Introduction

In Vasterling v. Dirle, No. 23-1702 (4th Cir. Nov. 12, 2025) (unpublished), the Fourth Circuit reversed a bench-trial judgment that had found a driver liable for willful and wanton negligence under Virginia law after a devastating collision on Independence Boulevard in Virginia Beach. Although the defendant was traveling nearly 80 miles per hour in a 45-mph zone and the crash inflicted severe injuries, the appellate court held that, as a matter of Virginia law, those facts—without more—do not satisfy the stringent willful and wanton standard.

The central question was narrow but consequential: when, if ever, does extreme speeding by an unintoxicated driver amount to “willful and wanton negligence” in Virginia? The court distilled Virginia Supreme Court precedent into a practical framework: absent specific, aggravating circumstances—such as intoxication accompanied by immediate warnings, malice/intent to harm, or violating specialized safety training—extreme speeding alone is not willful and wanton negligence. Because the plaintiff pled only willful and wanton negligence, the Fourth Circuit directed entry of final judgment for the defendant.

Summary of the Opinion

The district court (after a bench trial) found that the defendant’s acceleration to 81 mph while passing and reentering the left lane in a 45-mph urban corridor constituted willful and wanton negligence, emphasizing the defendant’s knowledge of local traffic conditions and proximity to a nearby elementary school. The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding de novo that, under controlling Virginia law, the conduct—even if “extreme”—did not clear the high bar for willful and wanton negligence.

The panel identified three recurring patterns in Virginia cases that can elevate traffic misconduct to willful and wanton negligence:

• Violation of specialized training that specifically warns against the conduct (e.g., commercial driver safety protocols).
• Malice or an intent to cause harm.
• Intoxication combined with egregious violations and immediate, specific warnings about the danger (e.g., horns, lights, near-misses) that are ignored.

Because none of those aggravating circumstances was present here—no intoxication, no malice, no violation of specialized training, and no specific warnings immediately before the crash—the court concluded that the defendant’s actions amounted at most to simple or gross negligence. As the plaintiff had not pled those claims, the judgment was reversed and the case remanded with instructions to enter final judgment for the defendant.

Analysis

Doctrinal Framework and Precedents Cited

The court began by reciting Virginia’s three-tier negligence scheme:

• Simple negligence: failure to use ordinary care. Harris v. Harman, 486 S.E.2d 99, 101 (Va. 1997).
• Gross negligence: conduct that “shocks fair-minded people,” but is “less than willful recklessness.” Id.
• Willful and wanton negligence: acting “consciously in disregard of another person’s rights” or with “reckless indifference to the consequences,” with awareness that the conduct probably would cause injury. Id. (quoting Griffin v. Shively, 315 S.E.2d 210, 212–13 (Va. 1984)); see also Infant C. v. Boy Scouts of Am., Inc., 391 S.E.2d 322, 327–28 (Va. 1990) (willful/wanton differs in kind from simple and gross negligence and conveys a sense of purpose or design, actual or constructive).

Several Virginia Supreme Court decisions shape the line between egregious negligence and willful/wanton in motor-vehicle cases:

