Erica Rakia Evans v. Commonwealth of Virginia ( 2024 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
PUBLISHED
Present: Chief Judge Decker, Judges Malveaux and Raphael
Argued at Williamsburg, Virginia
ERICA RAKIA EVANS
OPINION BY
v. Record No. 1996-23-1 JUDGE STUART A. RAPHAEL
NOVEMBER 19, 2024
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF SUFFOLK
Robert H. Sandwich, Jr., Judge
Eric Weathers, Assistant Public Defender (Kelsey Bulger, Deputy
Appellate Counsel; Virginia Indigent Defense Commission, on
briefs), for appellant.
Brooke I. Hettig, Assistant Attorney General (Jason S. Miyares,
Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Appealing her conviction for felony hit-and-run, Erica Rakia Evans claims that the
Commonwealth failed to prove that she was “involved” in the accident within the meaning of
Code § 46.2-894. She also argues that she satisfied any obligation she might have had to help
“any person injured in such accident,” id. (emphasis added), because she helped one of the four
people who were hurt. Rejecting both claims, we affirm her conviction.
BACKGROUND
We view the facts in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the party that
prevailed at trial. Camann v. Commonwealth, 79 Va. App. 427, 431 (2024) (en banc). “Doing
so requires that we ‘discard’ the defendant’s evidence when it conflicts with the
Commonwealth’s evidence, ‘regard as true all the credible evidence favorable to the
Commonwealth,’ and read ‘all fair inferences’ in the Commonwealth’s favor.” Id. (quoting
Commonwealth v. Cady, 300 Va. 325, 329 (2021)).
In the middle of the night on October 3, 2020, Evans left home in search of her live-in
boyfriend, Dameyon Wilson. Evans was eight months pregnant with their third child. Wilson
had left while she was asleep. He drove away in a sport-utility vehicle that Evans had rented, a
white Dodge Durango. Wilson did not have her permission to take the Durango. Nor did he
have a driver’s license.
Spotting the Durango in downtown Suffolk, Evans followed him. Three female
passengers were in the Durango with him—Auriona M. (age 19), her younger sister A.M. (age
17), and A.M.’s best friend, J.J. (age 19).1 Wilson had invited the women to ride with him to a
Wawa, promising to buy them snacks. When they got into the Durango, Wilson was drunk and
smelled of alcohol. Shortly into the ride, as Evans repeatedly called Wilson, the women noticed
that Evans’s name kept “popping up” on the Durango’s infotainment screen connected by
Bluetooth to Wilson’s phone. The women also noticed that they were being followed by a white
Volkswagen Passat. Wilson told them that Evans was driving the Volkswagen.
Wilson changed direction and “started driving real fast,” but Evans tailed him. Evans
drove “bumper-to-bumper” behind the Durango. The women all testified that they were scared.
They begged Wilson to stop and let them out, but he said he couldn’t do that with Evans so close
behind. So he kept driving “really fast.” Wilson would accelerate to get away, but Evans caught
up each time. Auriona testified that Evans was “right there on us” each time. A.M. testified that
Evans was “acting crazy.” As the women begged to be let out, Wilson turned up the music and
told them to “sit back.” The women all fastened their seatbelts.
The chase lasted for about an hour until the accident at issue here. Evans followed
Wilson onto Hozier Road, a dark and curvy road with no streetlights. After several “twist[s] and
1
We omit the victims’ identities to protect their privacy.
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turns,” Auriona felt a “lunge,” as if Evans had “pushed the car.” J.J. too felt the Durango “being
knocked off the road” from behind. A.M. testified that she “heard a loud bang” from the back.
As Wilson lost control, the Durango flipped over three or four times on its side, hit a tree,
and landed upside down in a ditch. Photographs introduced into evidence depicted what was left
of it:
The four occupants survived, but they were all injured. One by one, they crawled out through
the Durango’s shattered rear window.
As they got to their feet, Evans drove past them and made a U-turn to come back,
stopping across the street from the wreckage. Evans got out of her Volkswagen and asked
Wilson, “Was it worth it? Was it really f---ing worth it?” Then she opened a door to the
Volkswagen and told Wilson to “get [his] stupid ass in the car.”
Wilson had suffered a gash to his face, and his lip was bleeding. But he obeyed. After
Wilson limped over and got into her car, Evans drove off. Evans said nothing to the women she
left behind. Auriona testified that she was wearing shorts and her knees were “visibly” injured,
being “all banged up” from the accident and from having to crawl over broken glass to get out.
