Plaintiffs, the widow and minor children of Ben Janesovsky, brought this action for loss of means of support caused by the dеath of the husband and father in an automobile accident shortly after midnight of July 19, 1919. The jury returned a verdict for plаintiffs for $8,958, and defendants appealed.
This action was brought under the 1917 liquor law (Laws 1917, ch. 187). It expressly repealed sections 3814 to 3891 of the Revised Statutes for 1913, commonly called the “Slocumb Law.” The pertinent portions of the present act are as follows:
“Section 54. On the trial of any suit under the provisions hereof, the cause or foundation of which shall be the acts done or the injuries inflicted, by a person or persons under' the influence of liquor, it shall only be necessary to sustain the action to prove that the defendant оr defendants sold, gave, or furnished intoxicating liquors to the person or persons so intoxicated or under thе influence of liquor whose acts or injuries are complained of, on that day or about that time, when thе act was committed or injuries received.”
“Section 58. The legislature hereby declares this act to be for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety, and all its provisiоns shall be liberally construed for that purpose.”
Appellants complain of instruction No. 6, given by the court, in which he told the jury that, if the. defendants furnished the deceased “intoxicating liquors which caused or contributed tо his intoxication, and that his death occurred by accident caused or contributed to by such intoxicatiоn,” they should find for plaintiffs. They declare that, under the law, there is no liability unless there is intoxication and injury by that intoxiсation alone, that all causes of injury, save that of intoxication, are excluded, and that the intoxication must be the proximate cause of the injury, and not merely a contributing cause.
We think that all of section 52, construed with section •54 in the liberal manner enjoined by section 58, justify the instruction given by the trial judge. Under the former law, section 3862, Rev. St. 1913, was identical with section 54 of the present act, and was repeatedly con
We conclude that it was not error for the court to give the instruction, and likewise he did not err in refusing the converse requested by defendants.
Complaint is also made of instruction No. 11, as to the finding of the jury concerning the inability of the deceased to protect himself, by reason of intoxication, from the results of accidents or circumstances to which he was subjected. We do not think the jury limited this to.his inability ta protect himself at the instant of the fatal accident, or that it can be construed in such narrow limits. This instruction was adapted from Gran v. Houston,
Misconduct of plaintiffs and attorneys during the trial and argument is asserted by appellants; but, inаsmuch as this was not objected to, nor was the court given an opportunity to pass upon it, at the time, it will not suffice here. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Kellogg,
Misconduct of the jurors is alleged, in that it is claimed that the verdict was a quotient verdict arrived at by each juror writing on his ballot a sum which he thought ought to be the verdict and then dividing the total by twelve. The corrеct rule is that this, of itself, does not make the verdict a quotient verdict, when the result is afterward assented to by each juror as his verdict. Reich v. Great N. R. Co.,
Lastly, we find no errors in the admission of evidence or in thе record as to the analysis of the cider furnished by defendants to the deceased. The disagreement of the experts has been passed upon properly by the jury.
The judgment is
Affirmed.