## Facts

- Deborah Peralta was injured when she was struck by a Washington State Patrol vehicle.
- Before the collision, Peralta had been drinking alcohol and later sought a ride home.
- Peralta called her brother to pick her up; during confusion about where she was standing, she stepped into the roadway to help him see her.
- Peralta mistook an approaching Washington State Patrol vehicle for her brother’s car and stepped into its path, and the vehicle hit her.
- Peralta sued the State of Washington for negligence and sought damages for her injuries.
- The State pleaded Washington’s intoxication-defense statute, RCW 5.40.060, as an affirmative defense.
- During discovery, the State served Peralta with a request for admission asking her to admit that she was “intoxicated,” using language that tracked RCW 5.40.060.
- Peralta responded by admitting the request.
- At trial, the court ruled that Peralta’s admission conclusively established intoxication for purposes of RCW 5.40.060 and instructed the jury on the statute.
- The jury found Peralta’s intoxication was a proximate cause of her injuries, and the trial court dismissed her complaint based on the statutory defense.
- Peralta appealed, arguing that even if she had been drinking, her admission did not conclusively establish the statutory level of intoxication required by RCW 5.40.060.

## Issues

1. Whether a CR 36 discovery admission, drafted in the statutory language of RCW 5.40.060, can be treated as conclusively establishing the intoxication-defense statute’s requirements so as to support dismissal.
2. Whether the trial court erred by giving the admission conclusive effect and instructing the jury as though the statutory intoxication element had been established as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court held that Peralta’s discovery admission, phrased in the statute’s terms, could not be treated as conclusively establishing the intoxication-defense statute’s intoxication element.
- The Court ruled that it was error to use the admission to take from the fact finder the contested statutory question whether Peralta’s condition satisfied RCW 5.40.060’s standard.
- The Court reversed the judgment that dismissed Peralta’s claim and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Under CR 36, requests for admission may address facts or the application of law to fact, but they are not a proper tool for forcing a party to concede a contested, case-ending legal conclusion stated in statutory terms.
- When an admission tracks a statute’s language rather than specifying concrete facts, it may be too conclusory to conclusively establish the statute’s elements at trial.
- RCW 5.40.060 provides a complete defense only if the defendant proves the statute’s requirements, including the statutory level of intoxication and the required causal and fault findings; those determinations ordinarily turn on fact questions for the jury.
- A trial court errs when it treats a statutory-form admission as automatically satisfying an affirmative defense’s elements and then structures jury instructions and the verdict around that assumed proof.

## Conclusion

Peralta v. State held that a discovery admission mirroring RCW 5.40.060’s language could not, by itself, conclusively establish the intoxication-defense statute so as to justify dismissal; the Washington Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.


Peralta v. State, 389 P.3d 596 (2017)