Court Opinion

ID: 9592135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:10:44.43792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:15.895122
License: Public Domain

Justice PLEICONES.
I respectfully dissent. I believe the trial court erred in denying Appellants’ motion for a directed verdict and, even assuming the motion was properly denied, erred in charging the jury. Consequently, I would reverse.
I. Directed Verdict
To meet his burden of proof, Respondent was required to show that the employees of The Getaway “knowingly” sold alcohol to an intoxicated person. In my view, Respondent’s case was based, not on evidence, but on speculation, and was not sufficient to withstand Appellants’ motion for a directed verdict.
Regarding a motion for directed verdict, this Court has held:
The issue must be submitted to a jury whenever there is material evidence tending to establish the issue in the mind of a reasonable juror. However, this rule does not author*421ize submission of speculative, theoretical and hypothetical views to the jury. We have repeatedly recognized that when only one reasonable inference can be deduced from the evidence, the question becomes one of law for the court. A corollary of this rule is that verdicts may not be permitted to rest upon surmise, conjecture or speculation.
Hanahan v. Simpson, 326 S.C. 140, 149, 485 S.E.2d 903, 908 (1997) (citations omitted).
During Respondent’s case, Respondent presented the following evidence to demonstrate that employees of The Getaway “knowingly” sold alcohol to an intoxicated person: Helton had a .212 BAC 50-90 minutes after leaving The Getaway, Helton typically sipped his beer, Helton consumed one beer at the Carolina Drive-in, and Helton consumed three beers at The Getaway.
Respondent presented no direct evidence showing that Appellants’ employees “knowingly” served alcohol to an intoxicated person, and instead relied on Dr. Brewer’s testimony. In fact, the only direct evidence regarding Helton’s visit to The Getaway presented during the trial was that Helton was not exhibiting symptoms of intoxication.
In place of direct evidence, Respondent presented the testimony of Dr. Brewer. Using retrograde extrapolation, Dr. Brewer opined that a hypothetical man of Helton’s approximate weight would have been exhibiting outward symptoms of intoxication when he was served the third beer at The Getaway. Based on the assumption that the hypothetical man consumed three beers at The Getaway, one beer at the Carolina Drive-in, and no other alcohol from the time he entered the Getaway until the crash, Dr. Brewer concluded that the man would have had to have consumed alcohol prior to arriving at The Getaway. Dr. Brewer then opined that, based on these assumptions, the man arrived at The Getaway with a .10 or .12 BAC. Finally, Dr. Brewer concluded that, under these assumed facts, the hypothetical person may have been exhibiting visible symptoms of intoxication when he was served the third beer at the Getaway.
Dr. Brewer’s testimony, based on a hypothetical person of Helton’s approximate weight, was carefully worded:
*422[Biased on my calculations he would certainly have over a .10, a .12 just having that first beer, if we’re making the assumption that’s all he had, was those four beers.... As he is being given more beer he should be showing outward signs of great impairment because his alcohol concentration is going up. So, you know, I think that’s general, but maybe at first his speech may not be that impaired after three or four beers, but with each beer he certainly would be becoming more and more impaired.
(emphasis supplied).
Given the evidence, in order for the jury to find in favor of Respondent, it must find (1) that Dr. Brewer’s assumption that Helton did not consume any alcohol after leaving the Getaway other than one beer at the Carolina Drive-in, was true, though Respondent provided no evidence to account for the time between Helton leaving the Getaway and arriving at the Carolina Drive-in, which could have been more than a half an hour; (2) that the hypothetical man on which Dr. Brewer based his testimony accurately reflected how Helton would react to alcohol, despite the fact that Helton weighed more than the hypothetical man and was an alcoholic; and (3) that Helton did in fact exhibit the outward symptoms that Dr. Brewer opined the hypothetical man “should” have been exhibiting.
In my view, only by piling inference upon inference could the jury conclude that the employees of the Getaway “knowingly” served alcohol to an intoxicated person. A plaintiff is not required to present direct evidence in order to make a case, but verdicts may not rest on speculation. See Hanahan, 326 S.C. at 149, 485 S.E.2d at 908.