Auriona used her phone to call 911. The audio recording of that call was introduced into
evidence. Auriona, audibly distraught, reported that her legs were bleeding, that her sister’s ribs
were hurting, and that Evans had chased them around Suffolk. Auriona said that Wilson was
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drunk and had tried to get away from Evans. All three women were taken by ambulance to a
hospital for treatment.
In addition to scratches and bruises, Auriona suffered a whiplash injury to her neck that
required three months of physical therapy. A.M. suffered an injury to her wrist, hurt “all over,”
and required two months of physical therapy. J.J.’s back and neck hurt and her arm felt as if it
were “broken in half,” requiring her to wear a brace for two months.
Evans was charged with felony hit-and-run, reckless driving, and three counts of
attempted malicious wounding. The case was tried by a jury in February 2023. After the
prosecution presented the evidence described above, Evans moved to strike, arguing (among
other things) that the prosecution failed to prove that Evans caused the accident. Though the
three women passengers testified to having “felt something,” none of them had seen the
Volkswagen strike the Durango, and the Durango showed no damage to its rear bumper. Evans
blamed Wilson for the accident, arguing that he was driving drunk, speeding, and had refused to
stop to let the women out. Evans also claimed that she had provided reasonable assistance to
Wilson. The trial court denied the motion.
Wilson, Evans, and Evans’s neighbor then testified for the defense. Evans’s neighbor,
Sherrie Holland, said she had examined the Volkswagen the day after the accident and
photographed it several days later. Holland did not see any damage, and her photographs did not
show any damage to the front bumper:
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The photographs did not show the date they were taken.
In his testimony, Wilson confirmed that he had consumed two or three shots of Hennessy
before getting into the Durango and meeting the three women. But he claimed that A.M. was
driving the Durango at first. After Evans spotted them, Wilson said he told A.M. to speed up.
He knew that Evans “wasn’t going to be too happy” because he had taken the Durango without
her permission and was driving around “with three other women.”
Wilson said that, at some point, he and A.M. switched places while the Durango was
moving, putting Wilson in the driver’s seat again. Wilson admitted that he had been “trying to
outrun” Evans and “trying to lose her.” He said that the accident happened because he was
“going too fast” and swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle driving toward him in his lane,
causing the Durango to flip over. Wilson admitted on cross-examination that he had been
previously convicted of six felonies.
For her part, Evans testified that she went looking for Wilson out of concern that he “was
out drinking, drunk, [and] crying over [their] son,” who had passed away. When Evans spotted
the car, she claimed that a woman was driving whom she only later learned was A.M. Evans
said that A.M. had “smirked” before speeding away. Because Evans could not see anyone else
in the Durango, and since Wilson wasn’t answering her calls, Evans followed it. Evans insisted
that she never got closer than 20 feet from the Durango and that her speed never exceeded 55
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miles per hour. Evans said that she saw the Durango swerve to miss another vehicle and then
flip over several times.
Evans admitted to driving past the wreckage and making a U-turn to come back. She
also admitted to asking, “Was it worth it?,” though she claimed to have directed that question to
A.M., not Wilson. Evans admitted ordering Wilson to get in her car, but she claimed that “he
was the one [who] was visibly injured.” He was limping and “discombobulated.” Evans said
that she planned to take him to the hospital, but he refused. So she drove him to the home of her
brother—an emergency medical technician—who examined him.
Evans excused her failure to assist the three women by saying she didn’t know “what
they [were] capable of.” Evans worried that she was “too . . . pregnant” to defend herself against
those “three girls.” And after seeing that one of them had a phone, Evans figured that they could
“assist themselves.” Evans admitted that she never reported the accident to the police.
Evans renewed her motion to strike at the close of all evidence. She argued that her
distance from the Durango, the absence of damage to either her front bumper or the Durango’s
rear bumper, and Wilson’s swerving to avoid another car, proved that she was not a proximate
cause of the accident. The trial court again denied the motion. Although the jury acquitted
Evans of the attempted malicious-wounding charges, it found her guilty of felony hit-and-run.2
The trial court denied her motion to set aside the guilty verdict. Evans was sentenced to one year
of incarceration, suspended for one year on condition of good behavior and no contact with the
three women. Evans noted a timely appeal.
