King v. Pagliaro Bros. Stone Co.

• Decision Date: 18 December 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-CV-330.,95-CV-330.
• Citation: 703 A.2d 1232
• Parties: Mildred M. KING, Appellant, v. PAGLIARO BROTHERS STONE COMPANY and Leonard Pagliaro, Appellees.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

703 A.2d 1232

Mildred M. KING, Appellant, v. PAGLIARO BROTHERS STONE COMPANY and Leonard Pagliaro, Appellees.

No. 95-CV-330.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued May 16, 1996.

Decided December 18, 1997.

Brian W. Shaughnessy, Washington, DC, for appellant.

D. Elizabeth Walker, Rockville, MD, for appellees.

Before WAGNER, Chief Judge, and TERRY and RUIZ, Associate Judges.

TERRY, Associate Judge:

This is a negligence case in which the trial court directed a verdict in favor of the defendants. Appellant contends that the trial court erred when it took the issue of negligence away from the jury. We agree and reverse.

I

On November 9, 1990, at approximately 11:30 a.m., Mildred King was riding in a car driven by her husband, Robert King. They were traveling east on Benning Road, N.E., when Mrs. King looked out the window and noticed a truck rapidly approaching their car from behind. She did not mention the truck to her husband because she "didn't want ... to startle him." However, "the next thing she knew," the truck was directly behind the Kings' car, and at that time Mrs. King saw that the driver was talking on a car phone. Suddenly the truck struck the Kings' car from behind. Mrs. King immediately felt a pain in her neck and "numbness" in her body, but she managed to unfasten her seat belt and get out of the car. At trial Mrs. King identified the driver of the truck as Leonard Pagliaro.

Police cars and an ambulance soon arrived, and Mrs. King was taken to Howard University Hospital.¹ There she was treated for her injuries, given pain medication, and released for further treatment by her own doctor. She testified that she suffered continuing pain for some time thereafter and described the treatment she received, for which she accrued approximately $10,870 in medical bills.

Robert King testified that he was "in the middle of traffic" on Benning Road, "and the traffic was slowing down." As he began to come to a stop, his car was struck in the rear by the Pagliaro truck. He was not injured, but his wife complained of pain in her back, so he took her to the hospital as soon as he could after the accident. The Kings' car suffered some rear-end damage.

Leonard Pagliaro, called as a witness by Mrs. King, admitted that he was driving the Pagliaro Brothers company truck when it struck the Kings' car in the rear. He was about twenty-five feet behind that car when its brake lights, which had been on, went off. He continued to drive about thirty miles per hour, "keeping up with traffic," when suddenly he saw Mr. King's brake lights go on again. He tried to drive around the Kings' car, but his front bumper "grazed Mr. King's passenger side rear bumper." He admitted that he did not attempt to stop his truck to avoid hitting the Kings' car; rather, he "tried to steer around Mr. King." He also admitted that there was a car phone in his truck, but he denied that he was talking on the phone in the moments immediately before Mr. King slammed on the brakes. Mr. Pagliaro described the traffic on Benning Road as "light" and said he saw nothing in front of Mr. King that would have caused him to stop suddenly.

Mrs. King filed this suit against both Leonard Pagliaro and Pagliaro Brothers Stone Company, the owner of the truck. At trial, counsel for Mrs. King maintained that the fact that Mr. Pagliaro was talking on the telephone when he ran into the rear of the Kings' car showed that he breached his duty to give his full time and attention to his driving. At the close of the plaintiff's case, however, the trial court granted the defendants' motion for directed verdict, citing this court's decision in Pazmino v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 638 A.2d 677 (D.C.1994). The court based its ruling on Mrs. King's failure to introduce traffic regulations in order to establish a standard of care, her failure to present specific evidence concerning the speed of the Pagliaro truck as it approached the Kings' car, and her failure to establish a direct causal relationship between Mr. Pagliaro's alleged talking on the phone and the negligence claimed. The court entered judgment for the defendants, and Mrs. King noted this appeal.

II

The trial court correctly cited Pazmino v. WMATA, supra, as articulating the legal principles applicable to this case. Where the court erred was in applying those principles to the evidence before the jury.

In discussing the weaknesses of the plaintiff's case, the court stressed that counsel for Mrs. King² had not introduced or proffered traffic regulations to establish the applicable standard of care, noting that the "general principles" governing a driver's duty of care to avoid collisions "are reflected in traffic regulations." See Pazmino, 638 A.2d at 679. But neither Pazmino nor any other case requires that such regulations be introduced in evidence (although that is often done) in order to establish negligence. The central factor underlying our decision in Pazmino is the strict standard of review by which we assess directed verdicts. Id. at 678; see, e.g., Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Jones, 443 A.2d 45, 50 (D.C.1982) (en banc); Corley v. BP Oil Corp., 402 A.2d 1258, 1263 (D.C.1979). "If it is possible to derive conflicting inferences from the evidence, the trial judge should allow the case to go to the jury." Shannon & Luchs Co. v. Tindal, 415 A.2d 805, 807 (D.C.1980); accord, e.g., Robinson v. Group Health Ass'n, 691 A.2d 1147, 1150 (D.C.1997).

In Pazmino, as in this case, the trial judge entered a directed verdict in favor of the defendant. In reversing that decision, we held that "a directed verdict is proper only if there is no evidentiary foundation, including all rational inferences from the evidence, by which a reasonable juror could find for the party opposing the motion, considering all the evidence in the light most favorable to that party." 638 A.2d at 678 (emphasis added). We have also made clear that a directed verdict should be entered "only in extreme instances," District of Columbia v. Cooper, 445 A.2d 652, 655 (D.C.1982), when there are "absolutely no facts or circumstances from which a jury could reasonably find negligence...."...