Opinion ID: 2959684
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: accidents while “occupying” a vehicle

Text: Consistent with, but not necessarily required by, Code § 38.2-2206(B)’s prescribed coverage, the policy issued in this case provided UM/UIM coverage for those “occupying” a covered vehicle. J.A. at 21. Under the policy, the term “occupying” included “in, upon, using, getting in, on, out of or off” the vehicle. Id. at 20. 2 We have interpreted this standard UM/UIM policy provision on several occasions. In Stern v. Cincinnati Insurance Co., 252 Va. 307, 477 S.E.2d 517 (1996), upheld in relevant part & overruled in part by Newman v. Erie Insurance Exchange, 256 Va. 501, 507 S.E.2d 348 (1998), a school child was struck by a vehicle while she walked across a two-lane road to get on a school 2 This “occupying” provision comes from a standardized form authorized by the Virginia State Corporation Commission “for use by all licensed insurers in the Commonwealth issuing policies for motor vehicle insurance as defined in § 38.2[-]124 of the Code of Virginia.” Insurance Services Office, Inc., Uninsured Motorists Endorsement (Virginia), Commonwealth of Virginia State Corporation Commission – Bureau of Insurance 1 (2002), http://www.scc.virginia.gov/boi/co/pc/auto/CA21211102.pdf. 21 bus. 252 Va. at 309, 477 S.E.2d at 518. We pointed out that the “terms ‘getting in’ and ‘getting on’ a vehicle must be read and interpreted in relation to ‘occupying,’ the word defined in the policy.” Id. at 311, 477 S.E.2d at 519 (citing Pennsylvania Nat’l Mut. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Bristow, 207 Va. 381, 384-85, 150 S.E.2d 125, 128 (1966)). “The word ‘occupying’ denotes a physical presence in or on a place or object.” Id. Because the accident happened “near the center line of the road,” a few feet away from the bus, we held that the child was “merely approaching the bus” but not yet “getting in or on” it. Id.; see also Newman, 256 Va. at 505-06, 507 S.E.2d at 350 (reaffirming this aspect of Stern). 3 Sitting as factfinder, the trial judge in the present case heard extensive testimony and reviewed significant documentary evidence of the insurance policies, collision aftermath, and worksite. After correctly noting that Slone’s Estate, not the insurer, had the burden of proof, 4 the trial judge made specific factual findings: “No one saw what Slone was doing right before he was killed, and he did not communicate his reason for exiting the truck to anyone. In fact, no one knew Slone was outside the truck until he was found after the accident.” J.A. at 349. 5 3 Newman overruled the portion of Stern that addressed the separate question whether the plaintiff was “using” the entry and exit safety features of the school bus. Newman, 256 Va. at 509, 507 S.E.2d at 352. 4 The insured has the burden of proof to show that the claim falls within the scope of an insurance policy. See Furrow v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 237 Va. 77, 80, 375 S.E.2d 738, 740 (1989); Maryland Cas. Co. v. Cole, 156 Va. 707, 716, 158 S.E. 873, 876 (1931); cf. Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. Davis, 246 Va. 495, 498, 436 S.E.2d 429, 431 (1993); Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. GEICO, 215 Va. 676, 681-82, 212 S.E.2d 297, 301 (1975); Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. Peach, 193 Va. 260, 264-65, 68 S.E.2d 520, 522 (1952). 5 The majority states that “Slone would periodically exit the dump truck to check this spillage.” Ante at 2. I am not sure why this point is being made. The trial judge found that the “preponderance of the evidence” did not convince him that Slone was “checking for spilled asphalt” when he was killed. J.A. at 349, 351. The judge found that “conflicting testimony” on this allegation left “gaps in the evidence.” Id. at 351; cf. id. at 203-04, 212 (testimony by Harmon that he “did not see exactly where [Slone] was or what he was doing” prior to the accident, and he “did not see him checking for spillage”). This point is particularly problematic 22 The trial court also took into account the frequently repeated concession by the Estate that Slone had “exited the dump truck” prior to the accident. See, e.g., id. at 121-25, 316, 341. Though perhaps not technically a binding legal admission, it nonetheless rang true. Slone obviously