2
The jury deadlocked on the reckless-driving charge, which the trial court dismissed after
declaring a mistrial on that indictment.
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ANALYSIS
As cars became increasingly commonplace in the 20th century, States began enacting so-
called “hit-and-run” statutes. See Hit-and-Run Statute, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024).
Such laws require “a motorist involved in an accident to remain at the scene and to give certain
information to the police and others involved.” Id. Virginia enacted its first hit-and-run statute
in 1922. See 1922 Va. Acts ch. 407.
Our current hit-and-run statute is Code § 46.2-894. It imposes three categories of
obligations on “[t]he driver of any vehicle involved in an accident in which a person is killed or
injured or in which an attended vehicle or other attended property is damaged.” Code
§ 46.2-894. These duties apply regardless of “whether the collision was intentional or
unintentional.” Milazzo v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 734, 738 (2008). First, the driver must “stop
as close to the scene of the accident as possible without obstructing traffic.” Code § 46.2-894.
Second, the driver must “report his name, address, driver’s license number, and vehicle
registration number forthwith” to certain specified persons. Id. That information must be
reported “to the State Police or local law-enforcement agency, to the person struck and injured if
such person appears to be capable of understanding and retaining the information, or to the driver
or some other occupant of the vehicle collided with or to the custodian of other damaged
property.”3 Id. And third, the driver must “render reasonable assistance to any person injured in
3
We said in Eubanks v. Commonwealth, 18 Va. App. 537 (1994), that this list was
“expressed disjunctively,” so that reporting to any one of the listed recipients satisfied the
statutory reporting requirement. Id. at 541. But that question remains open in the Supreme
Court. Compare Butcher v. Commonwealth, 298 Va. 392, 398 (2020) (Kelsey, J.) (plurality
opinion) (“Offering no opinion on the competing conjunctive/disjunctive interpretations of the
statute, . . . we vacate the portion of the opinion of the Court of Appeals addressing that
debate.”), with id. at 404 (McCullough, J., concurring in the judgment) (concluding that the
statute “imposes a conjunctive reporting requirement”), id. at 405 (Mims, J., concurring in the
judgment) (agreeing that the statute “imposes a conjunctive requirement”), and id. at 408
(Koontz, SJ., concurring in the judgment) (rejecting the “conjunctive construction of the statute”
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such accident, including taking such injured person to a physician, surgeon, or hospital if it is
apparent that medical treatment is necessary or is requested by the injured person.” Id.
The duties to stop, report, and render aid are “written in the conjunctive.” O’Connell v.
Commonwealth, 48 Va. App. 719, 733 (2006). The prosecution “can establish [a defendant’s]
guilt by proving [that the defendant] failed to perform any one of [those three] duties under the
statute.” Id.Evans argues that the Commonwealth failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she
was a driver “involved” in a motor vehicle accident. She claims that she was not a proximate
cause of the accident, let alone that her Volkswagen rear-ended the Durango. Assuming that she
did cause the accident, Evans claims that she satisfied the requirement to render aid by taking
Wilson for treatment while leaving the three other passengers behind. She reasons that the
requirement in Code § 46.2-894 to assist “any person injured” is met by helping just one of
several persons who are hurt. Finally, she claims that she met the reporting requirement, either
because she reported her identifying information to the rental-car company, because she herself
was the Durango’s custodian, or because the prosecution failed to prove that she failed to
disclose the required information to Wilson. See supra note 3.
A. The evidence sufficed to prove that Evans was “involved” in a motor vehicle
accident.
“When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, ‘[t]he judgment of the trial court is
presumed correct and will not be disturbed unless it is plainly wrong or without evidence to
support it.’” McGowan v. Commonwealth, 72 Va. App. 513, 521 (2020) (alteration in original)
(quoting Smith v. Commonwealth, 296 Va. 450, 460 (2018)). The relevant question is whether,
after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party below, “any
because it “unduly requires the involvement of law enforcement authorities in so-called fender
bender cases”). We do not reach that question here. See infra note 5.
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rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable
doubt.” O’Connell, 48 Va. App. at 726 (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)).
That standard “gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in
the testimony,” weigh evidence, and draw “reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate
facts.” Doggett v. Commonwealth, 66 Va. App. 219, 225 (2016) (quoting Jackson, 443 U.S. at
319).
