Court Opinion

ID: 9707875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:23:45.526878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:39.252270
License: Public Domain

Roberts, J.,
concurring. I concur in the conclusion of the court in this case but desire to stress my view as to the limited scope thereof. The issue raised is whether evidence of the consumption of an alcoholic beverage as distinguished from intoxication is admissible on the issue of the plaintiff’s contributory negligence. This question confronted the court in O’Brien v. Waterman, 91 R. I. 374, wherein the defendant contended that the trial justice erred in exclud*108ing testimony of an attending physician that he had noted an odor of alcohol on the plaintiff’s breath while treating him after the accident. This court, however, did not pass upon the question, noting that if such testimony were held to be admissible, its exclusion in the circumstances was not prejudicial error, the record being barren of other evidence probative of the plaintiff’s failure to exercise reasonable care for his own safety. In this case defendant is contending that it was not error to admit such evidence on the issue of whether the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care at the time of her injury.
No claim is made that plaintiff was intoxicated, the evidence being offered only for the purpose of establishing the consumption of some alcoholic beverage for whatever probative force it might have on the issue of plaintiff’s due care for her own safety. In other words, it is not a case in which intoxication has been alleged as an act of negligence from which injury to the plaintiff resulted as a natural and probable consequence. Small v. Boston & Maine R.R., 85 N. H. 330. Neither is it a case in which evidence of the use of liquor was offered to establish intoxication as a condition to be considered by the jury on the question of the probability that plaintiff was incapable of exercising reasonable care for her own safety. Dokus v. Palmer, 130 Conn. 247.
The admissibility of evidence as to the consumption of an alcoholic beverage offered for the purpose of establishing intoxication ordinarily will be controlled by the nature of the issue raised in the pleadings. Where intoxication is put into issue by an allegation that it constituted an antecedent act of negligence upon which liability is predicated or that it created a condition indicating improbability of a capacity to exercise due care, such evidence of the consumption of an alcoholic beverage may have such probative force on that issue as to warrant its admission into evidence ■ -
*109We are not aware that this court ever decided that intoxication is negligence per se or that, if proved, it is evidence to be considered by the jury on the question of the probability of incapacity to exercise reasonable care for one’s own safety. In Vizacchero v. Rhode Island Co., 26 R. I. 392, decided in 1904, this court held that the plaintiff had failed to establish any negligence on the part of the defendant transportation company. It went on, however, to say by way of dicta at page 399: “If the plaintiff’s intestate had impaired his ability to take care of himself by getting intoxicated, that fact in no wise affects the case. Intoxication does not relieve a man from the degree of care required of a sober man in the same circumstances.” In other words, this court has indicated that on the issue of contributory negligence intoxication will not excuse one from the obligation to exercise the care required of a sober man in the same or similar circumstances; that is to say, the test is always that of a reasonably prudent man without regard to the question of sobriety. The extent to which this makes intoxication immaterial on the issue of negligence, absent some appropriate pleading, we do not decide.
Whatever might be the rule in cases where intoxication is put in issue by the pleadings, however, the question with which we are confronted here is whether testimony as to the consumption of an alcoholic beverage should ever be allowed into evidence where intoxication is not in issue. It would appear that in some jurisdictions testimony that merely establishes the consumption of an alcoholic beverage is evidence that should be submitted to a jury for consideration along with other evidence on the question of negligence. Roether v. Pearson, 36 N. J. Super. 465. I cannot accept the view that testimony is admissible merely to establish the consumption of alcohol as distinguished from proof of intoxication. It is my opinion that the better rule is stated in Fisher v. Dye, 386 Pa. 141. In that case the court said at page 148 that “while proof of intoxication *110is relevant where reckless or careless driving of an automobile is the matter at issue, the mere fact of drinking intoxicating liquor is not admissible, being unfairly prejudicial * * *.”
William R. Goldberg, Ronald R. Gagnon, for plaintiffs.
Boss, Conlan, Keenan, Bulman & Rice, John T. Keenan, for defendant.
If there be any sound ground for the admission into evidence of testimony concerning the mere consumption of an alcoholic .beverage, it must be that it is of such probative force on the issue of reasonable care as to justify its admission despite its notorious tendency to create prejudice in the minds of jurors. Speaking of the prejudicial potential of such evidence, the court said in Critzer v. Donovan, 289 Pa. 381, 385: “Such testimony directly tends to raise in the minds of the jurors another issue, — whether he was intoxicated, — which, in the absence of other evidence, should not have entered into the determination of the case.”
I find inescapable the conclusion that the admission of such testimony when intoxication is not in issue clearly imports the question of intoxication into the deliberations of the jury. Not the least of the evils thereof is that it opens the door to the injection of the half-truth and the distorted fact into the judicial process with the usually inevitable consequence of a prejudiced determination as to liability. For these reasons I concur in the ruling that the admission of testimony concerning the plaintiff's consumption of an alcoholic beverage on the day of her injury constituted reversible error.
Joslin, J., concurs in the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Roberts.