same 
public policy concerns as pre-injury release agreements.7  The 
primary reason for this distinction is that, unlike pre-injury 
release provisions, indemnity provisions do not bar or even 
                     
7 Such provisions are likely prevalent in the business 
community given that several of our cases have involved such 
provisions.  See, e.g. Seaboard Air Line Railroad Co. v. 
Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Auth., 202 Va. 1029, 1030, 121 
S.E.2d 499, 501 (1961) (provision indemnifying against “any 
liability, damage, loss or injury”); Appalachian Power Co., 232 
Va. at 195-96, 349 S.E.2d at 105 (provision indemnifying against 
“any and all claims of whatever nature”). 
 
 
12
diminish an injured party’s ability to recover from a 
tortfeasor.  Indeed, regardless of whether the indemnitee 
recovers from the indemnitor, the negligent indemnitee remains 
liable to the injured party.  That being the case, it is evident 
that enforcement of an indemnity provision does not jeopardize 
in any way the injured party’s ability to recover. 
We recognize that to allow a party to indemnify itself 
against its own negligence in causing personal injury to another 
potentially puts the indemnitor at the mercy of the indemnitee’s 
own misconduct.  Theoretically, it can be argued that an 
indemnitee may have a diminished concern with being negligent 
because of its contractual right ultimately to be reimbursed by 
the indemnitor, which may lead to less motivation to act with 
care toward preventing personal injury.  However, the mere 
existence of an indemnity provision does not guarantee 
reimbursement by the indemnitor because, for example, it may 
have become insolvent.  With no guarantee of indemnity, we think 
it highly unlikely that a party would neglect to exercise 
ordinary care simply in anticipation that it ultimately might 
not have to bear the burden of any liability incurred as a 
 
 
13
result of its failure to exercise ordinary care to avoid 
personal injury to another.8 
Chopper does not put forth, and we cannot envision, any 
other reason why public policy would forbid a party from 
indemnifying itself against its own negligence through a 
contractual provision negotiated at arm’s length with a willing 
indemnitor.  The indemnity provision at issue here, set forth in 
section 18(C) of the lease agreement between Estes and Chopper, 
is thus enforceable even to the extent that it would entitle 
Estes to be reimbursed from Chopper in the amount of its loss as 
a result of Davis’ personal injuries caused by Estes’ alleged 
negligence. 
CONCLUSION 
For these reasons, we hold the trial court erred in ruling 
that the indemnity provision in section 18(C) is unenforceable, 
and in sustaining Chopper’s demurrer for that reason.  
Accordingly, we will reverse the trial court’s judgment and 
remand the case for further proceedings. 
Reversed and remanded. 
 
                     
8 We also note that, at least since C & O Railway Co., we 
have upheld even pre-injury release provisions relating to 
property damage, 216 Va. at 865-66, 224 S.E.2d at 322, and no 
 
 
14
                                                                  
evidence has arisen that this has in any way engendered public 
harm.