Controlling authority makes clear that a driver is “involved in an accident” within the
meaning of Code § 46.2-894 when there is “physical contact between the driver’s vehicle and
another vehicle, person, or object, or the driver of a motor vehicle [is] a proximate cause of an
accident.” Robinson v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 45, 53 (2007). The jury instruction here
conformed to that standard and followed the model instruction. See Model Jury Instrs.—Crim.
No. 32.300.
Evans argues that the photographs of the Volkswagen’s pristine front bumper
conclusively refute the prosecution’s theory that Evans rear-ended the Durango. She notes that
such “physical facts may overcome testimony when ‘established by uncontroverted evidence, or
by evidence so clearly preponderating as to make existence of such facts unmistakable.’” See
Evans Br. 17-19 (quoting Woodson v. Germas, 200 Va. 205, 210 (1958)). In response, the
Commonwealth points to the consistent testimony of the three women that they felt a jolt from
the rear and felt the Durango lurch forward. The Commonwealth offered a theory to explain the
absence of damage to the Volkswagen’s front bumper: Evans was tailing the Durango at such a
high speed that a small differential in their relative speeds allowed Evans to nudge the Durango
out of control without leaving a mark on the Volkswagen’s bumper. Alternatively, the
Commonwealth opined for the first time at oral argument here that the jury could have
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discredited Holland’s photographs because Holland was Evans’s friend and could have
photographed the bumper after it had been repaired.
We need not resolve that disagreement or engage in speculation. We assume without
deciding that Holland’s photographs proved that Evans’s Volkswagen did not make physical
contact with the Durango. Even so, the evidence taken in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth sufficed for the jury to find that Evans was “a proximate cause” of the accident.
Robinson, 274 Va. at 53.
The principles of proximate cause “are constant whether considered in a civil or criminal
context.” Id. (quoting Gallimore v. Commonwealth, 246 Va. 441, 447 (1993)). “Because an
event can have more than one proximate cause, criminal liability can attach to each actor whose
conduct is a proximate cause unless the causal chain is broken by a superseding act that becomes
the sole cause of the [event].” Rich v. Commonwealth, 292 Va. 791, 800 (2016) (quoting Brown
v. Commonwealth, 278 Va. 523, 529 (2009)).
Virginia follows “the long-accepted definition of proximate cause set forth by [our
Supreme] Court in Wells v. Whitaker, 207 Va. 616, 622 (1966).” Ford Motor Co. v. Boomer,
285 Va. 141, 150 (2013). “The proximate cause of an event is that act or omission which, in
natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces that
event, and without which that event would not have occurred.” Id. (quoting Wells, 207 Va. at
622). Although courts in some jurisdictions describe cause-in-fact as a separate requirement
from “proximate cause,” our Supreme Court considers cause-in-fact to be “a subset of proximate
cause.” Id. at 150 n.2.
“The first step in determining factual causation ‘is often described as the “but for” or sine
qua non rule.’” AlBritton v. Commonwealth, 299 Va. 392, 406 n.8 (2021) (quoting Wells, 207
Va. at 622). In general, conduct “is a factual cause of harm when the harm would not have
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occurred absent the conduct.” Boomer, 285 Va. at 155 (quoting Restatement (Third) of Torts:
Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm § 26 (2010)). This cause-in-fact test asks the
counterfactual question whether the harm would not have occurred but for the tortious conduct.
Applying that test here, there was more than enough evidence for the jury to conclude
that Evans’s chasing the Durango was a cause-in-fact of the accident. But for the car chase,
Wilson would not have tried to outrun Evans and the accident would not have occurred.
The second step in determining proximate cause asks whether a but-for cause is
nevertheless so attenuated from the resulting harm that it fails to constitute a legal cause.
AlBritton, 299 Va. at 406 n.8. “Although all legal causes are factual causes, there can be factual
causes that are not legal causes.” Chapman v. Commonwealth, 68 Va. App. 131, 141 (2017),
aff’d, 296 Va. 386 (2018). This aspect of the proximate-cause inquiry has “been described as a
shorthand descriptive phrase for the limits the law has placed upon an actor’s responsibility for
his conduct.” AlBritton, 299 Va. at 406 n.8 (quoting Wells, 207 Va. at 622). “Generally, the
issue of proximate causation is a question of fact to be resolved by a jury.” RGR, LLC v. Settle,
288 Va. 260, 292-93 (2014). It is only “when reasonable people cannot differ [that] the issue
becomes a question of law for the court to decide.” Id. at 293. The Court helpfully described
that proximate-cause spectrum in Scott v. Simms, 188 Va. 808 (1949):
[T]here are cases in which . . . the absence of proximate cause is so
apparent that the court is required so to hold as matter of law, . . .
and . . . cases where . . . 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 case the problem is to be
solved upon mixed considerations of logic, common sense, justice,
policy and precedent.
