O’Connell v. Walmsley
Annotate this CaseTwo young men, Brendan O’Connell Roberti and Jason Goffe, were killed in a tragic automobile collision. Plaintiffs, the co-administrators of the estate of Roberti, sued William Walmsley, who was driving the vehicle that collided with the vehicle in which Roberti was a passenger when he was killed. A jury found that Walmsley was negligent and that his negligence was a proximate cause of Roberti’s death. The trial justice, however, granted Walmsley’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, concluding that there was no evidence establishing that Defendant’s operation of his vehicle was a proximate cause of the collision. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the superior court granting Defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, holding that a reasonable jury could assign liability to Walmsley.