had gotten out of the dump truck. He had closed the door to the truck cab, and he had walked at least nine feet prior to the accident. One of the drunk drivers struck Slone and pushed him underneath the dump truck between two rows of rear dual tires. Id. at 421. Despite these irrefutable facts, the Estate invited the trial court to find that Slone, after he had “exited the dump truck,” was nonetheless “getting ‘out of’” it at the time of the accident. Id. at 334, 341. The trial court rejected this counter-intuitive reasoning, as would I. The majority, however, adopts it. Citing cases from Louisiana and South Carolina, along with an American Law Reports annotation, the majority applies a “vehicle-oriented” standard. Ante at 10, 12-13. Under this new standard, never before applied in Virginia law, the majority holds that Slone was “getting out of” the dump truck at the time of the accident. Ante at 13. The entire factual basis for this putative “legal conclusion” is that Slone “departed” (or, one might say, “got out of”) the dump truck and walked at least nine feet away from the cab in less than a minute. Ante at 12. 6 The for the majority’s reasoning because, in the trial court, the Estate contended that the “only reason [Slone] ever exited the dump truck was in connection with the spillage.” Id. at 341 (emphasis added). 6 The majority states that Slone “traversed at least 9 feet to the rear tires,” ante at 12, but this is a speculative supposition. No one saw Slone either get out of his dump truck or walk around in any direction. He was found pinned by one of the drunk drivers’ vehicles between the rear tires of the dump truck. No evidence of any kind, whether direct or circumstantial, proves by a preponderance where he was standing (or walking or running) at the time of the fatal impact or the seconds preceding it. Even Harmon, on whose testimony the Estate relies for the proposition that Slone only got out of the truck to check for spillage, did not see Slone get out of the truck or what he did afterward. Harmon merely estimated “the distance from the front door of the dump truck to where [Slone] was pinned in between the rear tires” to be “nine feet, 23 “inference” from this evidence, the majority reasons, “sufficiently establishes” that Slone was “still in the process” of “getting out of” the dump truck. Id. This aspect of the majority opinion leaves the rails guiding appellate review and disregards the applicable burden of proof. Plainly put, the majority reviews the evidentiary record and then, for the first time on appeal, draws the “inference” that Slone was getting out of the dump truck because no evidence supports the “contrary inference” that he “had begun [some] new activity” (that is, something other than getting out of the dump truck) after he “departed” from it. Id. As a general rule, an appellate court should not be drawing inferences from the evidence. “We sit as an appellate court for a review of such evidence and issues, not as a trial court.” Temple v. Moses, 175 Va. 320, 338, 8 S.E.2d 262, 269 (1940). It does not matter if we think that contrary inferences from the evidence are sufficiently persuasive that a rational factfinder could come to a different decision. Our only function is to ask whether the factual inferences supporting the trial court’s holding are so “plainly wrong” that no rational factfinder could possibly have adopted them. Code § 8.01-680. In practical terms, this means the challenged inferences must “defy logic and common sense.” Upper Occoquan Sewage Auth. v. Blake Constr. Co., 266 Va. 582, 590 n.6, 587 S.E.2d 721, 725 n.6 (2003); Claycomb v. Didawick, 256 Va. 332, 335, 505 S.E.2d 202, 204 (1998). Only then can we truly say that our disagreement with the factfinder is truly one of law, not fact. 7 approximately.” J.A. at 169. This estimate gives no indication of whether Slone had ventured beyond nine feet, or in what direction or directions he had gone, prior to the impact. 