Court Opinion

ID: 9845733
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:27:08.538644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:20.432269
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LACY,
concurring in the result.
I concur with the result reached by the majority but believe the jury instruction in question was improperly given because it was not supported by the evidence.
The evidence is undisputed and clearly establishes that Hegerberg looked into her rear view mirror, then turned her head to the right prior to the collision. I agree with Medina’s argument that this sequence of events does not support a jury instruction that states *215that the driver looked into a rear view mirror ‘ ‘immediately prior to the collision.”
Hegerberg relies on Umberger v. Koop, 194 Va. 123, 72 S.E.2d 370 (1952), to support a more expansive interpretation of the word “immediately.” In Umberger, the Court observed that the word ‘ ‘immediately’ ’ was not precise and did not ‘ ‘necessarily import the exclusion of all interval of time or space.” Id. at 130, 72 S.E.2d at 375. Hegerberg concludes that the phrase “immediately prior to the collision” does not require that the act of looking in the rear view mirror and the collision be in direct sequence, and this Court could hold that Hegerberg ‘ ‘looked into her rear view mirror immediately prior to the collision even though she looked to her right after looking in the mirror.”
The Umberger Court, however, went on to say that the meaning of a word was to be- “determined by the context in which it was used and the purpose for which the statutes were enacted.” Id. As noted by the majority, the instruction at issue in this case was taken verbatim from the instruction we approved in Russell v. Hammond, 200 Va. 600, 605, 106 S.E.2d 626, 630-31 (1959). Following the admonition of Umberger, a review of the circumstances of Russell shows that the instruction there was appropriate and directly reflected the evidence. In Russell, uncontroverted evidence established that the motorist, intending to move from the right lane to the left lane of traffic, “looked momentarily into the rear view mirror . . . and as he cast his eyes back down to the road his car struck” and killed a pedestrian. Id. at 602, 106 S.E.2d at 628. The motorist’s only defense for failing to see the pedestrian was that he was looking in his rear view mirror at a vehicle which was overtaking him. The facts of the Russell case clearly coincided with the specific language of the instruction, a direct sequential relationship between the collision and the act of looking at the rear view mirror.
Furthermore, the general rule of construction that words should be given their usual and customary meaning is equally applicable to words used in jury instructions. “Immediately” is defined as “without intermediary: in direct connection or relation. ...” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1129 (1981). This is the generally understood meaning of the word, and should be applied to this instruction.
Accordingly, I conclude that the evidence in this case was insufficient to support giving defendant’s instruction A and would reverse the judgment of the trial court on that basis.