thank your honor may please the court i'm assistant attorney general eric liven on behalf of the people of the state of illinois this court held in people versus martin that in an aggravated dui prosecution that arises from an underlying violation of a purse a dui statute that the proximate cause requirement entails the showing only of a causal connection between the defendant's physical act of driving and the resulting accident in injuries the proximate cause requirement in such a case requires no connection between the drugs in the defendant system and the accident and it requires no showing that the defendant was actually impaired conviction because the trial court would not allow the defendant to present evidence that she has low blood pressure and that low blood pressure might have caused her to pass out while driving and cause the accident it's inconsistent with martin because again martin took impairments were actually the he underlying per se dui offense itself takes impairment out of the equation and says that simply by driving with  prohibited drug or a pretty good amount of a drug or alcohol in one system one is guilty of a dui offense and when in committing that dui offense one is involved in a motor vehicle accident that results in great bodily harm or death to another the offense is enhanced to aggravated dui and in such cases again the causal connection that's required is simply between the physical act of driving the defense physical act of driving and the accident thus under a traditional proximate cause analysis in such cases and intervening act or event that is completely unrelated to the defendant's physical act of driving and completely unrelated to the risks that the defendant created by driving in violation of the dui statute those types of intervening acts are events which cause an accident by a mechanism other than affecting the defendant the the defendant's ability to drive safely can the sole proximate cause of the accident and relieve the defendant from liability examples would include the gross negligence of another driver so for instance if the the other car had veered into the defendant lane and there was no dispute that the defendant had been driving in her own lane then we could say no assuming all the other requirements of proximate cause are matt it could be shown in such a case that the defendant acted driving was not a proximate cause of the accident because the other drivers driving was the sole proximate cause an intentional tort committed by a third party such as that the defendant's passenger or somebody else on the roadway likewise could sever the causal connection between the defendant's act of driving and the accident and so too could certain natural events or infrastructural damage things like that that are completely unrelated to the defendant's own driving yes in if the case is a person a dui case where the defense ability to drive safely is not at issue then at most under proximate cause doctrine a sudden medical emergency suffered by the defend might constitute and it be tional proximate cause but it could never be the sole proximate cause so to to sort of step back to proximate cause terminology it might be a contributing cause of the accident or a concurrent cause something that with the defendant's physical act of driving but it would never be something like the other events i mentioned that sort of acts independently or without relation to the defendant's physical act of driving and multiple proximate causes of an injury where multiple acts or events sort of work together to cause an injury but it's only where the intervening act or event is so completely unrelated to the defendant's actions a risks posed by the defendant's actions that it can sort of sever that relation between the defendant's acts and become the sole proximate cause of an accident at bottom the proximate cause does embody a policy decision the law recognizes that we don't hold people responsible for all of the but for results of their conduct and so the proximate caus steps in to say we we hold defend it's responsible for those causes or for those results of their conduct that are foreseeable and within the scope of the risk that their conduct created and so here the percy dui laws themselves also embody a policy determination made by the legislature that the act of driving with a prohibited substance or a prohibited amount of a particular substance in one system is just so inherently risky to other people on the road that it's a crime regardless of whether any individual driver is actually impaired or unable to drive safely because of the that substance in his or her system and so the proximate cause requirement has to take that policy decision that shtick liability per se policy decision into account and i think martin recognized that in has violated the law by simply driving so there's no requirement that there be an actual impairment here and i think a way to sort of understand how allowing is a how the inconsistent with martin is to look at how the defendant framed the issue in the trial court what was she trying to prove by introducing this evidence of her low blood pressure condition and there she was quite frank in arguing that this was evidence that would show that she was not actually impaired and that it was something other than the drugs in her system that affected her ability to drive safely and caused her to have the accident and that's precisely the type of evidence an argument that martin holds is unnecessary in aggravated dui cases arising out of per se dui violations and so i think the distinction here that we've drawn between intervening acts in events that cause an accident by a mechanism other than affecting the defendant's ability to drive safely to die distinction between those types of intervening accident that's an intervening accident  that operate by that do with fact the defense ability to drive safely is a distinction that's consistent with both the policies underlying the per se dui laws and martin itself  was driving i think down to two lane road and crossed one over the centerline and struck another car head on and that's exactly what happened here if the defendant argued i think there was really no dispute there that the trace amount of drugs in his proximate causes the very issue of these days exactly because in most of these cases there will be no dispute about whether the defendant had the privets substance in his system there will be no dispute about whether there was a motor vehicle accident or whether or not it vince that something other than his or her driving was the proximate cause of the acts namely here meadows court should consistent with