Opinion ID: 1315846
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fletcher v. Sias

Text: In the second case, the appellant, Deborah Fletcher, left her home, located off the northbound lanes of Greenbrier Street in Charleston, West Virginia shortly before 6:00 a.m. on December 8, 1993 to catch a ride to work. Fletcher crossed Greenbrier Street and waited on her ride on the southbound side of the street. When her ride did not show, Fletcher decided to return to her house in order to call her place of employment to inform her manager that she would be late for work. Fletcher proceeded to recross Greenbrier Street. She made it safely across the southbound lanes of Greenbrier Street, but was hit by a vehicle driven by the appellee, Raymond Sias, as she attempted to cross the northbound lanes. After a short trial, the jury found Fletcher to be sixty percent at fault and Sias to be forty percent at fault. Fletcher moved for a new trial or, in the alternative, for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, asserting, in part, that the giving of a sudden emergency instruction under the facts of this case was error and that the sudden emergency doctrine no longer represents the law in West Virginia. The circuit court denied Fletcher's motion by order dated November 1, 1995. Fletcher now asks this Court to determine whether it was reversible error for the circuit court to give a sudden emergency instruction under the facts of this case, and whether the sudden emergency doctrine remains the law in West Virginia.