This interlocutory appeal from a Rule 4:6-2(e) dismissal order raises novel issues of legal duty and tort liability in a drunk driving context. The issues concern whether a volunteer who assures police officers at a roadside stop of an apparently inebriated driver that he will take the driver and his car safely to a residence—but thereafter relinquishes the car to the driver before reaching that destination—can be civilly liable as a joint tortfeasor if the driver then collides with and injures another motorist
In the present case, police officers stopped a driver who was traveling in the wrong direction on a one-way street. Perceiving the motorist was unfit to drive, the officers asked him if he could arrange for someone to pick him up. The motorist called a friend, who quickly arrived and assured the officers that he would drive the motorist and his car to another location. Relying on this assurance, the police issued a moving violation traffic ticket to the motorist and allowed the friend to drive him away. Minutes later, the friend returned the car to the motorist at a railroad crossing and separated from him. The motorist, who was intoxicated well over the legal limit, resumed driving and crashed his car into the plaintiff's vehicle. He later pled guilty to committing assault by auto while under the influence of alcohol. The severely injured plaintiff sued the driver, a bar where the driver had been drinking that night, the police officers and their city employer, and the volunteer. The volunteer moved to dismiss the claims against him, arguing he owed no legal duty that could make him civilly liable to any extent for this accident.
After reviewing a video of the motor vehicle stop and a prosecutor's investigative report, the motion judge concluded the volunteer breached no legal duty to the injured plaintiff. The judge accordingly dismissed plaintiff's claims, as well as the police defendants’ related cross-claims for contribution, against the volunteer.
Applying statutory public policies, including John's Law, N.J.S.A. 39:4-50.22, and allied common law principles, the court reverses the motion judge's dismissal order.
The court holds that a volunteer who fails to discharge his commitment to the police in such a situation and who willingly allows a visibly intoxicated motorist to resume driving can bear a portion of the civil liability for an ensuing motor vehicle accident caused by that drunk driver. The presence of such a legal duty will hinge upon whether the volunteer is advised by the police, or objectively has reason to know from the surrounding circumstances, that his or her promise is an important obligation and that failing to carry it out could result in civil financial consequences.
In recognizing these legal duties that may have been assumed by the volunteer, the court does not absolve any other parties whose negligence, if proven, contributed to the harm, including the drunk driver himself, the police officials who failed to field test or arrest him, and the tavern that served him alcohol. Their own respective shares of fault would need to be determined and allocated, based upon customary rules of proximate causation and joint tortfeasor liability.