![]() ![]() The next morning, the doctors removed the victim from the ventilator, and she was transferred from the intensive care unit to a medical floor in the hospital. That night in the intensive care unit, the victim was intubated and placed on a ventilator. The trauma to her chest compromised her ability to breathe as she had before the accident, to the point where she could no longer oxygenate her blood by normal breathing. Thus, to supply oxygen to the bloodstream, and had required the use of an oxygen tank in her home to assist in her breathing. The victim had suffered for several years prior to the accident from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition which makes it difficult to breathe and, Vincent's Hospital at Worcester Medical Center.Īs a result of the accident, the victim suffered multiple chest wall fractures, including fractures of the ribs and sternum and a lung contusion. The victim was transferred from the accident scene by emergency medical personnel to St. A jury could infer that the defendant had failed to stop (or yield the right of way) at the intersection and, thus, was negligent. ![]() Traffic entering the intersection from the defendant's direction was controlled by both a stop sign and blinking red light. The force of impact pushed the Suprenant's automobile a distance of approximately fifteen to twenty feet, across the road, over a sidewalk, and into a chain link fence. At about noon, the Suprenants were traveling south on Mechanic Street and had just entered the intersection of Mechanic and Chestnut Streets, when their automobile was struck on the passenger side by an automobile traveling east on Chestnut Street operated by the defendant. On July 4, 2002, the victim and her husband, Robert Suprenant, left their home in Spencer to attend a cookout at their daughter's home. The jury could have found the following facts. The defendant appeals from her conviction, challenging (as she did at trial) the sufficiency of the evidence proving causation and claiming (for the first time on appeal) that the trial judge's instructions to the jury on the concept of superseding causes were inadequate. The evidence at trial demonstrated that Carol Suprenant (victim) was hospitalized with chest and lung injuries suffered as a result of an accident caused by the defendant's negligent operation of an automobile and died of respiratory failure four days later after her doctors, at her request, removed her from a ventilator that allowed her to breathe and might have ensured her survival. A jury in the East Brookfield Division of the District Court Department convicted the defendant on a complaint charging motor vehicle homicide by negligent We transferred this case here on our own motion to consider the scope of criminal liability for the negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results, in the circumstances described below, in death. Lazar-Moore, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court.Įllyn H. ĬOMPLAINT received and sworn to in the East Brookfield Division of the District Court Department on October 8, 2002. Īt a criminal trial, the judge's instructions to the jury onĬausation did not create a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice, where the instructions focused the jury's attention on the issue of causation and correctly left the issue of foreseeability to the jury. 24G (b), the defendant was not entitled to a required finding of not guilty, where the defendant's negligent failure to stop, or yield the right of way, at an intersection (an action for which the defendant accepted responsibility) set in motion a chain of events that resulted in the victim's death and that was not broken by the reasonably foreseeable decision of the victim (who had serious preexisting health problems that were exacerbated by the injuries from the accident) not to undertake medical procedures that would, in all probability, have allowed her to survive the accident. Practice,Īt the trial of a criminal complaint charging motor vehicle Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.
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