O'BRIEN v. Snow

The sole question presented by the appeal of this tort action is whether the trial court erred in entering a pretrial summary judgment upon motion of the defendant below which provided for recovery by the plaintiffs of compensatory damages but denied their claim for punitive damages.

The plaintiffs, C. J. O’Brien and Mattie P. O’Brien, his wife, brought an action against the defendant, Dexter Hubard Snow, seeking recovery of compensatory and punitive damages as the result of an incident occurring about 2:00 a.m. on August 26, 1970, in Shipman, Virginia, when the defendant, from a public…