Belliard v. Becker – 8/23/2007

August 28, 2007

Arizona Court of Appeals Division One Holds That Plaintiff Is Entitled To Remand for Partial Retrial on Punitive Damages Because Evidence of Defendant Driver’s Pre-Crash Alcohol Consumption Was Improperly Ruled Irrelevant and Precluded at Trial on Basis that Defendant Was Not Charged With Driving Under the Influence.

The Defendant left the scene of a single-vehicle highway accident despite knowing that a roadside cable was still attached to his vehicle. He dragged 1200 feet of the cable down the highway before his vehicle came to a second stop. Plaintiff was a passenger in another vehicle, which became entangled in the cable and crashed. Plaintiff incurred minimal immediate medical expenses, but later developed new symptoms and required exploratory surgery and other treatments. Plaintiff sued. Defendant admitted negligence and liability, leaving for trial only the issues of compensatory and punitive damages.

The trial court granted Defendant’s motion in limine to preclude evidence that Defendant tested positive for a breath alcohol content of 0.031 shortly after the crash. The Defendant argued the evidence was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial, and that Plaintiff had failed to present any evidence to rebut the statutory presumption that Defendant was not under the influence. See A.R.S. § 28-1381(G)(1) (presumption that a driver was not under the influence if found to have a breath alcohol concentration of 0.05 or less within two hours of driving). Plaintiff argued that the evidence of alcohol consumption was relevant to the Defendant’s recklessness, which in turn was relevant to the issue of punitive damages. The jury awarded Plaintiff $3,600 in compensatory damages — approximately three time the medical bills from her initial medical treatments — and no punitive damages. Plaintiff appealed.

The Court of Appeals held that the trial court improperly concluded that evidence of Defendant’s alcohol consumption was irrelevant. (The Court of Appeals expressly declined to opine on whether the evidence could be nonetheless excluded for risk of undue prejudice.) The evidence was relevant to the jury’s decision whether to award punitive damages. The Court declined to remand for retrial regarding the amount of compensatory damages, finding that the jury’s “modest” award of compensatory damages clearly resulted from a finding that the accident did not cause Plaintiff’s subsequent injury, not because of the exclusion of evidence of Defendant’s drinking. The Court therefore remanded for a partial retrial limited to punitive damages, resolving a question of first impression in Arizona whether such a limited remand is permissible.

Judge Orozco wrote the decision; Judges Johnsen and Snow concurred