martin preclude defendants from interview sing i've been if it's some sort of medical condition unique to them and internal to that you know that affected their physiology or their biology and you know rendered down affected their reflexes or their vision or even rendered them i'm conscious the court should prohibit them from interview some evidence like that to defeat proximate cause because that's sort of up against those two impairments or whether the defender was unable to drive safely but there's still plenty of work for the proximate cause requirement to do in terms of allowing a defendant to argue and introduce evidence that something other than their own driving was the sole proximate cause of the accident so things like you know infrastructural event where something crumbles from the overpass and causes an accident or where the another driver's unfair seeable gross negligence causes the accident or in an intentional tort also on forseeable causes the accident i think that distinction there is faithful to martin's holding and the logic behind martin and the policies underlying the per se dui the strict liability per se dui laws themselves while also giving meaning to that proximate cause language and allowing it to do work distinction and i think the other i think the key factor is that those are all things that although they might cause an accident in a manner that wasn't foreseen they'd lead to the very type of accidents that is foreseen and the very the the reason why the legislature prohibits driving with drugs in one system and on a strict liability per se basis is because that conduct inherently risks rendering drivers unable to drive safely and in a way which can't be predicted precisely how it will happen everybody might be affected by different drugs in different ways but there is that risk recognized by the legislature that the drugs will make make a driver over aggressive or affect the reflexes or no render their vision you know maybe blurry vision all types of sort of physiological internal reactions they might have to the medication or to the medical condition and so here is the very harm the very result that was risk by the defendant's conduct did come to pass in that she internally to her own sort of vital signs and physiology was unable to operate her car safely now it might have occurred in a manner that was an forseeable but proximate cause doctrine has never required that the foreseeable and i think another i think this also gets to another playing that we've addressed in our briefs is how how would this sort of thing be workable in practice at trial it's one thing if a defendant is introducing evidence that some it was the other drivers fault or that it was some intervening act of a third party or of nature then it's sort of easy to suss out what was the what was a proximate cause or what was the sole proximate cause whereas when the issue becomes things in term to this friend and her own medical condition it's going to get into all types of complex issues of that the nature of that medical condition itself was it in any sense related to or caused by or exacerbated by the defendant's drug use and it will be very difficult to suss out whether the medical condition itself was the sort of proximate cause and again t statute requires only that defends driving be a proximate cause and so in that sense any intervening act or event or to constitute a superseding cause would have to be the sort of proximate cause and this would just lead to very i think complex and difficult issues for the trial courts which would fundamentally undermine the bright line rule that the legislature drew and that this court recognized in principles of proximate cause that are drawn from tort law should be applied in the criminal law but they must be applied with reference to the the particular criminal offense that's at issue and the act of god defense in all of the cases that the defendant has cited in all the cases that we could find has always been raised as a defense to negligence and so if the plaintiff's actions in a particular case give rise to a prima facie case of negligence so driving across the cent line would give rise to a prima fashioned case of negligence in that in those cases an act of god defense or sudden medical emergency defense can rebut the showing of negligence but the the per se dui laws require no showing that the defendant did anything negligently behind the wheel they simply require as this court recognized martin that she'd be driving while having a prohibited substance in her system and so if there are no further questions we would ask the court to reverse the judgment of the appellate court and reinstate defendants aggravated dui conviction thank you is whether a medical emergency can ever be relevant to whether the defendant's driving was a proximate cause of the car accident and the injuries an aggravated dui prosecution counsel points out in the trial court there were two things argue for counsel and argue both that midway should be allowed for about a presumption that she was impaired and that she should be allowed to put on the alternative the evidence of alternative cause for why she lost consciousness and lost control of our car on appeal we have only pursued the bar on the centers on what evidence is relevant true about the state's proof that the defendant is approximate cause of a car accident and the fifth district held a misplay should have been allowed to present evidence and argument that a medical emergency was the true cause of her unexpected losing consciousness and crossing the center line now the state here as in the trial court has taken the position that a fact finder can never hear evidence of an unfair seeable medical emergency and a prosecution because this is based on the per se mis eyes and the seat bases this rule on an overbroad reading of martin or using martin now as a par on defense evidence which has nothing to do with impairment there is nothing in the trial court was it just that the loss of blood pressure was caused by impairment or require proof of proximate cause the state only needs to prove the defendant's driving was a proximate cause of the acts and but there's nothing in martin that suggests that a medical issue would write while driving would somehow be legally irrelevant to whether the defendant driving was a proximate specifically required some proof that the defendant driver was legally at fault for the injuries that result and this is when they included the proximate cause i want related to the concept of proximate cause of the intervening haase the state has been talking about in the state seems to agree that some unforseen