7 With commendable symmetry, the rational-decisionmaker formulation of the law/fact dichotomy applies to criminal cases in both the appellate and trial courts, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. McNeal, 282 Va. 16, 20, 710 S.E.2d 733, 735 (2011), as well as civil cases, 24 These principles, moreover, heavily depend on which party has the burden of proof. A party with the burden of proof cannot shoulder it simply by claiming that his opponent has presented little or no evidence on the disputed matter. By definition, the party without the burden of proof need not prove anything. The “risk of non-persuasion” falls entirely on the party with the burden of proof. Charles E. Friend & Kent Sinclair, The Law of Evidence in Virginia § 5-1[c], at 299 (7th ed. 2012). If the factfinder “is left in doubt,” id., the party with the risk of non-persuasion loses. In this context, doubt includes evidence that the factfinder considers to be “in equipoise.” Lam v. Lam, 212 Va. 758, 760, 188 S.E.2d 89, 90-91 (1972). A 50% level of certitude is, in law, the same as 0% because the party with the burden of proving a fact by a preponderance of the evidence cannot tip the scales with anything less than a 51% probability that what he is asserting actually happened as he asserts it. See Pickett v. Cooper, 202 Va. 60, 63, 116 S.E.2d 48, 51 (1960) (holding that “as likely as not” was an “inapt and incorrect” instruction on burden of proof); accord Lamar Co. v. Board of Zoning Appeals, 270 Va. 540, 546 n.5, 620 S.E.2d 753, 756 n.5 (2005) (explaining that the disputed fact must “appear more likely or probable” than not (citation omitted)). In this case, the trial judge found the evidence virtually silent on what Slone was doing or where he was going after he “departed” the dump truck (as the majority puts it, ante at 12) or “exited” it (as the Estate puts it, see, e.g., J.A. at 121-25, 316, 341). I cannot understand how it can be said, as the majority does, that no rational factfinder could have had less than 51% though usually with the softer “reasonable” adjective, see, e.g., Blake Constr. Co. v. Upper Occoquan Sewage Auth., 266 Va. 564, 571, 587 S.E.2d 711, 715 (2003); Andrews v. Ring, 266 Va. 311, 322, 585 S.E.2d 780, 786 (2003); Pallas v. Zaharopoulos, 219 Va. 751, 755, 250 S.E.2d 357, 359-60 (1979); Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. Spencer, 104 Va. 657, 663-64, 52 S.E. 310, 313 (1905). 25 certitude that Slone was “getting out” of the dump truck at the time of the accident. It does not “defy logic and common sense,” Upper Occoquan, 266 Va. at 590 n.6, 587 S.E.2d at 725 n.6, for the trial judge, sitting as factfinder, to conclude the obvious — that no one really knows what Slone was doing after he “departed” or “exited” (but had not “gotten out of”) the dump truck. To be sure, the very fact that we are parsing these verbs so finely implies that the majority’s legal reasoning has traveled far beyond existing Virginia law recognized in Stern and Newman. In effect, the majority holds that the process of “getting out of” a vehicle continues after one has already gotten out of it, so long as the “getting out” process is “vehicle-oriented.” Ante at 10, 12-13. I have no idea what this means. Nor can I discern how trial judges will be able to fashion jury instructions based on this indefinable “vehicle-oriented” principle, id., or how underwriters will calculate policy exposure and premium rates, or, for that matter, how we will decide the next such case when it comes before us. If nine feet from the vehicle is close enough, is ten? How about twenty? If walking around it for less than 30 seconds is enough, what about a minute, or two, or five? If not, why not? The majority’s ambiguous reasoning creates a new, expansive regime of indeterminate UM/UIM coverage. 8 To me, this whole area of law could use an infusion of common sense. To the ordinary person, getting out of a vehicle means physically getting out of it and closing the door. A generous construction would allow the “process” of getting out of a vehicle to include getting 8 Cf. 1 Alan I. Widiss & Jeffrey E. Thomas, Uninsured & Underinsured Motorist Insurance § 5.2, at 287 (3d rev. ed. 2005) (noting that “in many instances ‘proximity’ is obviously a tenuous basis, at best, for a decision that coverage does exist or should exist for a claimant”). 26 other things out, such as grocery bags out of the back seat or children out of a minivan. 9 In a commercial context, it might even include getting tools or supplies out of the back of a truck. But if the expression is to mean anything, it simply cannot mean getting out, closing the door, and walking at least nine feet away. That is not “getting out”; it is “gotten out.”