Scott v. Simms
| Decision Date | 10 January 1949 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 3409. |
| Citation | 188 Va. 808 |
| Parties | JOHN W. SCOTT, JR., ET AL. v. L. F. SIMMS, ADMR., ETC. |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Present, Hudgins, C.J., and Gregory, Eggleston, Buchanan, Staples and Miller, JJ.
1. AUTOMOBILES — Negligence — Parking in Violation of Ordinance — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by an administrator for the death of his decedent, a child, who was killed following the collision at a street intersection of an automobile and truck behind an automobile alleged to have been illegally parked. The operators of the three vehicles were sued on the ground that death was caused by their concurring negligence. An ordinance prohibited parking a vehicle in such manner as to impede or interfere with or render dangerous the use of the streets by others, or in such manner as to obstruct the passage of other traffic, or upon any crossing. The evidence showed that the parked automobile had been left with its rear extending four feet beyond the curb of the street into the traveled part of the intersection. The jury returned a verdict against all three defendants, but the trial court set aside the verdict against the owner of the parked automobile and entered judgment in his favor.
Held: That if the ordinance was violated defendant was guilty of negligence and the manner in which the automobile was parked violated the ordinance in more than one particular. Parking an automobile at a street corner so that four feet of it struck out into one of the intersecting streets certainly might be said to interfere with, or render dangerous, the use of the intersecting street by others, as well as to obstruct the orderly and lawful passage of other traffic, besides causing it to be upon the crossing.
2. NEGLIGENCE — Must Be Proximate Cause of Injury — Question of Proximate Cause Is One of Fact. — The question of proximate cause, or whether there is causal connection between negligence and accident, is a question of fact. Its existence or non-existence becomes a question of law only when the evidence is such that there can be no difference in the judgment of reasonable men as to the inferences to be drawn from it. When questions of fact are to be ascertained from evidence, there are cases in which the state of the evidence is such that the absence of proximate cause is so apparent that the court is required so to hold as matter of law, and there are cases where the presence of proximate cause is so demonstrated by the evidence that it exists as matter of law. The cases that fall between those two classes are within the province of the jury. There is no yardstick by which every case may be measured and fitted into its proper place. In each the problem is to be solved upon mixed considerations of logic, common sense, justice, policy and precedent.
3. NEGLIGENCE — Proximate Cause Defined — Result Must Be Natural and Probable Consequence and Foreseeable in Light of Circumstances. — A frequently quoted definition of proximate cause is that it is a cause "which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred", but it is generally held that, in order to warrant a finding that negligence, or any act not amounting to wanton wrong, is the proximate cause of an injury, it must appear that the injury was the natural and probable consequence of the negligence or wrongful act, and that it ought to have been foreseen in the light of the attending circumstances.
4. NEGLIGENCE — No Liability Where Injury Was Caused by Intervening Act of Another — Intervening Act Must Not Be Foreseeable. — An intervening cause relied upon as interrupting the sequence of events following a negligent act must not itself be a happening that ought to have been foreseen. It will not be deemed to have broken the causal connection if the intervening cause was foreseen or reasonably might have been foreseen by the wrongdoer.
5. NEGLIGENCE — Proximate Cause Defined — Result Must Be Foreseeable But Particular Injury Need Not Be. — In order for a defendant's negligence to be a proximate cause of the injury, it is not necessary that the defendant should have foreseen the precise injury that happened. It is sufficient if an ordinary, careful and prudent person ought, under the circumstances, to have foreseen that an injury might probably result from the negligent act.
6. AUTOMOBILES — Negligence — Sufficiency of Evidence to Infer Causal Connection between Negligent Act and Injury — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by an administrator for the death of his decedent, a child, who was killed following the collision at a street intersection of an automobile and truck behind an automobile that was parked with its rear extending four feet beyond the curb of the street into the traveled part of the intersection. The operators of the three vehicles were sued on the ground that the death was caused by their concurring negligence. Evidence was introduced to show that the child had to go behind the parked automobile to cross the street at the intersection, that she had to cross the street to go home, and that she was standing behind the automobile, looking and waiting for traffic to go by, when the collision occurred. She was either struck by the automobile involved in the collision as it rebounded, or crushed between it and the parked automobile. The jury returned a verdict against all three defendants, but the trial court set aside the verdict against the owner of the parked automobile and entered judgment in his favor.
Held: Error. The fair inferences from the evidence were not so free of doubt as to permit the trial court to decide as a matter of law that there was no causal connection between the negligence of defendant and the injury. There was evidence from which the jury could conclude that the child intended to cross the street; that except for the presence of the parked car she could have stood on the sidewalk and there in safety have looked and waited for the passing traffic; and that the negligence of defendant forced her from a place of safety into a place of danger, where she might be injured by colliding cars, because such collisions were not extraordinary occurrences at the intersection of busy thoroughfares. The jury could also have fairly inferred that if she had not been prevented by the parked car from proceeding straight across the street she would not have been struck or crushed. In view of these permissible inferences the negligence of the other defendants resulting in the collision was not a superseding cause, but a concurring cause combining with the continuing negligence of defendant to produce the result.
7. NEGLIGENCE — Negligent Act Is Proximate Cause if Efficient or Concurring Cause of Injury. — If a defendant's active force has come to rest, but in a dangerous position, creating a new or increasing an existing risk of loss, and the foreseen danger comes to pass, operating harmfully on the condition created by defendant and causing the risked loss, the injury thereby created is a proximate consequence of defendant's act.
8. NEGLIGENCE — Whether Event Is Proximate Cause Is for Jury. — In the nature of things, there is in every transaction which results in negligent injury a succession of events, more or less dependent upon those preceding, and it is the province of a jury to look at this succession of events or facts, and ascertain whether they are naturally and probably connected with each other by a continuous sequence, or are dissevered by new and independent agencies, and this must be determined in view of the circumstances existing at the time.
9. NEGLIGENCE — In Determining Liability for Negligence Each Case Must Stand on Its Own Facts — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by an administrator for the death of his decedent, who was killed following the collision at a street intersection of an automobile and truck behind an automobile that was allegedly parked illegally. The question for determination by the Supreme Court of Appeals was whether the operator of the parked automobile was guilty of negligence, and if so, whether his negligence proximately contributed to the accident.
Held: That it was not necessary for the Supreme Court of Appeals to review the great number of its own decisions and undertake to point out the distinguishing features of those in which a conclusion was reached contrary to the decision of the instant case, but that each case must stand on its own facts.
10. AUTOMOBILES — Negligence — Instruction As To Violation of Parking Ordinance — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by an administrator for the death of his decedent, a child, who was killed following the collision at a street intersection of an automobile and truck behind an automobile alleged to have been illegally parked. An ordinance prohibited parking a vehicle in such manner as to impede or interfere with or render dangerous the use of the streets by others, or in such manner as to obstruct the passage of other traffic. The evidence showed that the parked automobile had been left with its rear extending four feet beyond the curb of the street into the traveled part of the intersection. The trial court instructed the jury that if defendant parked his car "within the traveled pathway of" the particular street and thereby proximately caused or contributed to the death of the child, they should find against defendant. Defendant objected to this instruction on the ground that the evidence did not show the car was so parked or what part of the street constituted its traveled pathway, because, while there was no curb line on the part of the street in question, if the line of the curbing on the same street across the intersection was projected, it would be so located that the rear of his car would have been in a space which must be considered a sidewalk.
Held: That defendan...
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