Fry v. Carter

In this wrongful death and survival action, we must decide whether, in a negligence action following the collision of a tractor-trailer and a roadside worker, it was error for a trial court to instruct the jury on unavoidable accident. We shall hold that such an instruction was inapplicable given the facts of this case and, further, that an unavoidable accident instruction should never be given in a negligence action.

I

Howard C. “Skip” Fry, Jr. (Fry) worked as a traffic control manager for Dewey Jordan, Inc., a company that builds highways and bridges. On the morning of October 7, 1999, at…