Id. at 816 (citations omitted).
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Whether Evans’s chasing the Durango was too attenuated to be the legal cause of the
accident here was a jury question. The jury could properly conclude that Evans’s intentional or
reckless conduct in chasing the Durango at high speed, knowing that Wilson wanted to get away,
was sufficiently connected to the accident to warrant holding Evans responsible for the resulting
crash. Indeed, it was foreseeable that such a high-speed chase could result in Wilson’s losing
control and crashing, imperiling the Durango’s occupants as well as others on the highway. See
Gallimore, 246 Va. at 447 (“An intervening act [that] is reasonably foreseeable cannot be relied
upon as breaking the chain of causal connection between an original act of negligence and
subsequent injury.” (quoting Delawder v. Commonwealth, 214 Va. 55, 58 (1973))). “Questions
of foreseeability of a risk . . . are ordinarily for the jury, unless reasonable men could not differ
as to the result.” Maroulis v. Elliott, 207 Va. 503, 511 (1966).
Precedents involving other high-speed chases and drag racing provide a persuasive
analogy. In Brown, our Supreme Court found that the defendant’s driving through traffic at high
speed to elude a police officer was the proximate cause of another motorist’s death that occurred
when the pursuing officer accidentally crashed into the motorist. 278 Va. at 530. The “high-
speed chase to apprehend [the defendant] and [the motorist’s] death were a direct result of [the
defendant’s] reckless driving.” Id.In Delawder, the defendant was engaged in a drag race with Mook when Mook’s car
accidentally bumped the defendant’s car, causing it to flip over and kill a pedestrian. 214 Va. at
56. The Court held that it was for the jury to determine whether Mook’s criminal negligence
broke the chain of causation resulting from the defendant’s own criminal negligence. Id. at 58(“The least that can be said of this case is that the evidence presented a jury question whether the
defendant’s negligence was remote, whether it was the sole cause of [the victim’s] death, or
whether it concurred with the negligence of Mook to cause the fatal injury.”). The Court added
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that Mook’s striking the defendant’s car—resulting in the defendant’s losing control—“should
have been foreseen by both drivers in the reckless circumstances under which they were
operating their vehicles.” Id. Evans and Wilson should likewise have foreseen the crash risk
created by their own reckless conduct.
Similarly, in O’Connell, we upheld the involuntary-manslaughter conviction of one drag
racer for the death of the other drag racer who was killed when his car lost control and crashed.
48 Va. App. at 728-32. We “reject[ed] the notion that ‘negligence of a victim co-participant in a
drag race is a complete defense if the victim’s negligent conduct is a proximate cause of the
victim’s death.’” Id. at 731 (quoting State v. Farner, 66 S.W.3d 188, 200-01 (Tenn. 2001)). The
same was true in Doggett, where “the co-participant’s failure to maintain control . . . was a
completely foreseeable event” in their drag racing. 66 Va. App. at 228-29.
The accident here was like the accidents that resulted from the intentional or reckless
actions of the defendants in Brown, Delawder, O’Connell, and Doggett. Accord Restatement
(Third) of Torts, supra, § 33(b) (“An actor who intentionally or recklessly causes harm is subject
to liability for a broader range of harms than the harms for which that actor would be liable if
only acting negligently.”). Despite Wilson’s own reckless conduct, Evans exacerbated the
danger by persistently chasing him. Wilson’s losing control and crashing could reasonably have
been found by the jury to have been a direct and foreseeable consequence of Evans’s intentional
or reckless conduct.
Robinson is not to the contrary. The victim there crashed her car after passing Robinson
on the highway. 274 Va. at 48. Reversing Robinson’s hit-and-run conviction, the Supreme
Court concluded that Robinson was not a proximate cause of the accident. Id. at 53-54.