able intervening causes will remain relevant and aggravated dui prosecutions but no annoying we have all these civil cases where courts have had no problem considering whether a medical issue is such an intervening cause and all we're saying is that the legislature knew when they included the element of proximate cause that illinois had this defense of proximate cause in a car accident surely they expected this to be used in the criminal cases and there's nothing in the statute that would suggest otherwise  problems with trying to discard the negligence cases because there needs to be a prime efficient that which and i think first and foremost the cases we're looking at they're considering analyzing the element of causation and proximate cause and intervening cause this is not  affected by the fact that the plaintiff had to make an initial case for negligence i think courts have always liked to these ready analogies between civil and criminal cases there's always going to be something about fit that's not perfect but this causation analysis i don't think there's anything about it that's being influenced by the need to show a prime a fish a case here the analogy that we're trying to draw is just there's a driver proximate cause or is there an intervening cause th i think another thing that's worth pointing out is that to the extent the state is assuming that there does not have to be any showing of driver fault in order to be guilty of this felony liability i think they've shown that they're forgetting about the proximate cause of man they're absolutely has to be some showing that the defendant driver was at fault otherwise the proximate cause on that has become meaningless so i want to talk a little bit about some of the state's examples intervening causes that are relevant to proximate cause the c c s or meth that any number of intervening causes will be relevant except for medical issues but there isn't a consistent legal theory that has been offered in any of their briefing as to why we need this exception just for medical issues the state asserts that while medical issues they affect your ability to drive safely and just as he's pointed out maybe the state doesn't have to prove that you're driving safely but the same is true if the attacker that's in your back seat th forward and strangles you know if you're being strangled it's really hard to drive safely the same is true for car malfunctions same is true as being high up in a drive by shooting and losing your blood pressure there's no legal theory there a lot of these things affect your ability to  safely the real legal issue should be is this the true cause was it first see a ball is there something you could have done to avoid this accident under the circumstances this case here wouldn't the evidence  well the state has offered no evidence the only evidence that this way was approx like causes that she crossed the center line we know that her son said that she was falling asleep right before she crosses that are why and then we have her doctor saying she suffers from a condition and she may have had a sudden shock and blood pressure there's no alternative explanation for why she passed out why she crossed the center line so in this case i don't think that there is evidence to say as a matter of law that a medical issue was not the sole had it but by considering it that way i think you write out the possibility to ever have a car accident and have the driver be allowed to say that they were not the proximate cause because it isn't the problem a different way so in a sense we are trying to allow drivers to be allowed to put on medical evidence that they were physically  impaired but not impaired due to drugs or alcohol so this is a different use of the term impairment than what the statute is guarding against you know we're not if you have someone that suffers a heart attack while they're driving that's not fact they smoked pot one week ago it's completely unrelated to drug impairment or it could certainly it could be completely unrelated to drug and herrmann so i think in a way you're talking about a person being impaired by a only in the sense that any medical condition and means that you are impaired but i think you know mine was concerned with the sighting whether impairment from a small amount of drugs was was that the fact that you were impaired by some small amount of drugs was that the cause of the car accident we don't think the state has to prove that here we don't think the state will ever have to prove that in something charged under section a sex but we do think that the defense should be allowed to put on evidence that nothing to do with if you really loved him so they would not have to prove impairment they would have to prove legal fault and something that the appellate court play out in this case is that one way that they could prove legal fall that would have nothing to do with impairment f drugs is a proof that she knew she had a medical issue and she didn't take proper precautions they could show that she was texting and driving they could show that the person was overtired and there was no blood pressure and so then she just fell asleep at the wheel there are any number of ways to show show that her driving was at fault for the accident that but they're not going to have to do it by referring to impairment as a factual matter they may not be able to do it by resorting to impairment they're going to have to find another way to do it but that's not that's not impairment getting back into the statue that's the proximate cause i want going to work that's what it's meant to do it's meant to make sure that there's some sort of fault that the legislature says we're going to charge you with a felony but there's going to be some sense that you're responsible for this accident and these injuries it's not going to just be based on randomness it's not going to be based on but they had an undiagnosed seizure disorder you know that but it isn't martin say but it is a bright line rule any amount in your bloodstream of certain kinds of drugs bright line rule we don't have to even talk about how that affects you that's off the table effective drugs off the table the only issue then is whether or not the cause of again like the bright line rule all that you are guilty of something just for getting behind the wheel with a trace amount of this is a misdemeanor when they drafted the felony they specifically said you have to be a proximate cause of the injuries so how are you a proximate cause of the injuries if a medical issue you had no way of suspecting hits you while you're driving it causes you to cross the center line so i don't think  into