Jannell Williams v. Werner Enterprises, Inc.

No. 14-0212 - Jannell Williams, et al. v. Werner Enterprises, Inc.
FILED
March 2, 2015
RORY L. PERRY II, CLERK
SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS
OF WEST VIRGINIA
Workman, Chief Justice, dissenting:
Today our Court violates a bedrock principle of our summary judgment
jurisprudence: a court’s function at the summary judgment stage is not to weigh the
evidence and determine the truth of the matter, but is to determine whether there is a
genuine issue for trial. Syl. Pt. 3, Painter v. Peavy, 192 W.Va. 189, 451 S.E.2d 755
(1994). With regard to summary judgment, we have stated that “[t]he essence of the
inquiry the court must make is ‘whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement
to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as
a matter of law.’” Williams v. Precision Coil, Inc., 194 W.Va. 52, 61, 459 S.E.2d 329,
338 (1995) (citation omitted.). “In assessing the factual record, we must grant the
nonmoving party the benefit of inferences, as ‘[c]redibility determinations, the weighing
of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury
functions, not those of a judge[.]’” Id. at 59, 459 S.E.2d at 336 (citation omitted).
The majority, sitting as a three-member jury, examined the record and
could not uncover the proverbial smoking gun in Werner’s documents that prove it had
actual knowledge of a potential lawsuit against the manufacturer of the tractor-trailer. I
emphasize the word potential because there is virtually no way the plaintiffs could have a
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pending lawsuit within 48 hours of the fatal vehicle accident. Undoubtedly, the families
were making funeral arrangements while the evidence was being destroyed.
This decision is clearly wrong because it creates a new and unattainable
burden on a plaintiff in an intentional spoliation claim. Even more disturbing, the
decision sends an iniquitous message: a defendant who rushes to destroy evidence will be
rewarded, not sanctioned.
Viewing the record in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, material
issues of fact exist as to whether Werner had actual knowledge of potential litigation
involving the tractor-trailer’s manufacturer at the time it sent this essential evidence to a
landfill. Therefore, the plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence to survive Werner’s
motion for summary judgment. The majority makes no mention of the findings of
Kathleen J. Robison, the plaintiffs’ expert on spoliation claims. After reviewing the
documents relating to this litigation, Ms. Robison recognized that Werner’s accident
investigator, Mark Griffith of Crawford and Company, reported to Werner that Mr.
Rutledge was trapped inside the truck and conscious before the fire spread and killed
him. Ms. Robison determined: “Werner knew truck fires after accidents were rare, and
this would have put Werner on notice [that] something could be wrong with the truck.”
Ms. Robison ultimately concluded that
[b]ased upon industry investigative and claims handling standards
and practices, it was reasonable to anticipate based upon the type of deaths
Mr. Williams and Mr. Rutledge endured that litigation would ensue. Due to
the deaths of the drivers the tractor-trailer would be key evidence in
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ensuing litigation and should have been preserved. Werner Enterprises had
at the time the professional experience in handling significant tractor-trailer
accidents involving significant injuries. It was reasonable for them to
anticipate that litigation would ensue and that the tractor-trailer would be
prime evidence that must be preserved.
While weighing the evidence, the majority apparently rejected Ms. Robison’s
conclusions. However, this type of fact-finding is a function of the jury, not a reviewing
court.
Based on the circumstantial evidence alone, a reasonable person could
conclude that Werner had actual knowledge of potential lawsuits against the
manufacturer of the tractor-trailer. In fact, Justice Davis’ dissent reveals that Werner is no
stranger to claims for spoliation of evidence and other courts have imposed sanctions on
Werner for destroying evidence.
I further dissent from the majority’s gratuitous suggestion that because the
“investigations by a sheriff’s deputy and by Werner’s adjuster showed the accident
resulted exclusively from snow and ice on the roadway[,]” the plaintiffs could not have a
potential claim against the manufacturer of the tractor-trailer. This inference misses the
point entirely; Mr. Rutledge’s death resulted from a fire due to a significant diesel fuel
leak.
A crashworthiness case involving a motor vehicle is sometimes
referred to as a ‘secondary impact,’ ‘second collision,’ or ‘enhanced injury’
case. 62A Am.Jur.2d Products Liability § 1020 (1997). This is because a
defendant’s liability is based on an alleged failure to protect the occupants
of a vehicle from the consequences of the crash rather than liability for the
crash itself.
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Estep v. Mike Ferrell Ford Lincoln-Mercury, Inc., 223 W.Va. 209, 216, 672 S.E.2d 345,
351 (2009). See Syl. Pt. 1, Blankenship v. General Motors Corp., 185 W.Va. 350, 406
S.E.2d 781 (1991) (”A complaint against the seller of a motor vehicle states a cause of
action under West Virginia law if the complaint does not allege that a vehicle defect
caused a collision, but alleges only that the injuries sustained by the occupant as a result
of the collision were enhanced by a design defect in the vehicle.”).
In this case, the plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the manufacturer of the tractor-
trailer was dismissed on summary judgment because they lacked this critical piece of
evidence to determine if a design defect caused this fatal fire. It is patently unfair to now
deny the plaintiffs their day in court on their claims against Werner for its intentional
spoliation of this evidence. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
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