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Brockman v. Beacon Sports Bar & Grill9/10/2002
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of a liquor licensee in this civil-damages action. The court concluded, as a matter of law, that the sale of alcohol to the allegedly intoxicated driver who injured Jeremy Brockman did not proximately cause Brockman's death, which occurred during administration of anesthesia preceding surgery necessitated by the accident injuries. Because the evidence is sufficient to create a triable issue on proximate cause, we reverse and remand.
FACTS
Jeremy Brockman sustained severe injuries on December 22, 1999, when he was pinned between a retaining wall and a car driven by Terry Price. Brockman, Price, and Brockman's cousin were at the Beacon Sports Bar & Grill in Duluth where Price consumed beer and one Windsor coke. They left the bar at closing time in a car driven by Price. Price drove erratically, went through a stop sign, and then backed into a ditch. As Brockman and his cousin tried to push Price's car out of the ditch, the car moved backward and pinned Brockman against a retaining wall, causing a severe crush-type injury to his left thigh and perineum.
As a result of this injury , Brockman was hospitalized for about a month. During the hospitalization, the wound in his thigh area required several surgical excisions of dead or contaminated tissue. When the hospital discharged Brockman on January 21, 2000, he still had a small, open, perineal wound.
Brockman contacted his treating physician on February 17, 2000, to report increasing tenderness and pain in his left leg. The treating physician located a large, fluid-filled mass in Brockman's lateral left thigh and recommended immediate surgery to drain the infected fluid. During endotracheal intubation, in the administration of general anesthesia, Brockman went into unexpected, sudden cardiovascular collapse. Cardiovascular resuscitation failed, and Brockman died. The surgeon identified the most likely cause of the sudden cardiovascular collapse as a massive blood clot in the lungs.
Following an autopsy, the medical examiner listed the cause of death as sudden circulatory arrest. The examiner found no definite anatomic cause of the circulatory arrest, but presumed it was physiological and found it was temporally associated with induction of anesthesia before the surgery. No further medical evidence on the cause of death was submitted to the district court.
Brockman's father obtained appointment as the special administrator of Brockman's estate and filed a civil-damages complaint against Beacon Sports Bar. Beacon Sports Bar moved for summary judgment on the grounds that the evidence was insufficient to establish a prima facie case of Price's obvious intoxication or that Price's intoxication caused Brockman's death. The district court denied summary judgment on the first ground but granted it on the second, the issue of causation. The court concluded that Brockman's death resulted from "complications" in surgery necessitated by the injuries sustained in the accident but held, as a matter of law, that the accident was too remote in the chain of events leading to Brockman's death to satisfy the requirements for proximate cause.
DECISION
On appeal from summary judgment, the reviewing court must determine whether the case raises genuine issues of material fact and whether the district court erred in its application of the law. Offerdahl v. University of Minn. Hosps. & Clinic, 426 N.W.2d 425, 427 (Minn. 1988). Generally, proximate cause is a fact question for the jury. Canada by Landy v. McCarthy, 567 N.W.2d 496, 506 (Minn. 1997).
The Civil Damages Act creates a right of action by a person
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