Court Opinion

ID: 9604349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:20:09.402264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:21.386847
License: Public Domain

Whittle, J.,
dissenting.
In all deference, I cannot subscribe to the reasoning employed in the majority opinion.
The facts show that this trip was conceived in negligence and culminated in tragedy. Plaintiff’s intestate insisted upon making the trip for the purpose of pushing his friend’s incapacitated automobile from where it was stored in a place of safety, over the highly traveled Virginia Beach Boulevard in the dead of night. He proceeded on this dangerous venture for a mile when the rear tire on his (the pushing) car “went flat”, and instead of removing both incapacitated vehicles from the highway “as soon as possible”, in compliance with § 46-256, Virginia Code, 1950,1 he continued pushing one disabled car with the other disabled car for a distance of four miles. In traveling this distance he passed numerous places where both vehicles *110could (as mandatorily required by statute) have been removed from the highway. Why Davis stopped the “pushing” operation at the particular point on the highway is not shown except he suddenly came to the conclusion that he would change the tires. The evidence is conclusive that he could have traveled to the adjacent service road and there safely made the change. But instead, he stopped short of safety, and with his vehicle partly blocking the lane of travel, and with his back turned to oncoming traffic, he undertook to change the tire, being thus engaged when defendant’s car, traveling at less than the normal rate of speed, struck and killed him.
In my view it is clear that Davis was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. Therefore, the verdict of the jury which found for the defendant and upon which the trial court entered judgment should not be disturbed. The errors complained of do not affect this result.
In my opinion the majority overlook the concession that plaintiff’s decedent was guilty of contributory negligence. Plaintiff takes the position in her brief that if the last clear chance doctrine does not apply then in that event she has no case. She argues:
“* * * it is earnestly submitted that whether the defendant, after seeing Davis, realized or ought to have realized his peril in time to avert the accident by using reasonable care was a question for the jury’s determination. The defendant admitted he realized the peril some 40 to 50 feet from Davis. Whether that distance under the circumstances was sufficient for effective action should have been left to the jury’s determination under the last clear chance instruction.
“ ‘The contributory negligence approach does not provide a guide * * * in the case of the plaintiff who is not helpless but only unconscious of his situation.’ Greear v. Noland Co., supra (197 Va. 233, 238, 89 S. E. 2d 49, 51). Plaintiff submits that the instant case comes directly within this doctrine. The jury should have been allowed to determine (1) if decedent was unconscious of his peril; and if so, (2) if the defendant could have averted the accident after he realized or ought to have realized the peril.
“It is therefore submitted that this case should be reversed and remanded for the failure of the trial court to instruct on last clear chance.” (Italics supplied)
Thus plaintiff, in her attempt to employ the last clear chance doctrine, concedes negligence, and the majority opinion having correctly *111decided that the doctrine does not apply, and since the doctrine of comparative negligence is not in vogue in Virginia, there can be no recovery.
Undoubtedly the jury plainly understood the situation when it rendered its verdict for the defendant, and in my view the lower court’s judgment entered thereon should not be disturbed.

 A violation of this section is negligence. See Powell v. Virginian Ry. Co., 187 Va. 384, 390, 46 S. E. 2d 429, 432; Moore v. Virginia Transit Co., 188 Va. 493, 497, 50 S. E. 2d 268, 271; Birtcherd Dairy v. Edwards, Adm’r., 197 Va. 830, 833, 91 S. E. 2d 421, 423.