Clohessy v. Weiler

Present: Carrico, C.J., Compton, Stephenson, Whiting, 1 Lacy,
Hassell, and Keenan, JJ.

MEGAN D. CLOHESSY

v. Record No. 942035 OPINION BY JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING
September 15, 1995

LYNN M. WEILER

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH
Robert B. Cromwell, Jr., Judge

This appeal deals with issues of a motor vehicle driver's

alleged willful and wanton negligence and a pedestrian's alleged

contributory negligence.
The defendant driver appeals a judgment confirming a jury's

verdict in the plaintiff pedestrian's favor for $85,000.

Consistent with familiar appellate principles, we state the

evidence in the light most favorable to the pedestrian, who

prevailed before the jury.

On October 16, 1992, around 10:00 p.m., after attending a

football game at Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Lynn M.

Weiler, the plaintiff, was walking home with her husband, Gary

Weiler, in a northerly direction on Tether Keep, a street in a

Virginia Beach residential subdivision. Since there were no

sidewalks on Tether Keep, and debris had been left on the west

side of the street on previous occasions when they had walked on

Tether Keep, the Weilers walked on the east side of the street

1
Justice Whiting prepared the opinion in this case prior to

the effective date of his retirement on August 12, 1995, and the

Court subsequently adopted the opinion.
with their backs toward approaching traffic rather than on the

west side facing traffic, as required by Code § §46.2-928. 2 . Mr.

Weiler was walking almost directly in the gutter, next to the

concrete curb. According to Mr. Weiler, his wife was walking to

his left "directly shoulder to shoulder next to [him]."

The speed limit on Tether Keep was 25 miles per hour and

this flat, relatively straight asphalt street was well-lit by

street lights in the vicinity of the accident. It was a clear

night. Mr. Weiler was wearing a yellow jacket and the plaintiff

was wearing a light-gray sweat shirt.
Megan Dawn Clohessy, the defendant, a 16-year-old student at

Cox High School who had driven her car in a parade at the

football game, stopped the vehicle on Tether Keep just before the

accident to remove balloons that had been attached to the

antenna. When the defendant stopped, she turned off the car's

engine and headlights. Upon restarting the engine, the defendant

noticed that the windshield had become foggy from a mist rising

from the road surface. She turned on her windshield wipers and

defroster in an attempt to clear the windshield. However, the

2
As pertinent, Code 46.2-928 provides that "[p]edestrians

shall not use the roadways for travel, except when necessary to

do so because of the absence of sidewalks [and] [i]f they walk on

the hard surface, . . . they shall keep to the extreme left side

or edge thereof."

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defendant did not turn on the car's headlights again, and drove

down the street at a speed of approximately 35 miles per hour

with a fogged windshield.

The defendant and a teenaged boy who witnessed the accident

estimated that the plaintiff was walking in the street, three to

four feet from the curb. The witness was one of several boys,

some of whom were approximately 25 feet ahead of the Weilers,

also walking from the football game on the east side of Tether

Keep. There were no other pedestrians on Tether Keep at the time

of the accident.
Although the defendant testified that nothing obstructed her

view, she did not see the Weilers walking in the street until her

car was about four feet from the plaintiff. The defendant

swerved her car to her left, but was unable to avoid striking the

plaintiff.

The trial court submitted the issue of the defendant's

willful and wanton negligence to the jury. First, we consider

the defendant's contention that this was error. The following is

the standard to be applied in resolving this issue:
Willful and wanton negligence is acting
consciously in disregard of another person's rights or
acting with reckless indifference to the consequences,
with the defendant aware, from his knowledge of
existing circumstances and conditions, that his conduct
probably would cause injury to another.

Griffin v. Shively, 227 Va. 317, 321, 315 S.E.2d 210, 213 (1984).

The defendant contends the evidence in this case is such

that no reasonable person could conclude that her conduct was

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sufficiently egregious to meet the Griffin standard of willful

and wanton negligence. Hence, the defendant concludes that the

court erred in submitting this issue to the jury.

On the other hand, citing the defendant's negligence in

operating "her vehicle without headlights at night in a

residential area where she knew pedestrians were walking [and in

driving] her automobile in excess of the posted speed limit with

fogged windows and obscured vision," the plaintiff maintains that

the cumulative effect of those acts raised a factual issue of the

defendant's willful and wanton negligence under the Griffin
standard. We disagree with the plaintiff. The facts in this

case do not indicate that the defendant's conduct could be

reasonably considered as anything more culpable than ordinary

negligence.

On brief and in oral argument, the plaintiff's counsel

claimed that the football game had just ended, implying that

numerous pedestrians were walking home in the streets of this

subdivision. However, Mr. Weiler testified that:
Even though the game was over, because Todd [the
Weilers' son] was playing, we typically would wait
until after the game and see him, so almost all of the
game traffic had already left and we were walking down
that street, and it was a very quiet evening, only one
car had passed, as I said.

And the plaintiff testified that there was no one else walking on

the roadway but the boys ahead of the Weilers. Thus, we find no

factual predicate in the record to support the plaintiff's

contention that the defendant "knew pedestrians were walking" in

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the residential area, particularly pedestrians walking on the

wrong side of the street with their backs toward approaching

traffic in violation of Code § 46.2-928.

Hence, the evidence in this case does not support a finding

that the defendant had prior knowledge of specific conditions

that would likely cause injury to others. Compare Huffman v.

