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Man Gets Convicted of Aggravated DUI for Freak Accident; Proximately Causes Confusion

Wednesday, September 5, 2012 18:03

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(Before It's News)

Man gets drunk. Man crashes into tree. Someone gets injured. He gets charged with an aggravated DUI. Sounds like every other case we post on here, right?

Not exactly. Yes, according to the Daily Herald, Donald E. Rericka Jr., 49, of West Chicago, was found to be driving under the influence by the jury. Four hours after the crash, Rericka’s blood alcohol content was measured at 0.170. He was very drunk. And yes, he did crash into a tree. The tree then toppled over, pressing a woman against a building. She’s still recovering from the resulting spinal injuries.

DUI causing severe injuries? Sounds like a felony aggravated DUI case, right?

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The jury thought so. So did the prosecutor. We’re not so sure. According to the statute, the defendant has to be “involved in a motor vehicle accident that resulted in great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement to another, when the [DUI] was a proximate cause of the injuries.”

The key to that statement is proximate cause. Proximate cause is a tricky term to pin down. It has been defined as many as the natural and foreseeable consequences of an act. In other words, the non-freak occurrences that happen when people act stupidly and drive drunk.

The classic example taught to law students is poor Ms. Palsgraf. She was in a train station. An unidentified man ran past her and hopped onto the train that was leaving the station. An employee helped him get onto the moving train, but accidently dislodged the man’s package. The package contained either fireworks or explosives, which detonated when they hit the tracks. The force knocked over a train scale which hit Ms. Palsgraf.

The court ruled that she could not recover. Her injuries and train-scale crushing were not foreseeable natural consequences of helping someone onto a moving train.

How does that apply here? He was drunk and hit a tree. He almost hit people that were on the sidewalk. That’s all part of the risk created by drunk driving. But him hitting a tree that falls over and pins a woman against a nearby building? That’s a lot of “wrong place, wrong time” and bad luck. That sounds like a freak accident.

We don’t know if proximate cause was argued by the defense attorney. We would guess that it will be argued on appeal.

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