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Kaeo v. Davis5/14/1986
OPINION OF THE COURT BY NAKAMURA, J.
The Circuit Court of the First Circuit adjudged the City and County of Honolulu and Alfred K. Davis jointly and severally liable for the damages sustained by Lurline Kido in a single-car accident. The City appeals, averring the trial court erred in not permitting evidence of beer-drinking before the mishap by Davis, the driver, to be heard by the jury and in rejecting an instruction that would have apprised the jury of the possible legal consequence of its verdict on the negligence attributable to each putative joint tortfeasor. Exercising an abundance of caution the plaintiff cross-appeals, claiming error on the part of the trial court in excluding evidence of allegedly similar prior accidents. We agree with the City that the circuit court committed reversible error in excluding the evidence of drinking and with the plaintiff that the offered evidence of prior accidents should have been admitted. We also think a trial jury should be informed of the legal effect of its special verdict where the plaintiff's injury resulted from the negligence of more than one defendant.
I.
Lurline Kido was seriously injured on January 12, 1979 when an automobile driven by Alfred K. Davis in which she and Samuel Taupo were passengers ran into a roadside utility pole. The accident happened at dusk while Miss Kido and her companions were on their way home from Anna's Lounge where they had spent part of the afternoon. Though the evidence developed in the course of pre-trial discovery was
far from precise, it established that Davis had consumed several "beers" that afternoon. And in her deposition, Miss Kido described Davis as "feeling good" when they left the drinking establishment for Palolo Valley where they lived.
When Davis reached Palolo Valley, he drove first on Palolo Avenue and then on 10th Avenue. The accident occurred on a double-curved section of 10th Avenue near its mauka end. The sharp bends in the road there are marked by several road signs, including one indicating the presence of a curve and another advising a driving speed of 15 miles per hour even though the legal limit is 25 miles. Davis drove through the first curve without mishap. But he failed to negotiate the second safely, and the car slammed into a utility pole despite his efforts to brake it.
Taupo, the sole occupant of the ill-fated vehicle giving testimony of the accident at trial, estimated the car was travelling at a speed of 20 to 30 miles an hour prior to the crash. Davis, when questioned by a police officer on the night of the mishap, admitted he was travelling at 30 miles an hour before he applied the brakes. When the car hit the utility pole, Miss Kido was thrown against the windshield, suffering extensive head injuries that have disabled her.
The guardian of Miss Kido's property brought suit on her behalf against a host of identified and unidentified defendants; the defendants named in the pleading were the driver and his parents, the owners of the vehicle. The defendants who were subsequently identified were the manufacturer of the car, the owner of the pole that was struck, the owner of the drinking establishment where Miss Kido, Davis, and Taupo whiled away the afternoon before the untoward event, and the governmental body responsible for maintaining the road on which it happened.
But by the time the case proceeded to trial the number of defendants had been reduced by settlement or attrition. Among those remaining were Davis, whose whereabouts since the crash were a mystery, and the City. Davis, who had been served
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