recognizing that in some contexts state employees may be immune from suit in negligence
How later courts described this case
- recognizing that in some contexts state employees may be immune from suit in negligence
- finding that the governmental entity’s interest and involvement in the employees’ activity were not significant enough to warrant the extension of sovereign immunity to the employees
- recognizing a “split of authority on this issue”
- noting that UVA is an "agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia . . . entitled to the protection of the immunity of the state."
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
COCHRAN, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion. However, for reasons expressed in my dissent in Lawhorne v. Harlan, 214 Va. 405, 408-09 , 200 S.E.2d 569, 572-73 (1973), I believe that Lawhorne is inconsistent with Crabbe v. School Board and Albrite, 209 Va. 356 , 164 S.E.2d 639 (1968), is unsound, and should be forthrightly overruled rather than distinguished to extinction.
The majority opinion attempts, unsuccessfully in my view, to distinguish between full-time members of the faculty of the University of Virginia Medical School, held not to be immune from liability for negligence in the present case, and the hospital administrators and the surgical intern of the same institution, held to be immune in Lawhorne . Negligence is negligence — want of such care and caution as an ordinarily prudent and reasonable man would have exercised under the same circumstances. Agents and employees of an immune employer who fail to meet the reasonable man test are negli *56 gent and should be held liable for their negligent acts that proximately cause injury to others.
Therefore, I would overrule Lawhorne , so that the judiciary and the bar will understand that the principles approved in Crabbe will be followed in Virginia as they are in the majority of other jurisdictions. The uncertainty arising from hair-splitting distinctions will then give way to a sound, logical, and certain rule of general application.
POFF, J., joins in the concurring opinion.