Butler v. Yates

I fully agree with the result reached by the majority, but I find it difficult to distinguish the decisions in Sayre v. Shields, 209 Va. 409, 164 S.E.2d 665 (1968), and Branson v. Wise, 206 Va. 139, 142 S.E.2d 582 (1965).

In those cases, the Court held, as a matter of law, that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence. Since a plaintiffs negligence bars recovery only when his negligence proximately contributed to his injury, each holding was underpinned by two findings, viz., (1) that the plaintiff was guilty of negligence in failing to maintain a reasonable lookout to determine…