Brian O'Connor v. Fairfax Taxi, Inc.

Summary

The Fourth Circuit affirmed judgment for the defendants in two wrongful-death and personal-injury actions arising from an unwitnessed head-on collision. It held that diversity jurisdiction existed because the decedent was a South Korean citizen, the nominal administrator's citizenship was disregarded, and the South Korean statutory beneficiaries were diverse from the Virginia defendants. The court also upheld exclusion of the plaintiffs' late and unsupported accident-reconstruction testimony and concluded that the remaining circumstantial evidence could not establish negligence without speculation.