Court Opinion

ID: 9461821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:25:29.122675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:16.861623
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM J. CAMPBELL, Senior District Judge
(dissenting).
Under Illinois law, unless a party is prepared to introduce additional evidence tending to prove intoxication, testimony showing only that alcoholic beverages have been consumed is inadmissible. *526The basis for this rule was recently explained in Ballard v. Jones, 21 Ill.App.3d 496, 316 N.E.2d 281 (1974):
“Evidence of intoxication is admissible in a personal injury action as tending to show the negligence of one of the parties. (South Chicago City Railway Co. v. Dufresne, 200 Ill. 456, 65 N.E. 1075.) . . . . However, drinking, standing alone, cannot be equated with intoxication, nor can the use of alcoholic liquor, standing alone, characterize a person as intoxicated. (Shore v. Turman, 63 Ill.App.2d 315, 210 N.E.2d 232.) Accordingly, questions cannot be asked which intimate to the jury that a party was intoxicated at the time of the accident unless there is supporting evidence (Clarke v. Rochford, 79 Ill.App.2d 336, 224 N.E.2d 679.); in the absence of supporting evidence, testimony concerning the drinking of intoxicants should be stricken (Warp v. Whitmore, 123 Ill.App.2d 157, 260 N.E.2d 45.), and under certain circumstances, may constitute reversible error notwithstanding a sustained objection.” 316 N.E.2d at 286.
Jurisdiction of the district court in the instant case was based upon diversity of citizenship. The district judge chose to follow an established rule of the forum state, excluding testimony regarding the consumption of beer by the plaintiff because the defense conceded that it was not prepared to prove intoxication.
In arriving at the conclusion reached by the majority, it is necessary to conclude, first, that the district judge was not bound to follow an evidentiary rule of the forum state and, second, that the district court’s election to apply the Illinois rule constituted an abuse of discretion.
As a general proposition, I agree that a federal court, sitting in a diversity case, is not bound to follow the forum state’s rules of evidence. Rule 43(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that:
“All evidence shall be admitted which is admissible under the statutes of the United States, or under the rules of evidence heretofore applied in the courts of the United States on the hearing of suits in equity, or under the rules of evidence applied in the courts of general jurisdiction of the state in which the United States court is held. In any ease, the statute or rule which favors the reception of the evidence governs . . . ”.
The “Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules” advise that Rule 43(a) modifies 28 U.S.C. § 16521 “insofar as that statute has been construed to prescribe conformity to state rules of evidence.”
Under Rule 43(a), therefore, the district court is not bound to follow an evidentiary rule of the forum state where there exists a conflicting rule favoring reception of the evidence being offered. The majority, however, cites no decision or statute, in force at the time of the instant trial, which specifically would have allowed defendants to show that plaintiff had consumed beer prior to the accident, in the face of defendants’ concession that they were not prepared to prove intoxication.2 For this reason alone, I believe the district court properly applied the Illinois rule.
In the context of the present case, I believe the most that can be said is that the district court, in the exercise of its discretion, could have chosen to follow or to disregard the Illinois rule. I fail to see any basis for the majority’s conclu*527sion that the district court, in effect, was bound to disregard Illinois law, and that application of the Illinois rule thus constituted an abuse of discretion. As is demonstrated by the near absence of any authority to the contrary,3 the Illinois rule can hardly be viewed as some arbitrary aberration of the law. Equally significant is defendants’ concession that they were not prepared to prove intoxication, since under Illinois law, proof of intoxication in a civil case is not a particularly onerous burden — a person is intoxicated “when as a result of drinking alcoholic liquor there is an impairment of his mental or physical faculties so as to diminish his ability to think and act with ordinary care.” 4 In admitting that they were not prepared to prove intoxication, defendants thus conceded that they could not prove that consumption of beer by the plaintiff prior to the accident diminished his ability to think and act with ordinary care. Under these circumstances, I do not believe the district judge acted unreasonably in electing to follow the Illinois rule.
It matters little whether we, as an appellate court, agree with either the Illinois rule or the district court’s decision to apply that rule. As a general proposition, district courts enjoy broad discretion with respect to relevancy determinations. I find no basis for concluding that the district judge abused his discretion in the instant case, and accordingly I would affirm the judgment of the district court.
Before FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge, SWYGERT, CUMMINGS, PELL, STEVENS, SPRECHER, TONE and BAUER, Circuit Judges, and CAMPBELL * and GRANT, Senior District Judges.*

. 28 U.S.C. § 1652 provides as follows: “The laws of the several states, except where the Constitution or treaties of the United States or Acts of Congress otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in civil actions in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.”

. It would appear that there exists little authority contrary to the Illinois rule. As the Ballard court observed, “we recognize that at the present time only the following cases support evidence of drinking in the absence of further evidence of intoxication: Maland v. Tesdall, 232 Iowa 959, 5 N.W.2d 327; Labrecque v. Donham, 236 Mass. 10, 127 N.E. 537; Sanders v. Armour & Co. (Mo.App.) 292 S.W. 443; Goettelman v. Stoen (Iowa), 182 N.W.2d 415.” 316 N.E.2d at 286, n. 2.

. See, Note 2, supra.

. Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Instruction No. 150.15.