Nationwide Mutual Insurance v. Gearhart

By Judge Clifford R. Weckstein

This declaratory judgment suit arises from the injury claim of David Kyle Umberger, HI, who was a pedestrian on a sidewalk near a Roanoke hospital when he was struck and injured by an airborne four-by-eight foot sheet of plywood. Wind or other natural forces lifted the unsecured sheet of plywood from the cargo area of a pickup truck, propelling it into Umberger. The pickup truck’s driver and his foreman, acting in the course of their employer’s business, had loaded the plywood sheet into the pickup.

While Umberger’s personal injury suit was pending, Nationwide…