Sаm Taylor (“plaintiff’) appeals from an order of summary judgment in favor of Tina Elizabeth Coats (“defendant”). Plaintiff contends that summary judgment was improper because there were genuine issues of material fact concerning whether plaintiff was aware that defendant was intoxicated at the time of the accident and whether defendant’s intoxication proximately caused the accident. We disagree and therefore affirm the order of the trial court.
On 12 October 2004, plaintiff filed a claim against defendant in Johnston County Superior Court for negligently operating a vehicle in which plaintiff was a passenger. Defendant’s answer denied the allegations of plaintiff’s complaint and asserted a defense of contributory negligence. Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on 26 August 2005 and the motion was heard on 26 September 2005.
According to the evidence presented, plaintiff and defendant had been involved in a romantic relationship for eleven months prior to the accident. On 12 September 2003, plaintiff and defendant celebrated plaintiff’s birthday at Shooters, a bar in Johnston County, North Carolina. Defendant drove a 1990 Nissan to Shooters and plaintiff rode in the passenger seat. During their relationship, plaintiff never drove because he did not have a driver’s license. They arrived at Shooters at approximately 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. They each ate a cheeseburger and began to play poоl. Initially, defendant had not planned to consume any alcoholic beverages. However, the bartender, whom defendant had known for eighteen months, offered to drive plaintiff and defendant home that evening and told defendant that she could drink with plaintiff to celebrate his birthday.
Plaintiff’s brother arrived at Shooters at approximately 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. Defendant remained at the bar area of Shooters with hеr friends while plaintiff and his brother played pool. While defendant was at the bar, she paid for her drinks individually. Plaintiff continued to play pool with his brother and friends and maintained a running tab on his drink orders. From apprоximately 5:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m., plaintiff and defendant remained in their separate *212 groups, although plaintiff occasionally kissed or spoke to defendant. These brief moments amounted to approximately one hour in each other’s presence.
At approximately 10:00 or 10:30 p.m., plaintiff became angry with defendant because she was talking with another man, so the couple decided to leave Shooters. On the way to defendant’s car, the couple decided to spend the night at a hotel across the street from Shooters. Plaintiff voluntarily got into the car. They pulled out of the Shooters’s parking lot and stopped at a stoplight. The parties began arguing. Defendant contends that she was paying more attention to the argument than she was to the road. Defendant thought she saw the arrow on the stoplight turn green and procеeded to turn left in front of an oncoming vehicle that collided with her car. As a result of the collision, plaintiff sustained severe head injuries. Defendant testified she now believes the green arrow she saw was the next stoplight. Plaintiff testified that he does not remember anything after they arrived at Shooters on the night of the accident. He testified he only knows what defendant has told him since the accident hapрened. Neither plaintiff nor defendant could testify with certainty as to how much they had to drink that evening. After the accident, defendant blew .18 on the breathalyzer. Defendant contends that she was less intoxicаted than plaintiff, because she was able to walk on her own while plaintiff was stumbling and his speech was incoherent.
Upon reviewing the evidence of record and hearing arguments by counsel, the trial court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff appeals.
By his first assignment of error, plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendant because defendant failed to offer evidence that plaintiff was aware of defendant’s impairment at the time of the accident. We do not agree.
On appeal from summary judgment, the applicable standard of review is whether there is any genuine issue of material fact and whether the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.
McGuire v. Draughon, 170
N.C. App. 422, 424,
A guest in an automobile may assume that the driver will use proper care and caution while operating the vehiсle until he has reason to believe otherwise.
Dinkins v. Carlton and Williams v. Carlton,
In the present case, it is undisputed that defendant was intоxicated at the time of the accident and that plaintiff voluntarily rode with defendant. However, plaintiff contends that there is no evidence that he knew or should have known that defendant was unable tо safely drive the vehicle. Plaintiff asserts that he could not have known that defendant was impaired because they were not drinking together, nor were they keeping up with how much the other drank. Additionally, plаintiff argues that he trusted defendant’s judgment as to whether or not she could drive due to the conversation regarding the driving arrangements they had with the bartender earlier that evening.
In
Goodman v. Conner,
Similarly here, the evidence establishes that plaintiff knew or should have known that defendant was appreciably impaired at the time of the accident. Plaintiff and defendant had been in the bar together for approximately seven hours. Plaintiff knew at the beginning of the evening that defendant was going to consume alcohol because the bartender agreed to take them home so that defendant could drink. Moreover, defendant blew a .18 on the breathalyzer. An ordinarily prudent man under like or similar circumstances would have smelled alcohol on defendant’s breath when he gave her occasional kisses over the course of the evening, and would have known that she was appreciably impairеd at the time they left the bar. Plaintiff has presented no evidence to contradict defendant’s evidence that he knew or should have known that defendant was intoxicated. We find no genuine issues of matеrial fact as to plaintiff’s contributory negligence and we therefore overrule this assignment of error.
Plaintiff next contends that defendant failed to establish as a matter of law that defendant’s impairmеnt was a proximate cause of the accident. He asserts that even if he was contributorily negligent by getting into a car with an intoxicated driver, defendant has failed to establish that this negligence cаused plaintiff’s injuries. Plaintiff asserts that it was not defendant’s impairment that caused the accident. According to plaintiff, the argument that he and defendant were having caused defendant to become distracted and this distraction caused the accident. Defendant admits that once the couple began arguing, she began to pay more attention to the argument than to the road. Although defendant’s actions did not include loss of control of the vehicle, she admitted that the green arrow she saw was the next stoplight and not the stoplight at which she was stopped.
However, there may be more than one proximate cause of an accident. Even though defendant may have been slightly distracted by the argument, the evidence of record shows that defendant’s intox
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ication and, therefore, plaintiffs decision to ride with an intoxicated driver, caused plaintiffs injuries. It is common knowledge that the consumption of alcohol affects one’s ability to drive.
See, e.g., State v. Purdie,
While the argument may have played a slight role in the collision, the evidence showed that defendant’s impairment was the primary cause of the accident. We agree with the trial court that there are no genuine issues of material fact regarding the cause of the accident. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the trial court.
Affirmed.