Although Robinson had initially sped up to prevent the victim from entering his lane, he realized
the danger and slowed down in time to give her plenty of room to safely merge. Id. Unlike the
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factfinder here, the trial court there “expressly found that Robinson was not a cause of the
accident.” Id. at 54 (emphasis added). The victim had “ample opportunity to slow . . . down
once merging,” but she lost control because she was driving too fast. Id. In this case, by
contrast, the trier of fact expressly found that Evans caused the accident by chasing after Wilson
until he crashed.
We also reject Evans’s argument that Wilson’s negligence was an intervening and
superseding cause of the accident that cut off her own culpability. “A superseding cause occurs
only when an intervening act so entirely supplants the operation of the initial tortfeasor’s
negligence that the intervening act alone, without any contributing negligence by the initial
tortfeasor in the slightest degree, causes the injury.” Williams v. Joynes, 278 Va. 57, 63 (2009)
(emphases added). The superseding cause must be “a new cause of [the] injury, becoming the
only proximate cause of that injury.” Id. (emphasis added). And the “intervening act will never
be deemed a superseding cause if the intervening act was set in motion by the initial tortfeasor’s
negligence.” Id.Evans failed to show that Wilson would have crashed the Durango by his actions “alone,”
id., had Evans not been chasing him. Put another way, she failed to show that Wilson’s
negligence became “the only proximate cause” of the crash and that she did not contribute to it
“in the slightest degree.” Id. The jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Evans set in
motion the events leading to the crash by tailing the Durango at high speeds for about an hour
until Wilson lost control. Just as in the high-speed chase and drag-racing cases, the intentional or
reckless acts of others was not a superseding cause of the defendant’s actions in causing the
victims’ injuries. See, e.g., Brown, 278 Va. at 530 (rejecting superseding cause argument
because the defendant’s actions in eluding the officer “put into operation” the high-speed chase
that resulted in the innocent motorist’s death); Delawder, 214 Va. at 58 (finding that the other
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racer’s reckless driving in striking the defendant’s vehicle was not an intervening act that caused
the bystander’s death because that risk was “reasonably foreseeable”).
B. The evidence sufficed to prove that Evans failed to provide reasonable assistance.
Evans argues that the requirement to render aid to “any person injured,” Code § 46.2-894,
means helping any one person injured, even if multiple people have been hurt. So she claims
that her helping Wilson was enough; she did not need to help the three young women.
Construing the requirements of Code § 46.2-894 presents a question of law that we
review de novo. E.g., Flanders v. Commonwealth, 298 Va. 345, 352 (2020). But we give
deference to the factual finding that the evidence sufficed to prove the statutory element, asking
only whether, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, “any
rational trier of fact could have found th[at] essential element[] of the crime beyond a reasonable
doubt.” O’Connell, 48 Va. App. at 726 (quoting Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319).
Evans misinterprets the hit-and-run statute. Read in context, the plain meaning of
helping “any person injured” means helping every person injured. “In this context, as in so many
others, ‘any’ means ‘every.’” SAS Inst. Inc. v. Iancu, 584 U.S. 357, 359-60 (2018). The
adjective any, when used “[i]n affirmative sentences, . . . means ‘every’ or ‘all,’” as in “any
attempt to flout the law will be punished,” or “you are required to produce any documents
relating to the issue.” Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern English Usage 71 (5th ed. 2022).
Like the United States Supreme Court, our Supreme Court has interpreted any that way. See
Sussex Cmty. Servs. Ass’n v. Va. Soc. for Mentally Retarded Children, 251 Va. 240, 244 (1996)
(“The plain meaning of the phrase ‘any covenant’ encompasses all covenants of the type
described in the statute . . . .” (emphasis added)). So have we. See Montgomery v.
Commonwealth, 75 Va. App. 182, 194-95 (2022) (“The Virginia Supreme Court has held that
‘[t]he word “any,” like other unrestrictive modifiers such as “an” and “all,” is generally
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considered to apply without limitation.’” (quoting Sussex, 251 Va. at 243)). Evans’s reading thus
contradicts both precedent and standard usage.
Evans’s reading also cannot be squared with caselaw that our hit-and-run statute protects
all persons who are injured by the driver. As the Supreme Court said in Milazzo, “[t]he purpose
of Code § 46.2-894 is to protect persons injured as the result of, and to ensure the assessment of
liability arising out of, an unfortunate vehicular event.” 276 Va. at 738 (emphasis added).