• Alfonso v. Robinson, 514 S.E.2d 615 (Va. 1999): A tractor-trailer driver’s failure to deploy flares/reflectors behind a stalled vehicle—a direct contravention of specialized safety protocols—supported willful and wanton negligence. The Fourth Circuit uses Alfonso to exemplify the “specialized training” aggravator.
• Etherton v. Doe, 597 S.E.2d 87 (Va. 2004), and Friedman v. Jordan, 184 S.E. 186 (Va. 1936): Illustrate the rare “malice/intent” category—e.g., intentionally forcing a driver off the road or running down a pedestrian can support willful/wanton findings.
• Booth v. Robertson, 374 S.E.2d 1 (Va. 1988): Defendant entered a highway the wrong way, severely intoxicated (0.22 BAC), ignored horns and flashing lights, nearly collided with a truck, and then hit the plaintiff head-on. This is the paradigm for intoxication plus immediate, specific warnings ignored, warranting a willful/wanton finding.
• Webb v. Rivers, 507 S.E.2d 360 (Va. 1998): “Entirely intoxicated” driver, 90 mph through a red light in a 25-mph zone—again, intoxication plus egregious violations justified willful/wanton liability.
• Hack v. Nester, 404 S.E.2d 42 (Va. 1990): Despite prior DUIs and night blindness, the driver’s relatively low BAC and lack of specific warnings before the crash rendered the conduct insufficient for willful/wanton as a matter of law.
• Clohessy v. Weiler, 462 S.E.2d 94 (Va. 1995): Driving 10 mph over the limit, with a fogged windshield and deactivated headlights in a residential area, was “no more than ordinary negligence.” Crucially, Clohessy holds that general knowledge (e.g., a residential area) is not the “prior knowledge of specific conditions” necessary to infer willful/wanton state of mind.
• Harris v. Harman (Harman), 486 S.E.2d at 101–02: Warns courts not to “turn every intentional moving traffic violation into a case of willful and wanton negligence,” emphasizing the need for aggravating factors beyond the mere fact of an intentional traffic infraction.
• Puent v. Dickens, 427 S.E.2d 340 (Va. 1993): Speeding while drunk and rear-ending a plaintiff was “insufficient to justify” willful/wanton—a reminder that intoxication alone is not enough; context matters.
• Woods v. Mendez, 574 S.E.2d 263 (Va. 2005): Active drinking while driving, significantly elevated BAC, and awareness of the risk of falling asleep at the wheel sufficed—another intoxication-plus-aggravation scenario.
• Steele v. Crocker, 62 S.E.2d 850, 852 (Va. 1951), and Griffin v. Shively, 315 S.E.2d at 212: Whether conduct rises to willful/wanton is usually a fact question, unless reasonable minds could not differ, in which case it is a question of law for the court.

Legal Reasoning

The Fourth Circuit applied a mixed standard of review: clear error for factual findings, but de novo for state-law determinations and the ultimate application of Virginia’s willful/wanton standard. See Harrell v. DeLuca, 97 F.4th 180, 189 (4th Cir. 2024); Grimmett v. Freeman, 59 F.4th 689, 692 (4th Cir. 2023). Under the Erie framework, a federal court in diversity applies state substantive law as articulated by the state’s highest court, or predicts how that court would rule if the law is unclear. See Brendle v. General Tire & Rubber Co., 505 F.2d 243, 245 (4th Cir. 1974).

The panel synthesized Virginia authority into a clear set of aggravating circumstances that, when present, can elevate negligent driving to willful and wanton negligence:

• Specialized safety training ignored (e.g., professional drivers’ safety protocols).
• Malice or intent to harm (direct or inferable from conduct).
• Intoxication plus egregious traffic violations and immediate, specific warnings that the driver ignores (e.g., horns, flashing lights, near-crash misses, or other clear alerts to imminent danger).

Outside these contexts, Virginia’s high bar for willful and wanton negligence is rarely met. The court stressed the Supreme Court of Virginia’s caution against converting intentional traffic violations into willful/wanton per se. Harman, 486 S.E.2d at 101–02. And it relied on Clohessy’s key distinction between “general knowledge” of risky areas (e.g., residential neighborhoods or, as here, proximity to a school without any school-zone warnings) and “prior knowledge of specific conditions that would likely cause injury to others.” 462 S.E.2d at 96–97.

Applying that framework, the court rejected the district court’s reliance on (1) the defendant’s familiarity with the corridor and (2) the general fact that a school was nearby (with no school-zone signs in the crash zone). Those facts, it held, do not amount to the specific, contemporaneous warnings that Virginia cases require to infer the defendant’s actual or constructive consciousness that injury would probably result. Nor did the record reveal intoxication, malice, or any violation of specialized training. As a result, the conduct could not, as a matter of law, be willful and wanton.

Importantly, the court also emphasized that the severity of the resulting injury—however tragic—does not establish the requisite mental state. Willful and wanton negligence concerns the defendant’s mindset and conscious disregard of a known, probable risk of harm, not the magnitude of harm that transpired.

Procedural Posture and Remedy

Because the plaintiff pled only willful and wanton negligence (eschewing simple or gross negligence), the failure of proof on that heightened standard was dispositive. The Fourth Circuit, determining that “reasonable minds could not differ,” treated the issue as one of law, reversed the judgment, and remanded with instructions to enter final judgment for the defendant. See Steele, 62 S.E.2d at 852; Griffin, 315 S.E.2d at 212.

