Court Opinion

ID: 9715032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:52:19.021435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:30.678247
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. I argued in the dissent in Hardingham v. United Counseling Service, 164 Vt. 478, 487, 672 A.2d 480, 486 (1995) (Dooley, J., dissenting), that, based on our experience in applying our guest-passenger statute, it was difficult, if not impossible, to perform in a principled fashion the line-drawing required to determine whether negligence could be found to be “gross” in a partieular case. I urged that the only reasonable course is to “leave the decision of whether gross negligence was present to the jury except in the most extreme cases.” Id.
This is not a most extreme case. It might be distinguished from our decision in State v. Koch, 171 Vt. __, 760 A.2d 505 (2000), in degree, but not in kind. On this point, I agree with Justice Johnson’s observation in dissent in Koch that the decisions in this case and Koch are “irreconcilable.” Id. at _, 760 A.2d at 509. In both cases, defendant ran down a pedestrian who was in a lawful place in or near the road. In Koch, defendant had a longer period to view the spot where the pedestrian was standing, when struck, but there was no evidence that the pedestrian was in that spot during the entire period of observation. In any event, I do not find the time of observation as significant as the majority because in this ease defendant was turning across a pedestrian crosswalk. Obviously, a driver’s duty to watch the road is related to the circumstances that confront him and the place and manner of operation. See Emery v. Small, 117 Vt. 138, 140-41, 86 A.2d 542, 543 (1952) (collision with parked truck could be found to be gross negligence where, at night, defendant had up to 4.5 seconds to see it). It is one thing to say that a few seconds of inattention is not gross negligence as a matter of law when a driver is proceeding along a straight, dry road during the day; it is quite another to say so, when the driver is turning across a pedestrian crosswalk. In this ease, it is as if defendant closed his eyes and then turned left into Morgan Street and proceeded across the crosswalk and up that street without opening them.
If I were a juror, I would probably vote for the majority result. As a Justice of this Court, however, I must vote to allow the jury to decide.