Al-Saray v. Furr

Holding

Considering an appeal brought by the plaintiff, a passenger who suffered significant injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, as a result of a two-vehicle collision occurring at an intersection and to whom the jury awarded a multi-million dollar verdict at trial, but which a majority of the Court of Appeals concluded was not supported by sufficient evidence as to causation, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. From the evidence presented at trial, a jury could reasonably infer that the defendant’s failure to keep a proper lookout and her failure to yield, or either of those failures standing alone, was a proximate cause of the accident. Additionally, it is a reasonable inference that, had the defendant been keeping a proper lookout, she would have seen the vehicle in which the plaintiff had been riding as a passenger and would have taken some sort of evasive action and, given the point of impact, it is further logical to infer that any form of evasive action by the defendant would have avoided the accident. The judgment of the majority of the Court of Appeals reversing the decision of the trial court as to the sufficiency of the evidence and ordering that the case be dismissed is reversed, and the case is remanded to allow the Court of Appeals the opportunity to address the defendant’s assignments of cross-error that were raised in, but not addressed by, the Court of Appeals in the defendant’s appeal from the trial court’s judgment.