Impact and Implications

Although unpublished and therefore not binding precedent in the Fourth Circuit, this opinion offers a disciplined synthesis of Virginia Supreme Court decisions that will likely be persuasive in Virginia federal courts and instructive to Virginia state courts and practitioners.

• Pleading strategy in Virginia motor-vehicle cases: Plaintiffs should think carefully before pleading only willful and wanton negligence. Virginia’s standard is exacting. Without evidence of intoxication plus ignored warnings, malice, or specialized training violations, claims often sound at most in simple or gross negligence. Preserving alternative negligence theories can prevent the “all-or-nothing” outcome that occurred here.
• Proof and trial strategy: Plaintiffs aiming for willful/wanton should marshal evidence of immediate, specific warnings: horns, flashing lights, near-misses, shouted admonitions, conspicuous signage, or contemporaneous passenger warnings the driver disregarded. Absent such proof, courts may remove the issue from the factfinder as a matter of law.
• Contributory negligence overlay: One reason plaintiffs sometimes pursue willful/wanton (and solely that theory) in Virginia is to avoid the absolute bar of contributory negligence that applies to simple negligence. But this decision illustrates the risk: without the required aggravators, plaintiffs may recover nothing.
• Punitive damages: Because punitive damages in Virginia generally require willful and wanton conduct or malice, this opinion makes clear that punitive claims should be reserved for the narrow, aggravated scenarios identified in the case law.
• Defense playbook: Defendants can use this framework to support dispositive motions, especially where the record shows no intoxication, no ignored warnings, no malice, and no specialized training violations—even if the speeding was substantial.
• Traffic-safety policy: The opinion underscores that tort gradations hinge on the defendant’s state of mind and the probability of harm perceived or constructively known before the incident. It resists sliding toward a de facto strict-liability regime for “extreme speeding,” preserving the conceptual distinctness of Virginia’s negligence tiers.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Simple vs. gross vs. willful and wanton negligence:
  • Simple: failure to use ordinary care.
  • Gross: very great negligence; “shocking” to fair-minded people, but still essentially careless, not quasi-intentional.
  • Willful and wanton: more than carelessness—conscious decision to proceed in the face of a known, probable risk of causing injury; “purpose or design” in committing the act (though not intending the injury).
• “Actual or constructive consciousness”: The defendant either actually knew, or is treated as knowing from the circumstances, that their conduct probably would cause injury, yet proceeded anyway.
• “Specific warnings” vs. “general knowledge”: Specific warnings are concrete and contemporaneous alerts (e.g., horns, flashing lights, near misses, explicit signage) that make the risk immediately obvious. General knowledge (e.g., “this is a residential area” or “there’s a school somewhere nearby”) is not enough to prove the willful/wanton state of mind.
• Erie/predictive role in diversity cases: Federal courts apply state substantive law. When the state’s highest court has not addressed a specific point, the federal court predicts how that court would rule based on related state precedents.
• Question of law vs. fact: Negligence gradations are typically fact issues for a jury or factfinder. But when the evidence cannot reasonably support willful/wanton under governing law, courts must decide the issue as a matter of law and can direct judgment.

Conclusion

Vasterling v. Dirle reaffirms the narrow compass of willful and wanton negligence under Virginia law. Even egregious speeding in an urban corridor—81 mph in a 45 zone—does not, without more, establish the requisite conscious disregard that Virginia demands. The Fourth Circuit’s synthesis identifies the limited aggravating categories that can carry a plaintiff over the threshold: violation of specialized safety training, malice or intent, and intoxication coupled with immediate, specific warnings that are disregarded.

For litigants, the message is practical and clear. Plaintiffs should reserve willful/wanton claims for cases that truly fit Virginia’s stringent criteria and should generally plead alternative negligence theories to avoid an “all-or-nothing” defeat. Defendants should scrutinize the record for the absence of specific warnings, intoxication, malice, or training violations to press for dismissal or judgment as a matter of law. More broadly, the opinion preserves the doctrinal integrity of Virginia’s negligence tiers by insisting that willful/wanton liability hinge on a heightened mental state tied to the probable risk— not merely the severity of the aftermath or the extremity of the speed.