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STAUDINGER v. BARRETT6/28/1988
The following evidence pertaining to impairment was adduced at trial. Newtown police officer Henry Stormer testified that, between 7:30 and 8 p.m. on the night of the accident, he stopped at the gas station in Newtown, where the decedent was working, to wash the windows on his patrol car. While there, he saw the decedent with a group of gas station employees and other people and noticed that the decedent was holding a can of beer in his hands.
Joseph Roberto, who was a passenger in the El Camino at the time of the accident, testified that the decedent had given him money to buy beer and that he had bought two cases of twelve ounce bottles of beer. There were forty-eight bottles in all. Roberto and two of the other teenagers who were later victims of the accident, returned to the gas station with the beer at approximately 7:30 p.m. and put the beer in the cargo area of the El Camino. The three boys each drank one or two beers at the gas station and left, taking some beer with them, having arranged to meet the decedent
later. The decedent arrived at the meeting place with fewer bottles of beer than the boys had left in the El Camino. At approximately 9 p.m., the decedent and his friends went to a parking lot where they drank some of the beer. Roberto saw the decedent drink two or three beers. Before the accident occurred, all the beer had been consumed.
Eugene Baron, an accident reconstruction expert who appeared for the defendants, opined that the curve where the accident occurred could have been safely negotiated at a speed in excess of sixty miles per hour by a vehicle in the same class as the El Camino. He estimated that the El Camino had been traveling at approximately fifty-five miles per hour when it struck the rock outcropping. He stated that driver error and inattention caused the car to drift off the road into the rock.
The plaintiff argues that there was no evidence of a causal connection between the decedent's consumption of alcohol and the accident, no testimony that his ability to drive was impaired by alcohol and no evidence that the decedent had manifested any signs of impairment, such as staggering or slurred speech. He further asserts that Barrett testified that he had no suspicion that the decedent had been driving under the influence of alcohol.
We conclude, however, that the evidence was sufficient to raise a question of fact as to whether the decedent's ability to drive was impaired by his consumption of alcohol. It was undisputed that the decedent had been drinking beer within one hour before the accident. Whether the decedent's judgment and concentration might have been affected by his consumption of beer so close to the time of the accident was a matter within the common experience of reasonable persons. We cannot say, as a matter of law, that reasonable minds
could not differ as to whether the decedent's ability to drive was impaired. See Way v. Pavent, 179 Conn. 377 380, 426 A.2d 780 (1979). It was proper, therefore, for the court to have submitted the issue to the jury. Id., 381.
As a consequence of the general verdict rule, we must presume that the jury found for the defendants on the special defense of contributory negligence. Since we find no error in the trial court's refusal to direct the verdict, we must uphold the verdict, regardless of error, if any, in the court's charge on the high speed chase policy. See LaFleur v. Farmington River Power Co., 187 Conn. 339, 342-43, 445 A.2d 924 (1982).
There is no error.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
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