Lucas v. Riverhill Poultry, Inc.

• Decision Date: 01 July 2021
• Docket Number: Record No. 200336
• Citation: 300 Va. 78,860 S.E.2d 361
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Crystal LUCAS, Administrator of the Estate of Mark Lucas v. RIVERHILL POULTRY, INC., et al.

300 Va. 78

860 S.E.2d 361

Crystal LUCAS, Administrator of the Estate of Mark Lucas

v.RIVERHILL POULTRY, INC., et al.

Record No. 200336

Supreme Court of Virginia.

JULY 1, 2021

Richard N. Shapiro, Virginia Beach, (Eric K. Washburn ; Shapiro, Appleton & Washburn, on briefs), for appellant.

Joshua D. Goad (Jason R. Whiting ; Johnson, Ayers & Matthews, on brief), Roanoke, for appellees.

PRESENT: Lemons, C.J., Goodwyn, Mims, Kelsey, McCullough, and Chafin, JJ., and Millette, S.J.

OPINION BY SENIOR JUSTICE LEROY F. MILLETTE, JR.

This appeal arises from a defense verdict in a jury trial for an alleged wrongful death occurring in an unexplained single-vehicle accident in which both occupants perished. The plaintiff Crystal Lucas is the Administrator of the Estate of Mark Lucas (the "Administrator") and the defendants are Riverhill Poultry, Incorporated ("Riverhill") and Amy B. Goode ("Goode"), the Administrator of the Estate of Gerald Hilliard. The plaintiff contended that Hilliard fell asleep at the wheel of his tractor-trailer thereby causing the accident that killed a passenger in the vehicle, Mark Lucas. The defendants asserted that Lucas was the driver. We consider whether the circuit court erred (i) in excluding portions of the medical examiner's autopsy report and the plaintiff's experts’ opinions regarding the identity of the driver and Hilliard's alleged sleep disorder and (ii) in refusing the plaintiff's proffered jury instruction on falling asleep at the wheel. For the reasons explained below, we will affirm the circuit court's judgment.

BACKGROUND

Just before 7 a.m. on February 15, 2017, a farm-use tractor-trailer owned by Riverhill left its lane of travel on Interstate 81 southbound in Rockbridge County and rolled down an embankment, killing Lucas and Hilliard. Riverhill employed Hilliard as a truck driver to transport chicken waste fertilizer. Lucas, a friend and neighbor of Hilliard, accompanied Hilliard in the tractor-trailer on the day in question.

The Administrator filed a complaint against Riverhill and Goode (collectively "Defendants"), seeking damages for wrongful death. The Administrator alleged that Lucas was a passenger in the tractor-trailer and that Hilliard failed to exercise reasonable care in its operation; failed to keep it under proper control; and fell asleep, due to lack of proper rest, while operating the vehicle causing it to leave the roadway and roll over. She alleged that Hilliard's negligence was a proximate cause of Lucas's death and the beneficiaries’ losses, including medical, funeral, and burial expenses; Lucas's reasonably expected income, services, protection, care, and assistance; and Lucas's "society, companionship, comfort, guidance, kindly offices and advice." Riverhill disputed that Hilliard was driving the tractor-trailer and contended instead that Lucas was driving. Alternatively, Riverhill asserted that if Hilliard was driving the tractor-trailer, he was not negligent.

Prior to trial, the circuit court granted defense motions to exclude the Administrator's proffered expert testimony from the attending medical examiner, Hilliard's family physician, a neurologist, and a trucking safety professional as well as portions of the medical examiner's autopsy report on Hilliard. At the beginning of trial, the Administrator proffered the excluded testimony from her experts as well as the medical examiner's materials. She made no other motions or arguments related to the excluded evidence during the trial. At the close of the evidence, the Administrator proffered the following jury instruction: "A person who falls asleep while driving is negligent." In support of her proffer, the Administrator argued that "we think that the evidence could have put the inference forward that the driver fell asleep because there was no evasive action until it was too late."¹ The circuit court refused the instruction. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants.

We awarded the Administrator this appeal. She assigns the following errors to the circuit court's judgment, which we will address in turn.

1. The trial court erroneously excluded laboratory and manner of death evidence from the Commonwealth's Assistant Chief Medical examiner's report, as well as supportive expert testimony from the Assistant Chief Medical Examiner.

2. The trial court erroneously excluded all testimony of truck driver Hilliard's family medicine physician about his sleep disorder, and later also refused the ‘falling asleep at the wheel’ Virginia model jury instruction.