these per se misdemeanors aggravated felony i think what it does is it just demonstrates how proximate cause works in the state of illinois and the gun i don't think that the state doesn't have to get to the driver being a proximate cause by showing him harm and they can do it any number of ways they can cross examine her doctor and find out that he she knew she had low blood pressure had been warned that this might be a possibility there are a lot of ways to do this but the problem is not that impairment is being moved into the per se duis they're being elevated the problem is that proximate cause has always that i went there and martin and recognising that there's no need to prove impairment for the felony didn't somehow get of the state's obligation to prove that there was some sort of legal fault for the a this is aggravated when the accident that resulted in the death of another person when the violation of subsection eight was the proximate cause of the death and that the court wanted to talk about that this cause that the state has to show is the violation of subsection a driving with drugs in your system period well so the fact that ms way was driving and got into a car accident and she had drugs in her system and had drugs that that shows that she was absolutely for cause of this accident now the question of whether or not she was a legal cause of the acts that whether her manner of driving her vehicle was a legal cause of the acts that i think that depends on whether or not there was an intervening cause which disrupts the cause of chain between her act bang and the resulting injury is so it's like even if you look at it just says did her driving proximately caused this accident or was it a legal cause i think you have to allow her to put on evidence that i was not a legal cause of this accident because there was an unexpected there was an unforeseeable intervening event which in fact disrupted the causal chain and once you have evidence of that i think then proximate cause like and all of the criminal cases and i think it's important to remember that well the legislature made this policy judgment that the per se misdemeanors were going to require no proof of impairment they also made the judgment that they were going to include proximate as an element before we impose felony liability and when incorporating this thing cleared some aspect of driver fault it's not necessarily negligence we don't know what it is but some aspect of being legally a fault for the accent results and the state is claiming that the legislature wanted to impose only liability for a car accident and when the same defendant for the exact same accident can go into civil court and prove that they were not liable for the if they were looking for simple cause or for cause ation they could have drafted a dui statute akin to the statute on leaving the scene of a crime which simply if you're involved in acts then which results in injuries you must report or you will be guilty of a felony but here they specifically added a proximate cause i want and i don't think there's any reason to suppose that the legislature when saying the driver there violation must be a proximate cause of the injuries that includes the system but that's a mistake here for the felony i think you need some sign that the driver was legally a fault or illinois has this body a law that says if there's a medical issue that you had no way of expecting that disrupts the caus argument is not that the proximate cause standard is lower it's that the proximate cause analysis has to take account of what the underlying crime is and so if the underlying crime is a strict liability crime that doesn't require any showing of negligence or fault but simply that the defendant was driving with drugs in her system then in that sense it's not that it's a lower standard than the civil negligence case it's just that it's a different standard i think a key point here is that proximate cause analysis is not a doctrine of legal fault it's about legal costs again nothing in the per se dui law or martin requires the people to show that the defendant was somehow at fault for the accident or negligence it's simply that she her driving was a proximate cause of the accident proximate cause analysis has always been about separating out those results that are so unrelated to the defendant's conduct from those that are closely related enough to it that are foreseeable and that are within the scope of the risk that the defendant's conduct created the defendant suggests that the distinction we've drawn here between what for lack of a better term can be considered sort of extra in all events and internal events is arbitrary but i think it's completely consistent with proximate cause analysis applied to a strict liability offense none of these sort of external events the the passenger you know hitting the driver over the head with a bat or the highway overpass crumbling none of the risk of those things happening is not at all increased by the defendant's act of driving with drugs in her system but the defendant quote falling asleep at the wheel and crossing the center line and hitting an on coming car is precisely the type accident that her driving with drugs in her system creates and it's precisely the type of thing that the legislature would be considering when deciding to make it a strict liability offense into prohibit a change that i don't think no no the nature of the medical condition wouldn't affect our analysis what would it in whether it's a heart attack or a low blood pressure condition it's still the type of thing that might contribute to an accident and might in proximate cause terminology be considered a contributing cause but under martin and in light of the per se dui statute the strict liability nature of that statute could never be considered the sore proximate cause of the accident so as to relieve the defendant of why the lady the final point i'd just like to make briefly is the appellate court and the defendant have have made a lot out of the trial court's comment that there was no evidence of an pearman it's important to remember that the one of the reasons why there was no evidence of impairment is because no evidence of impairment was required and so the people want required to present evidence that the defendant was impaired the defense argument would sort of create an end run around mark and require the people to reintroduce evidence of impairment where none should be required and it will not only that but it will lead to incredibly complex medical issues in what other why should be relatively straightforward strict liability per se dui offenses if there are no further