Love, 245 Va. 311, 315, 427 S.E.2d 357, 360 (1993) (highly

intoxicated driver's knowledge that continued driving was

dangerous shown in part by earlier collision shortly before

subject collision) and Booth v. Robertson, 236 Va. 269, 270, 272-
73, 374 S.E.2d 1, 1, 2-3 (1988) (highly intoxicated driver's

knowledge that driving wrong way on interstate highway was

dangerous shown in part by near collision with another vehicle

shortly before subject collision) with Hack v. Nester, 241 Va.

499, 506-07, 404 S.E.2d 42, 45 (1991) (no prior accident or

warning of dangerous driving to intoxicated driver before subject

collision). And this case has none of the aspects of willful and

wanton conduct shown in part by (1) the intoxications and prior

incidents giving notice of danger in Huffman and Booth, (2) the
willfulness in Friedman v. Jordan, 166 Va. 65, 68, 184 S.E. 186,

187 (1936) (motorist's intentional collision with bicyclist), or

(3) the grossly excessive speed and erratic driving evident in

Mayo v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 644, 648-49, 238 S.E.2d 831, 831-33

(1977) (driving about twice posted 35 mile-per-hour speed limit

in residential area resulting in involuntary manslaughter

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conviction).

We have said that "each [of these cases] must be determined

`on its own set of facts.'" Huffman, 245 Va. at 315, 427 S.E.2d

at 360. In our opinion, while the facts and circumstances of

this case raise factual issues of the defendant's negligent

operation of her car, they are insufficient to support a finding

that this negligence was so willful, wanton, and reckless as to

show a conscious disregard of the rights of others. Accordingly,

the court erred in submitting that issue to the jury.
Next, we consider the plaintiff's contention that the

defendant must show that the jury's verdict was based on a

finding of willful and wanton negligence rather than ordinary

negligence in order for the error to be prejudicial. However, a

substantial error such as this one "is presumed to be prejudicial

unless it plainly appears that it could not have affected the

result." Spence v. Miller, 197 Va. 477, 482, 90 S.E.2d 131, 135

(1955); see also Dunn v. Strong, 216 Va. 205, 210, 217 S.E.2d

831, 834 (1975); Kimball & Fink v. Borden, 95 Va. 203, 207, 28
S.E. 207, 207 (1897). Thus, the defendant has no burden to show

on which issue the jury returned its verdict.

Nor can we say that submitting the issue of willful and

wanton negligence to the jury "could not have affected the

result" because we are unable to determine on what issue the jury

returned a verdict for the plaintiff. If an issue is erroneously

submitted to a jury, we presume that the jury decided the case

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upon that issue. Green v. Ruffin, 141 Va. 628, 641, 125 S.E.

742, 746 (1924); see also Gardner v. Phipps, 250 Va. ___, ___

S.E.2d ___ (1995)(this day decided); Ring v. Poelman, 240 Va.

323, 328, 397 S.E.2d 824, 827 (1990). And if the verdict was

based on the defendant's willful and wanton negligence, we

presume that the jury did not consider the issue of the

plaintiff's alleged contributory negligence, because of the trial

court's instruction that "[a] defendant who is guilty of willful

and wanton negligence cannot rely upon contributory negligence as

a defense." Since the defendant was entitled to have the jury

consider the issue of the plaintiff's contributory negligence as

a bar to her ordinary negligence claim, we conclude that the

defendant was prejudiced by the instructions on willful and

wanton negligence and that the case will have to be remanded for

a new trial.
Because the issue may arise upon a new trial, we finally

consider the defendant's contention that the court erred in

granting Instruction 16 on the issue of the plaintiff's
3
contributory negligence. Instruction 16 provided:
When the negligence of the defendant is the
proximate cause of the accident and that of the
plaintiff the remote cause, the plaintiff may recover

3
On oral argument, the defendant abandoned her contention

that the court erred in failing to instruct the jury that the

plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of

law. Hence, we do not consider that issue.

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 notwithstanding the plaintiff's negligence. It is the
immediate or proximate cause which directly produces
the accident, injury or damage, not the remote cause
which may have antecedently contributed to it.

The plaintiff argues that Instruction 16 was proper since it

"was taken directly from the language in Thomas v. Settle, 247

Va. 15, 20, 439 S.E.2d 360, 363 (1994)." Although Instruction 16

correctly states the law, it is simply another example of "the

danger of the indiscriminate use of language from appellate

opinions in a jury instruction; a danger often referred to in our

opinions." Blondel v. Hays, 241 Va. 467, 474, 403 S.E.2d 340,

344 (1991).

The language in Instruction 16 was used in Thomas to explain

why the violation of a statute regulating traffic was not a

proximate cause of the accident as a matter of law. It was not

written as a definition or explanation of remote cause. As such,

"[i]t was appellate language, used to explain a point and not

intended to be employed in an instruction." National Union Fire

Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania v. Bruce, 208 Va. 595, 601,

159 S.E.2d 815, 820 (1968).

In Bruce, we held that after giving the traditional
definition of gross negligence in an instruction, the trial court

should not have further expounded upon gross negligence in

language that was argumentative, confusing, and misleading to the

jury. Id. Similarly, in this case, the court correctly defined

proximate cause in Instruction 15, which provided:
A proximate cause of an accident, injury, or
damage is a cause which in natural and continuous

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 sequence produces the accident, injury, or damage. It
is a cause without which the accident, injury, or
damage would not have occurred.

In its attempt to further explain the concept of proximate cause

in Instruction 16, the court introduced the principle of remote

cause and used language that could have confused and misled the

jury. Since we conclude that Instruction 16 was erroneous and

prejudicial to the defendant, it should not have been given.

Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment and remand the

case for a new trial.

Reversed and remanded.

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