3. The trial court erroneously excluded all expert neurological testimony on sleep disorders and fatigue (Dr. Hansen) and all expert truck safety testimony (Mr. Crawford) involving scientific findings and discussion of truck driver-fatigue and distracted driving.

DISCUSSION

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR 1

Medical Examiner's Report and Expert Testimony

Dr. Sara Ohanessian, the Assistant Chief Medical Examiner at the Roanoke Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, performed an autopsy on Hilliard. She concluded the cause of Hilliard's death was "Blunt Force Trauma of Head

" and the manner of death was "Accident." Her autopsy report included the following "Summary of Circumstances:"

This 68-year-old decedent was driving a 2004 Kenworth tractor trailer on I-81 in Virginia with a passenger. The vehicle reportedly ran off the road, struck a guardrail, struck an embankment, and then overturned. A call to 911 was made for assistance and police/rescue responded to the scene where the driver and passenger ... were pronounced dead. It was reported that both decedents were unrestrained. The medical examiner's office was notified, and the decedents were transported to WOCME for examination."

A forensic analysis of Hilliard's postmortem blood revealed that certain medications were present.

In her pre-trial deposition, Dr. Ohanessian testified that some of the medications found in Hilliard's blood were drowsiness-inducing medications typically taken as sleep aids. She also testified that, in addition to her physical examination of Hilliard's body, she relied on the final report from the state police to conclude that Hilliard was driving the tractor-trailer at the time of the crash. She added that the photographs of the accident scene showing Hilliard situated between the driver and passenger seats in the cab of the tractor-trailer with his left hand on the steering wheel also informed her conclusion that Hilliard was the driver. Dr. Ohanessian acknowledged on cross-examination that she had relied on the police report to "tell [her] who ... was driving in this case" and that she was neither trained nor expected to recreate automobile accidents or make final conclusions about what object or mechanism may have caused the blunt force trauma to Hilliard's head. She agreed she could only speculate about what occurred. Dr. Ohanessian also acknowledged that she could only speculate about whether Hilliard suffered any adverse reactions to any of the medications found in his blood or whether he was awake or asleep at the time the vehicle left the roadway. She confirmed that once she determined the cause and manner of death, her duties were complete.

I. Statutory Construction of Code § 8.01-390.2

First, the Administrator contends that the circuit court erred as a matter of law in excluding the Summary of Circumstances and the toxicology report because it was contrary to Code § 8.01-390.2. That statute provides:

Reports of investigations made by the Chief Medical Examiner, his assistants or medical examiners, and the records and certified reports of autopsies made under the authority of Title 32.1, shall be received as evidence in any court or other proceeding, and copies of photographs, laboratory findings and reports in the office of the Chief Medical Examiner or any medical examiner, when duly attested by the Chief Medical Examiner or an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner, shall be received as evidence in any court or other proceeding for any purpose for which the original could be received without proof of the official character or the person whose name is signed thereto.

The Administrator argues that the statute plainly provides that a medical examiner's reports of investigations and copies of laboratory findings "shall be received as evidence." She submits that the lack of any limiting language in the statute relating to hearsay testimony reflects that the General Assembly understood that a medical examiner's report by its very nature derives from hearsay, such as reports from first responders and third-party forensic laboratories. Therefore, although Dr. Ohanessian based the opinions in her Summary of Circumstances on the police report, accident photographs and the location of Hilliard's body in the cab of the tractor-trailer, rather than her personal knowledge of these facts, the Administrator argues that it did not warrant the circuit court's exclusion. Similarly, she contends that the laboratory findings were plainly admissible under the statute. The Administrator also argues that the laboratory results were relevant because, along with Dr. Ohanessian's supporting testimony, they demonstrated that Hilliard had knowingly ingested drowsiness-inducing medications, which was relevant to her theory that Hilliard fell asleep at the wheel.

Alleged errors involving statutory interpretation or application present questions of law that we review de novo on appeal. Conyers v. Martial Arts World of Richmond, Inc. , 273 Va. 96, 104, 639 S.E.2d 174 (2007). We are bound by "the plain language of a statute unless the terms are ambiguous or applying the plain language would lead to an absurd result." Boynton v. Kilgore , 271 Va. 220, 227, 623 S.E.2d 922 (2006) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

Although this is the first occasion on which we consider Code § 8.01-390.2, we have on several occasions construed and applied Code § 19.2-188, which is the materially identical criminal counterpart of Code § 8.01-390.2....