Likewise, we have said that the statute was designed “to prevent motorists involved in accidents
from evading civil or criminal liability by leaving the scene of an accident and to require drivers
involved in an accident to provide identification information and render assistance to injured
parties.” Smith v. Commonwealth, 66 Va. App. 382, 388 (2016) (emphasis added) (quoting
Smith v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 109, 115 (1989)). Thus, “[t]he assistance requirement
advances public safety.” Johnson v. Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 769, 771 (1992) (per curiam).
Those highly remedial purposes would be undercut by allowing a driver who injures multiple
victims to pick just one of them to help.
Evans acknowledged to us at oral argument that her helping-one-victim-is-enough theory
does not appear to have been advanced in any prior case, whether in Virginia or elsewhere. But
this is not the first case in which a hit-and-run driver has left multiple victims behind. In Cottee
v. Commonwealth, 31 Va. App. 546 (2000), for instance, Cottee ran over and injured two people.
Id. at 551-52. We said both were Cottee’s “victims.” Id. at 558. And we upheld Cottee’s
conviction because he “knew or should have known of the victims’ injuries.” Id. (emphasis
added).
We credit Evans’s statutory argument as novel but reject it as implausibly stingy. The
statutory mandate to render reasonable assistance to “any person injured” does not allow the
driver to pick and choose which of several victims to help.
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Next, Evans argues that the Commonwealth failed to prove that she knew that the three
women passengers were injured. She says that she rendered reasonable assistance to Wilson
because he “was the only person ‘visibly injured.’” Evans Br. 11. We are not persuaded.
To be sure, knowledge “is an essential element of the crime” of hit-and-run. Payne v.
Commonwealth, 277 Va. 531, 544 (2009) (quoting Herchenbach v. Commonwealth, 185 Va.
217, 220 (1946)). “[T]he Commonwealth must prove that the defendant possessed actual
knowledge of the occurrence of the accident, and such knowledge of injury which would be
attributed to a reasonable person under the circumstances of the case.” Id. at 544-45 (alteration
in original) (quoting Kil v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 802, 811 (1991)). This requires the
Commonwealth to prove “subjective knowledge of the collision while holding the driver to a
stricter reasonable man standard as to the fact or extent of the injury.” Kil, 12 Va. App. at 810(quoting Commonwealth v. Kauffman, 470 A.2d 634, 637 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1983)). In other words,
the driver need not have “positive knowledge of the extent of the damage or injuries inflicted.”
Payne, 277 Va. at 544 (quoting Herchenbach, 185 Va. at 220). The question is whether the
driver “knew or should have known” that a victim was injured.4 Id. at 545.
Evans admits that she saw the Durango lose control, roll over, and land upside down. So
the only remaining question about her state of mind is whether the jury could find from the
evidence that Evans knew or should have known that one or more of the three women passengers
had been injured.
“Knowledge of injury may be imputed to a driver ‘where the fact of personal injury is
visible or where the seriousness of the collision would lead a reasonable person to assume there
4
Virginia is in the mainstream of jurisdictions allowing evidence that the defendant
“knew or should have known” of the injury to support a hit-and-run conviction. See Marjorie A.
Caner, Annotation, Necessity and Sufficiency of Showing in Criminal Prosecution Under “Hit-
and-Run” Statute, Accused’s Knowledge of Accident, Injury, or Damage, 26 A.L.R. 5th 1, 22
(1995).
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must have been resulting injuries.’” Neel v. Commonwealth, 49 Va. App. 389, 395 (2007)
(quoting People v. Carter, 52 Cal. Rptr. 207, 208 (Cal. Ct. App. 1966)). In Neel, we found “the
minimal nature of the damage to [the victim’s] vehicle [to be] insufficient to put [the defendant]
on notice that [the victim] had been injured.” Id. at 397. See also Brannon v. Commonwealth,
52 Va. App. 800, 806 (2008) (finding insufficient evidence to support the conviction when the
other driver had no visible injuries, got out of her car, and walked over to the defendant’s truck
to ask about his well-being). In O’Connell, by contrast, we reasoned that the driver “must have
known” that the victims in the other car “had been seriously injured or lay dying” because their
car had “struck [a] tree at a high rate of speed.” 48 Va. App. at 736.
There was enough evidence here from which the jury could find that Evans knew or
should have known that the three women who survived the terrible crash were indeed injured.
