Present: All the Justices
STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY
v. Record No. 941263 OPINION BY JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING
June 9, 1995
MARY ELLEN HAINES, ET AL.
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ROANOKE COUNTY
Kenneth E. Trabue, Judge
In this appeal in a declaratory judgment action, we consider
the effect of an admission obtained under Rule 4:11 upon the
party making the admission and upon other parties to the action.
In August 1990, Mary Ellen Haines (Haines) bought a 1984
Subaru station wagon for the use of her daughter Jennifer.
Haines took title to the Subaru and added it to her State Farm
Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm) liability
policy, with Haines shown as the named insured and Jennifer as
the primary driver. Jennifer made the down payment on the
vehicle and paid half of the deferred monthly payments, as well
as that portion of Haines's insurance premiums attributable to
the Subaru.
No restrictions were placed on Jennifer's use of the Subaru
when it was purchased or two months later when she took it with
her and moved into an apartment with Daniel Todd Walton (Walton),
to whom she was married shortly thereafter. However, after
seeing Walton driving the Subaru, Haines told Walton and Jennifer
that Walton could not drive it because his driver's license had
been suspended for one year. Haines told Walton and Jennifer
that Walton had to be a licensed driver and have insurance "to
drive the car."
On February 8, 1991, Walton was driving the Subaru when he
ran off Interstate Highway 64 in Allegheny County, killing one
passenger, Paul A. Thurston, Jr., and injuring two other
passengers, Lorie A. Forbes and Karen R. Vance. State Farm was
notified by representatives of the three passengers of their
intent to assert claims against Walton arising from his allegedly
negligent operation of the Subaru. As pertinent here, State
Farm's liability insurance policy provided coverage to Walton if
his operation of the Subaru was "with the permission of the named
insured, provided his actual operation . . . is within the scope
of such permission."
State Farm filed this declaratory judgment proceeding
against Haines, Walton, Jennifer, Paul A. Thurston, Sr.,
administrator of the estate of Paul A. Thurston, Jr. (the
administrator), Forbes, Vance, and other insurance companies
whose liabilities might be affected by a ruling upon State Farm's
liability under its policy. In paragraph 9 of its original and
amended motion for declaratory judgment, State Farm alleged that:
At the time of the accident, Daniel T. Walton had
no license to operate a motor vehicle and had been
expressly forbidden by Mary Ellen Haines from operating
the Haines automobile. This prohibition had been
directly communicated to both Daniel T. Walton and
Jennifer Haines Walton prior to the accident.
Haines admitted these allegations in her answer to the amended
motion for declaratory judgment filed on October 2, 1991.
On May 4, 1992, Haines unequivocally admitted the following
of State Farm's requests for admissions:
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7. At the time of the accident, Daniel T. Walton
had no license to operate a motor vehicle and had been
expressly forbidden by Mary Ellen Haines from operating
the 1984 Subaru automobile referred to above. This
prohibition had been directly communicated to both
Daniel T. Walton and Jennifer Haines Walton by Mary
Ellen Haines prior to the accident.
RESPONSE: Admit
8. At the time of the accident, Daniel T. Walton
did not have permission from Mary Ellen Haines to be
operating the 1984 Subaru automobile.
RESPONSE: Admit
At a jury trial on December 2, 1993, the parties agreed that
the defendants had the risk of nonpersuasion on their claim that
Haines had given Walton permission to operate the Subaru. Haines
was the defendants' only witness who testified on the issue
whether she had given permission to Walton to operate the Subaru.
Haines's testimony was introduced over the objection of State
Farm, which asserted that she was bound by her responses to the
above requests for admission and could not testify to the
contrary either in her own behalf or on behalf of the other
defendants.
Haines testified that the reason she prohibited Walton's
operation of the Subaru was (1) that she thought his driver's
license suspension would continue until he further contacted the
court and recovered actual possession of his license, and (2)
that she thought Walton would not be insured under her State Farm
policy unless he was "placed on the policy that I had." Haines
further testified that "[i]f [Walton] is licensed and has
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insurance, yes, he may drive [the Subaru]." On its
cross-examination of Haines, State Farm read into evidence
numbers seven and eight of the requests for admission and
Haines's responses thereto.
The defendants also introduced into evidence a record of the
Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court of Allegheny
County showing that Walton's "privilege to operate a motor
vehicle is suspended for 12 months [effective February 2, 1990]."
The trial court ruled that he again became a licensed driver on
February 2, 1991, six days before the accident.
Overruling State Farm's motions to strike the defendants'
evidence at the conclusion of their case and again at the
conclusion of State Farm's case, the court submitted the
permission issue to a jury. The jury found that Walton had
Haines's express or implied permission to operate the Subaru, and
the court entered judgment on the verdict. State Farm appeals.
