Lawrence v. City of Los Angeles

McCOMB, J.

From a judgment in favor of respondents after the trial court entered a judgment denying petitioner’s application for a writ of mandate requiring respondents to make an order allowing her a pension because of the death of her husband, a police officer of defendant city, petitioner appeals.

The essential facts are:

November 1, 1939, at approximately 5 :30 p. m. petitioner’s husband, a police officer of the city of Los Angeles, left the central police station in a Ford automobile owned by defendant city apparently en route home. At approximately 6:10 p. m. of the same day while driving in an easterly direction on the wrong side of Alhambra avenue he collided head-on with a truck being driven in a westerly direction upon the same highway. As a result of the accident petitioner’s husband received injuries from which he died. At the time of the accident decedent was under the influence of intoxicating liquor.

Petitioner urges three propositions for reversal of the judgment, which will be stated and answered hereunder seriatim.

First: The trial court committed prejudicial error in receiving in evidence opinions of doctors that petitioner’s husband was at the time of his death under the influence of cm intoxicating beverage, which opinions were based solely topon the results of tests of the blood of decedent taken from him after his death.

This proposition is untenable. Opinions of qualified medical doctors as to whether an individual was intoxicated or not predicated upon the percentage of alcohol in t-he individual’s blood, though not conclusive, are admissible when there is a proper preliminary showing that the blood tests upon which such opinions have been predicated have been properly conducted

(State

v.

Duguid,

50 Ariz. 276 [72 P. (2d) 435, 437] ;

Kuroske

v.

Aetna Life Ins. Co.,

234 Wis. 394 [291 N. W. 384, 387, 127 A. L. R. 1505] ;

Commonwealth

v.

Capalbo,

308 Mass. 376 [32 N. E. (2d) 225, 228]).