Lasley v. Combined Transport

Oregon Court of Appeals · 2010 · Torts

TortsNegligenceCausationApportionment of FaultEvidencesubstantial factorcause-in-factapportionment of fault

Facts

Decedent, plaintiff's son, died in a car accident. Plaintiff sued Combined Transport, whose spilled load of glass caused a four-mile traffic jam, and Clemmer, whose vehicle struck decedent's vehicle as it approached the back of the traffic jam. Clemmer was intoxicated at the time of the accident, but the trial court excluded that evidence as irrelevant. On reconsideration, the court addressed the distinct relevance of that intoxication evidence to cause-in-fact and to apportionment of fault.

Issue

Whether evidence that Clemmer was intoxicated at the time of the accident was relevant in this negligence action, and if so, whether its relevance to cause-in-fact and apportionment of fault rested on separate grounds. More specifically, the court considered whether its earlier opinion had improperly conflated the standards governing those two determinations.

Rule

Evidence of a defendant's intoxication is relevant to cause-in-fact when there is an adequate factual nexus between the person's alcohol consumption and testimony about the quality of the person's driving, such that the jury could find that alcohol affected the person's ability to control the vehicle and keep a proper lookout; in deciding cause-in-fact, the jury considers the totality of potentially causative circumstances. The same intoxication evidence is separately relevant to apportionment of fault because it bears on blameworthiness by showing the degree of the defendant's departure from the standard of care of a reasonable person.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

On Interstate 70 outside Denver, a delivery truck owned by Red Mesa Logistics dropped metal pipes across two lanes, causing traffic to stop abruptly. Minutes later, Owen Barrett crashed into the last stopped car; two witnesses said Owen had been drifting within his lane, braking late, and staring downward just before impact, and a blood test showed he had been drinking heavily.

In a negligence suit against both Red Mesa Logistics and Owen, for what reason is the intoxication evidence most clearly admissible under the majority's reasoning?

Explanation. The majority treated intoxication evidence as relevant for two distinct reasons. For cause-in-fact, there must be an adequate factual nexus between alcohol consumption and testimony about the quality of the driver's driving, allowing the jury to infer impaired vehicle control or lookout; the jury then considers the totality of potentially causative circumstances. Separately, intoxication is relevant to apportionment because it shows blameworthiness by indicating the degree of departure from the reasonable-person standard. (Derived from Lasley v. Combined Transport (n.d.).)