In upholding the trial court’s decision to deny a directed verdict, the majority cites to Daley v. Ward, 303 S.C. 81, 399 S.E.2d 13 (Ct.App.1990). In Daley, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of a directed verdict in a case in which no direct evidence was presented to show that the defendant knowingly served an intoxicated person. However, Daley presented a much stronger set of facts than the instant case. The plaintiff was injured when a driver struck his car. The plaintiff and the investigating officer testified that the driver was intoxicated immediately after the accident, and the driver *423agreed. The driver had left the bar 15-20 minutes before the accident and had spent the previous 4-5 hours at the bar drinking nine, twelve-ounce cans of beer. The driver did not recall drinking beer at any other bar that evening.
This, in my view, constitutes a much stronger set of facts than the instant case. Helton visited not one, but three different bars on the night of the accident. The Getaway was not his last stop and the accident occurred 50-90 minutes after Helton left The Getaway. Given these facts, I believe a jury verdict for Respondent can only be based on speculation and the trial court erred in denying Appellants’ motion for directed verdict.
II. Statutory Inference
Even assuming the judge properly submitted the case to the jury, I believe the trial judge erred in instructing the jury that it could consider the statutory inference from the driving under the influence (DUI) statute in deciding liability. In my view, the inference is not relevant to the question before the jury — whether the Appellants’ employees knowingly sold alcohol to an intoxicated person.
In Suskey v. Loyal Order of Moose Lodge # 86, 325 Pa.Super. 94, 472 A.2d 663 (Pa.Super.1984), the Superior Court of Pennsylvania upheld a lower court’s decision not to include the instruction regarding whether the driver was “under the influence” in a suit against a bar owner for knowingly serving an intoxicated person. The court noted that “being ‘under the influence’ and ‘visibly intoxicated’ relate to different characteristics of ability and control as opposed to appearance.”3 Id. at 99-100, 472 A.2d at 666. I agree with the reasoning of the Pennsylvania court. Whatever standard the General Assembly may have chosen to set with regard to a person’s ability or inability to lawfully operate a motor vehicle, it is not relevant to the question whether a person is intoxicated such that the employees knowingly served an intoxicated person.
Moreover, in my view, to apply the criminal inference in a civil matter would run contrary to the intent of the General *424• Assembly. The criminal statute, as it existed at the time of the accident, provided as follows:
(b) In the criminal prosecution for a violation of [statutes] relating to driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or a combination of them, the alcohol concentration at the time of the test, as shown by chemical analysis of the person’s breath or other body fluids, gives rise to the following:
(3) If the alcohol concentration was at that time ten one-hundredths of one percent or more, it may be inferred that the person was under the influence of alcohol.
S.C.Code Ann. § 56-5-2950 (2003) (emphasis added).
The express language of the statute specifies that the inference applies in a criminal prosecution and to apply the inference in a civil case contradicts the statute. See Wood v. Brown, 20 N.C.App. 307, 201 S.E.2d 225 (1973) (“By the express language of the statute ... it applies !(i)n any criminal action’.... By no sound exercise of statutory construction can we take such specific language to authorize the application of the statutory presumption in civil actions.”). I note that my position is in accord with that of the majority of other jurisdictions that have dealt with this issue. See 16 A.L.R.3d 748, § 9.
Furthermore, I believe the charge was prejudicial. The instruction as to whether Helton was “under the influence” followed on the heels of the trial court’s discussion of intoxication. Additionally, the trial court failed to adequately distinguish between “intoxication” and “under the influence.” Given that evidence established Helton’s BAC at the time of the accident, and that Dr. Brewer opined as to Helton’s presumed BAC during his time at The Getaway, both of which were in excess of the .10 BAC referenced in the charge, I find that the instruction prejudiced Appellants.
In my view, the trial court erred in instructing the jury with regard to a presumption that a driver is under the influence and Appellants were prejudiced by the error. I would therefore reverse.
*425For the reasons stated above, I would reverse the decision of the trial court.

. Though Suskey concerned a mandatory inference, rather than the permissible inference in the instant case, there is no difference for purposes of my analysis.