As pertinent, Rule 4:11(a) provides that "[a] party may
serve upon any other party a written request for the admission,
for purposes of the pending action only, of the truth of any
matters within the scope of Rule 4:1(b)." As relevant here, Rule
4:1(b) provides that parties may obtain discovery of "any matter,
not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved
in the pending action." Rule 4:11(b) provides in pertinent part
that:
Any matter admitted under this Rule is
conclusively established unless the court on motion
permits withdrawal or amendment of the admission. . . .
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Any admission made by a party under this Rule is for
the purpose of the pending action only and is not an
admission by him for any other purpose nor may it be
used against him in any other proceeding.
The defendants never moved the court to permit Haines's
admissions to be withdrawn or amended.
The defendants argue that Haines's admissions do not bind
her or them. First they contend that State Farm's use of the
requests for admission was one "inconsistent with the spirit of
the rules as described by this Court," since the purpose of Rule
4:11 is to relieve a litigant of the burden of proving undisputed
facts. And the defendants note that the question of permission
is "the sole issue in dispute." The defendants cite TransiLift
Equip., Ltd. v. Cunningham, 234 Va. 84, 90, 360 S.E.2d 183,
186-87 (1987), DeRyder v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 206 Va.
602, 611, 145 S.E.2d 177, 183 (1965), and General Accident Fire
and Life Assurance Corp. v. Cohen, 203 Va. 810, 813, 127 S.E.2d
399, 401 (1962), in support. We find no merit in this
contention.
The flaw in this contention is that the issue of permission
was not in dispute between State Farm and Haines when the
requests for admission were made. This was not the situation in
Cohen, in which a litigant failing to answer a request for
admission had denied the facts contained in the request in a
previously filed pleading. Here, Haines's answer to the motion
for declaratory judgment indicated that the issue of permission
was not in dispute, and when the requests for admission were
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filed later, she agreed that she had not given permission and had
forbidden Walton's operation of the Subaru.
Nor was an undue hardship being imposed upon Haines that
would have justified her refusal to establish the opposing
litigant's case, as in DeRyder, 206 Va. at 611-12, 145 S.E.2d at
183-84. Haines was simply requested to admit a fact within her
own knowledge.
We did not decide whether a request for admission was proper
in TransiLift. Instead, since the admissions were not introduced
into evidence, we held that they were not binding upon the
litigant who made the admissions. 234 Va. at 92, 360 S.E.2d at
188.
Next, the defendants claim that the requests for admission
"did not conform to the required standards of clarity and
fairness." According to the defendants, the request that Haines
admit that "Walton had no license to operate a motor vehicle" was
confusing because it could have meant that Walton "did not have a
license with him, that he was not eligible for a license or that
the DMV had never issued him a license." Additionally, the
defendants contend that the request for admission asked Haines to
admit something "which the evidence at trial showed to be untrue
[since] [t]he trial court found, as a matter of law, that Danny
Walton had a valid driver's license."
We need not consider this argument since the balance of
request number seven clearly asked for an admission that at the
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time of the accident, "Walton . . . had been expressly forbidden
by Mary Ellen Haines from operating the [Haines automobile]."
And request number eight was equally clear in asking that Haines
admit that "[a]t the time of the accident, Daniel T. Walton did
not have permission from Mary Ellen Haines to be operating the
1984 Subaru automobile." These were requests for an admission of
matters within Haines's knowledge. And she admitted
unequivocally that, at the time of the accident, not only had she
not given permission for Walton's operation of the Subaru, but
she had expressly forbidden him to do so.
Since State Farm's request for Haines's admission regarding
permission was clear and fair, we find no merit in the
defendants' first contention. Accordingly, we hold that Haines's
responses "conclusively established" that she had not only not
given Walton permission to operate the Subaru, but had forbidden
him to do so. Rule 4:11(b). Because those responses were
judicial admissions that bind Haines in this proceeding, the
trial court erred in admitting her testimony to the contrary in
support of the defendants' case.
Finally, the other defendants contend that even if Haines is
bound by her admissions, they are not. We agree that Haines's
admissions would not preclude the defendants from introducing
evidence other than Haines's testimony to show that she had given
permission to Walton. However, these defendants did not do so;
instead, they relied solely upon Haines's testimony, which was
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inadmissible. Since there was no other evidence from which the
jury could have found that Haines had given permission to Walton
to operate the Subaru, the trial court erred in failing to
sustain State Farm's motions to strike the defendants' evidence.
Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment of the trial
court. We will also enter a final judgment for State Farm that
it is not obligated under its insurance contract to provide a
defense and coverage to Walton with respect to the claims of the
administrator, Forbes, or Vance. We will remand the case for
further proceedings upon Virginia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance
Company's cross-motion for declaratory judgment against Vance,
which was stayed by the court pending this appeal.
Reversed,
final judgment in part,
and remanded in part.
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