Court Opinion

ID: 9852697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:35:02.94827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:32.587438
License: Public Domain

Poff, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent.
Ordinarily, causal relationship between negligence and injury is a factual question. Resolution of factual questions is a jury’s raison d'etre. Only when the evidence is such that reasonable men could *560not disagree does causal relationship become a question of law. Trial courts cannot comment upon the weight of the evidence or the credibility of witnesses; they cannot direct verdicts; and they cannot set a verdict aside unless it is without evidence to support it or is plainly wrong. Reviewing a jury verdict, appellate tribunals view the evidence and all inferences fairly deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the prevailing party. And when a jury verdict is ratified by the judgment of a trial court, it has always been accorded special deference in this Court.
Here, the majority hold that the factual determination made by the jury and confirmed by the trial court is without evidence to support it. I do not agree. The posted speed limit was 55 m.p.h. Mrs. Nance, Robert Moates, and Forrest Moore testified that the Colonial truck driven by Davis was exceeding that speed as it passed Mrs. Nance. That is evidence of negligence. Negligence, of course, is not culpable unless it is causally connected with the injury. Concerning causal connection, it is true, as the majority point out, that neither Mrs. Nance nor her expert witness testified that the wind turbulence created by Colonial caused the Nance vehicles to go out of control. But such testimony would have been opinional and, going to the ultimate fact in issue, inadmissible.
Evidence of causal connection is seldom direct. Typically, causal connection determinations depend upon inferences deducible from direct evidence. The evidence was that the Colonial truck was 55 feet long and was travelling at a rate of speed as high as 65 m.p.h. and that the Nance trailer was 19 feet long and was travelling at a speed of 45 m.p.h. The expert testified that air displacement caused by a large vehicle passing a smaller vehicle increases in volume and force as the speed differential between the two vehicles increases; that air displacement tends to force the passing vehicle away from the other at the time it passes; and that after the passing is completed, the turbulence tends to pull the passed vehicle into the space recently occupied by the passing vehicle. Mrs. Nance testified that “immediately as the first tractor-trailer passed, the camper began to swerve”. Such evidence fully supports the inference that the large, fast-moving Colonial truck passing the smaller, slower-moving Nance trailer created a substantial air displacement force and that this force was a proximate cause of the accident.
There was direct evidence to support a finding that Soles, the driver of Glosson’s truck, was negligent. While it is true, as the majority say, that Mrs. Nance made no complaint of the speed of the Glosson *561truck, Forrest Moore, a disinterested eyewitness, testified that “my estimate was 65”. This was a statutory violation. In addition, Davis testified that the Glosson truck was two to three trailer-lengths behind his truck, a distance of not more than 165 feet. Moore said that the distance was “[m]aybe 120 feet”-. Code § 46.1-213 mandates a minimum distance of 200 feet. These two statutory violations constituted negligence as a matter of law. But the majority say that such negligence “cannot be deemed a proximate cause of the accident” because “Soles would have been confronted with the same situation had Colonial been 200 or more feet ahead of him.” However, on cross-examination Soles testified that “[t]wenty more foot, I would never have touched it [the Nance vehicles].” From such evidence, the jury could fairly infer that the two statutory violations proximately contributed to the accident.
The evidence and the inferences fairly deducible therefrom support the jury’s factual findings, and I would affirm the judgment confirming the verdict.