Court Opinion

ID: 9576227
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:22:01.93959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:49.791706
License: Public Domain

Poff, J.,
dissenting.
I believe the judgment should be affirmed.
The majority hold that an “inadvertent” violation of the headlights statute, standing alone, is insufficient to support a finding of criminal negligence. I agree. But, as I read their opinion, the majority would have affirmed the judgment if they had considered the evidence sufficient to support the trial court’s finding of excessive speed. Such a holding would accord with the rule that, while a single tortious act may amount to nothing more than simple negligence, when multiple tortious acts conjoin as proximate causes of a killing, the cumulative effect *608may constitute negligence so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard of human life. Applying that rule, we have held that driving at night without headlights on the wrong side of the road may constitute criminal negligence. Bell v. Commonwealth, 170 Va. 597, 195 S.E. 675 (1938).
The trial court’s finding that defendant violated the headlights statute was based upon conflicting evidence; so was its finding concerning defendant’s speed. The majority accept the first finding of fact but reject the second. I would accept both.
With respect to speed, the finding upon which the judgment was based was not a finding of a violation of the statutory speed limit but a finding that defendant “was operating her motor vehicle at an excessive rate of speed”. Driving at an excessive rate of speed is an act of negligence. If the finding was justified by the evidence, and if this act of negligence and the headlights violation converged as proximate causes of death, the cumulative effect could, as in Bell, constitute criminal negligence.
The trial court’s finding of excessive speed, the majority say, was “necessarily based upon the testimony of Calvert and Shelton”. Not necessarily. By her own admission, defendant had traveled at night more than two miles along a primary highway at a speed of 45 to 50 m.p.h. The open highway was not lighted, and disinterested witnesses testified that defendant’s white headlights were not burning. The purpose of the headlights statute is not only to enable the driver to maintain a proper lookout, but also to alert other users of the highway to the presence, proximity, and movement of his vehicle. Arguably, a fact-finder could reasonably conclude from this evidence alone that such a speed, albeit within the statutory limit, was excessive under the circumstances.
But this evidence was not the only evidence of excessive speed. The majority do not say, nor could they, that the testimony of Calvert and Shelton was inadmissible. As an examination of decided cases will show, their testimony was competent and entitled to such weight as the fact-finder chose to give it.
Calvert estimated defendant’s speed of 60 to 70 m.p.h. at a point 2.3 miles south of the collision. True, as the majority say, we have held that evidence of excessive speed I-V4 miles from the place of an accident “is not of itself sufficient to warrant the inference that such excessive speed obtained at the time of the accident.” Grinstead v. Mayhew, 167 Va. 19, 23, 187 S.E. 515, 517 *609(1936). But in that same holding we expressly recognized that such evidence was “admissible on the ground of probative value”. Id.\ accord, Slate v. Saul, 185 Va. 700, 40 S.E.2d 171 (1946).
Shelton did not see defendant’s vehicle as it passed his' home, and gave no estimate of its rate of speed, but he testified that it sounded as if it “was strung out, in other words, it sounded like it would do all it would do”. In Meade, Adm’r v. Meade, Adm’r, 206 Va. 823, 828-29, 147 S.E.2d 171, 175 (1966), cited by the majority, we held that a witness who had not seen a vehicle was “incompetent to give testimony based on sound alone as to the speed at which it was moving.” But in a later case where the witness, who had heard but not seen the vehicle at the time of the accident, did not attempt to estimate its speed, we held that the rule in Meade was not applicable and that the witness’ testimony concerning sound was competent evidence. Smith v. Commonwealth, 213 Va. 781, 783-84, 195 S.E.2d 845, 847 (1973).
The trial court was further entitled to consider what we have called the “mute evidence of high speed.” Interstate Veneer Co. v. Edwards, 191 Va. 107, 112, 60 S.E.2d 4, 6 (1950).
“[Although the uncontradicted oral testimony was that a vehicle involved in a collision was traveling at from twenty to thirty-five miles per hour, yet the jury might infer from the force of the impact, the damage to the vehicles involved, the distance they traveled from the point of impact before coming to rest, and other circumstances, that it was traveling at a much greater speed.” Davis v. Webb, 189 Va. 80, 85, 52 S.E.2d 141, 143 (1949).
Here, the investigating officer testified that there was damage to the front, hood, windshield, and both doors of defendant’s two-door car and “extensive damage up and down” the right side of the other car; that defendant’s car left no skid marks prior to impact; that a “deep gouge mark” and three skid marks led to the place the other car came to rest; and that one of the decedents was “pinned in” the front passenger seat and the other was found outside the car on the eastern shoulder of the road north of the intersection. This decedent, according to the Medical Examiner’s Report (an exhibit introduced without objection), “was thrown approximately 20 ft. from car and apparently struck a stop sign in flight breaking it off at ground level.” *610Considering this evidence, complemented by the photographs taken the night of the accident and the next day, it appears that the impact was great enough to force a large four-door sedan occupied by three adults a substantial distance in a direction lateral to its line of travel. This evidence of defendant’s speed, though mute, is eloquent.
Applying the rule that the evidence must be viewed on appeal in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth and the rule that facts resolved by the fact-finder will not be disturbed by this Court unless plainly wrong or without evidence to support them, I would uphold both factual findings and affirm the trial court’s judgment that defendant was guilty of criminal negligence.
Carrico, J., joins in this dissent.