Ohio Supreme Court draws distinction between ‘utility’ and ‘motor’ vehicles

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 14: Washington Metropolitan Police conduct a sobriety check point associated with a news conference on drunk driving, on August 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) held a news conference to discuss the national anti-drunk driving campaign and law enforcement crackdown. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

When is a vehicle with a motor not a motor vehicle? That’s the question at the heart of a recent Ohio Supreme Court case.

Known as State v. Fork , it dealt with a drunk driving accident, but the catch is that the accident involved a Polaris utility vehicle rather than a car.

The justices determined that, at least for the purposes of Ohio’s vehicular assault statutes, a utility vehicle like the Polaris doesn’t qualify. They agreed with the circuit court, which overturned the driver’s felony convictions for aggravated vehicular assault.

The crash and lower court case

Joshua Fork purchased his Polaris for hauling equipment on the farm. The vehicle itself is essentially a souped-up golf cart — oversized, all-terrain wheels and a small truck bed on the back. Fork drove it to a party in 2020, and after having a few drinks, took three other people for a spin. During the ride, Fork flipped the vehicle and injured two of his passengers.

Police gave Fork a breathalyzer test and he registered 0.178 — more than double the legal limit of 0.08. Prosecutors charged him with two counts of aggravated vehicular assault and two counts of operating a vehicle under the influence. The latter are first degree misdemeanors, but the assault charges are felonies.

At trial, Fork and prosecutors had a dispute about which definition of “motor vehicle” was the appropriate one to use. The state argued for the more expansive definition from a chapter covering traffic laws, while Fork pointed to a narrower definition which applies to a broader range of provisions including Ohio’s penal laws.

Fork’s definition draws a distinction between motor vehicles and “utility vehicles.” According to that chapter, a utility vehicle has a bed, and its primary use must be hauling cargo in connection with a series of listed activities including farming.

The trial court sided with the prosecutor, and the jury convicted Fork on all four charges.

The Supreme Court’s analysis

On appeal, Fork didn’t dispute his OVI convictions, but he did argue the felonies should be thrown out. Fork contended because utility and motor vehicles have distinct definitions in statute and that statute is the one that generally applies to Ohio’s penal laws, he doesn’t meet requirements of vehicular assault. That provision applies to people operating a “motor vehicle, motorcycle, snowmobile, locomotive, watercraft, or aircraft,” but makes no mention of utility vehicles.

Attorneys for the state, meanwhile, argued it would be ridiculous to have two different vehicle standards for OVI and vehicular assault. But the justices dismissed that argument. They note the two provisions already utilize different standards, with OVI applying to the broader category of “vehicle” not just “motor vehicle” as in the vehicular assault statute.

And the justices determined the first lines of the chapters in question are informative. The state’s case relies on a definition that applies to just two statutory chapters related to traffic laws. Notably the vehicular assault statute isn’t one of them. By explicitly restricting those definitions to their chapters, the court determined, lawmakers made an “express directive” that they “should not be used outside of those chapters.”

Fork’s reference, though, comes from an over-arching chapter whose definitions apply throughout the revised code — not just to penal laws, but even to the chapter the state relies on as well.

Use standard

The court similarly turned down the state’s argument that regardless of what category Fork’s Polaris falls in generally, at the specific moment of the accident, he was using it as a motor vehicle. The state looked to an earlier case known as Muenchenbach v. Preble County , in which the court ruled a “use standard” was appropriate for determining whether a tractor involved in a highway accident should be considered a motor vehicle.

The justices wrote that test made sense in Muenchenbach because the definition for motor vehicle includes an exception for equipment that was “not designed for or employed in general highway transportation.” The definition of utility vehicle, however, carries no similar exceptions, and the justices noted its text hinges on a vehicle’s designed purpose rather than its use.

“Because (the) qualifying language looks to the principal purpose of a vehicle and not to how the vehicle was used at the time of the charged conduct,” the justices wrote, “the focus of the inquiry is on the vehicle’s principal purpose.”

Fork using the Polaris to get to and from the party, didn’t strike the court as a compelling argument against considering it a utility vehicle.

“The Polaris’s ancillary use for recreation does not affect the Polaris’s principal purpose,” the court wrote. “Indeed, the state could have attempted to extract testimony about the Polaris’s principal purpose, or it could have introduced evidence showing that the Polaris’s principal purpose did not fit the qualifying language.”

The opinion notes the record is “devoid of such evidence.” The justices agreed with the Circuit Court’s finding that the evidence was “legally insufficient” to support the vehicular assault charges against Fork. The Supreme Court affirmed the Circuit Court decision to vacate those convictions.

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