Court Opinion

ID: 9849332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:38:28.329198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:17.588123
License: Public Domain

COCHRAN, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion. However, for reasons expressed in my dissent in Lawhorne v. Harlan, 214 Va. 405, 408-09, 200 S.E.2d 569, 572-73 (1973), I believe that Lawhorne is inconsistent with Crabbe v. School Board and Albrite, 209 Va. 356, 164 S.E.2d 639 (1968), is unsound, and should be forthrightly overruled rather than distinguished to extinction.
The majority opinion attempts, unsuccessfully in my view, to distinguish between full-time members of the faculty of the University of Virginia Medical School, held not to be immune from liability for negligence in the present case, and the hospital administrators and the surgical intern of the same institution, held to be immune in Lawhorne. Negligence is negligence — want of such care and caution as an ordinarily prudent and reasonable man would have exercised under the same circumstances. Agents and employees of an immune employer who fail to meet the reasonable man test are negli*56gent and should be held liable for their negligent acts that proximately cause injury to others.
Therefore, I would overrule Lawhorne, so that the judiciary and the bar will understand that the principles approved in Crabbe will be followed in Virginia as they are in the majority of other jurisdictions. The uncertainty arising from hair-splitting distinctions will then give way to a sound, logical, and certain rule of general application.
POFF, J., joins in the concurring opinion.