Court Opinion

ID: 9581601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:16:39.195247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:07.255386
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WHITING,
concurring in the result.
*551I agree with Justices Keenan and Lacy that the use classification is invalid because it has no nexus with the use of the land itself.
I note that in holding the operation of a nudist club is not a use specifically permitted by right in the ordinance, the majority recites specific testimony of witnesses Knighting, Utz, and Hoffman indicating that nude persons could be observed without binoculars from various vantage points off the property. If my understanding of the holding is correct, it is that the operation of a nudist club is not a use permitted by right, nor would it qualify for a special use permit under the terms of the ordinance as written. Should this be the holding, it seems to me that it would make no difference whether persons off the property could ascertain that club members were unclothed.
However, the majority apparently believes the facts regarding what can be seen of club activities from vantage points off the property are material, because it has noted them. For this reason, I write to point out an erroneous treatment of the facts on appellate review. I believe this erroneous treatment came about because the majority has overlooked what this court has said are two well-settled principles of appellate review.
The first principle is that we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the parties who prevailed before the factfinder. See, e.g., Oden v. Salch, 237 Va. 525, 527, 379 S.E.2d 346, 348 (1989); Morris v. Mosby, 227 Va. 517, 522, 317 S.E.2d 493, 497 (1984); Bassett Furn. Indus., Inc. v. McReynolds, 216 Va. 897, 899, 224 S.E.2d 323, 324 (1976). The second principle is that a chancellor’s finding on disputed facts, supported by credible evidence, binds this Court. Yamada v. McLeod, 243 Va. 426, 430, 416 S.E.2d 222, 224 (1992); Rubin v. Gochrach, 186 Va. 786, 794, 44 S.E.2d 1, 4 (1947). Applying those principles of appellate review, I note the testimony of two witnesses that is contrary to the testimony of the three witnesses the majority apparently believed in arriving at its factual finding.
James R. Hale, a member of the Board of Supervisors of Madison County, was called as an adverse witness by the landowners. Hale had visited the area to ascertain what could be observed of the activities on the property.
Hale testified that on a clear day, at essentially the same vantage points described by Knighting, Utz, and Hoffman, without binoculars, “[I] could see animals in the background but if I didn’t know what a cow or dog and all looked like, I would say it could have *552been one or the other.” Hale’s estimate of the distances of those vantage points to the areas of club activity was three-quarters of a mile, a distance substantially longer than the distances to those same vantage points as estimated by the board’s witnesses.
The second witness was L. Patrick Gaffney, Jr., one of the landowners, who testified that persons at the vantage points described by the board’s witnesses could not, without binoculars, ascertain that club members were unclothed while engaged in the various recreational activities on the property. Nothing in the record indicates that Hale and Gaffney were not credible witnesses, or that their testimony was inherently incredible.
Given Hale and Gaffney’s testimony, and the chancellor’s factual finding supported by that testimony, I think the majority is bound by the chancellor’s factual finding that persons off the property could not, without binoculars, have observed that club members were unclothed while engaged in club activities on the property. I further believe the majority should have explained its holding in the light of those facts, not the facts to the contrary that were rejected by the factfinder.
Although the majority’s erroneous treatment of the facts may not have affected its decision, this treatment underscores the weakness of the majority’s rationale in arriving at the ultimate decision.