Danny Sims v. Andrew Pappas and Melissa Pappas

SHEPARD, Senior Judge.

[1] During a trial over damages caused by a drunk driver, the defendant acknowledged his intoxication and responsibility for the collision. He objected to admitting evidence about two decades-old convictions for alcohol-related offenses. The objection was overruled and the jury ultimately returned a verdict, mostly for compensatory damages.

[2] While we do not embrace his proposal that prior convictions should be barred outright as they mostly would be in a criminal trial, we conclude that in this case they neither proved nor disproved any facts that were central to the…