Evans knew for sure that Wilson was bleeding, limping, and dazed. Auriona was wearing shorts
and her exposed knees were “visibly” injured; they were “all banged up” from the accident and
from having to crawl over broken glass to escape. And since Evans witnessed the rollover and
saw the Durango land upside down, as pictured above, the jury could reasonably find that Evans
knew or should have known that the three women, like Wilson, also must have been hurt. We
held more than a decade ago that a person with soft-tissue injuries is “injured” under the hit-and-
run statute. See Belew v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. App. 55, 63 (2013) (“[T]he ordinary meaning
of the word ‘injury’ leads to the conclusion that a so-called ‘soft tissue’ injury such as muscle
pain or damage constitutes harm, damage, or hurt and is therefore sufficient to prove an injury
under Code § 46.2-894.”). So the jury had enough evidence to conclude that Evans knew or
should have known that the three women who managed to crawl from the wreckage and stand up
were nonetheless injured.
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We reject Evans’s remaining explanations for not helping them: that the three women had
not affirmatively asked for her help, that one of them had a phone, and that Evans feared that
they outnumbered her. To start, the jury could have properly discredited those excuses as lies by
Evans to conceal the reason she abandoned the victims. See, e.g., Maust v. Commonwealth, 77
Va. App. 687, 703 (2023) (en banc) (“[I]n its role of judging witness credibility, the fact finder is
entitled to disbelieve the self-serving testimony of the accused and to conclude that the accused
is lying to conceal his guilt.” (quoting Speller v. Commonwealth, 69 Va. App. 378, 388 (2018))).
As the prosecution argued in closing, the evidence showed that Evans was angry. Wilson had
left in the middle of the night without telling her, leaving Evans home alone when she was eight
months pregnant. Wilson took the Durango she rented without her permission. He then drove
around town with three young women, refusing to answer her repeated calls or pull over, leading
her to chase after him for upwards of an hour. Her fury was apparent after the crash. She
questioned Wilson if it was “f---ing worth it” before ordering him to “get [his] stupid ass in the
car.”
Even taking Evans’s statements at face value, they would not excuse her failure to stop
and render reasonable assistance to the injured women. It did not matter that the women did not
ask her for help. Nor did it matter that she noticed that Auriona had a phone. As we said in
Johnson, the assistance requirement “[does not depend] upon the victim’s desire to receive aid.
Injury may allay contentiousness, and an injured antagonist may be glad to receive aid from any
quarter.” 14 Va. App. at 771. And just as in Johnson, the record here “does not disclose that
[the victims] would have rejected aid.” Id. In any event, Evans left without asking the women if
they needed help, thus denying them the chance to accept it. See Aley v. Commonwealth, 75
Va. App. 54, 66 (2022) (explaining that the “duty to render reasonable assistance” applies “not
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only ‘if it is apparent that medical treatment is necessary’ but also if it ‘is requested by the
injured person’” (quoting Code § 46.2-894)).
And if the survivors were reluctant to ask for her help unprompted, no one could blame
them. The women had just survived a terrifying rollover accident caused by Evans’s “acting
crazy” and chasing them. The jury could likewise reject Evans’s claim that she failed to help the
women for fear they outnumbered her. After all, nothing stopped Evans from using her own
phone to call for help, let alone asking the women if they were okay.
In short, Evans had a statutory duty to “stop at the scene of the accident . . . and render
reasonable assistance.” Johnson, 14 Va. App. at 771 (quoting Smith, 8 Va. App. at 115). The
jury had ample basis to find that Evans violated that duty here.5
CONCLUSION
The evidence sufficed for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Evans was
involved in the accident at issue, that Evans knew or should have known that the women were
injured, and that Evans failed to stop and render reasonable assistance to them. Thus, we see no
basis to set aside her conviction for felony hit-and-run.
Affirmed.
5
Having found that Evans was “involved” in this accident and failed to render aid to
injured persons, we do not need to reach whether she also failed to provide her identifying
information to one or more of the persons listed in Code § 46.2-894. Resolving that question
would require reexamining whether the list of persons to whom the driver’s information must be
reported is conjunctive or disjunctive. See supra note 3. So we heed Justice Kelsey’s warning in
Butcher to not decide that question unnecessarily when “the attempt to untangle [that] language
. . . involves no easy task and results in no confident consensus.” 298 Va. at 397 (plurality); see
also id. at 407-08 (Mims, J., concurring in the judgment) (urging the General Assembly to clarify
the notification requirement).
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