A House Is Not a "Fixture"

State v. Larsen, Minn.Ct.App., 8/21/2017.  Mr. Larsen, driving drunk, drove his car into the side of a house, and into an unattended car.  Mr. Larsen's alcohol concentration was 0.253.  A jury convicted him of felony driving while impaired, failing to notify the owner of the collision with the unattended car, and failing to notify the owner of the damaged house.  

Among other things, Mr. Larsen said on appeal that the duty to notify the property owner of damage only applied to damage to fixtures.  Here's what the statute says:

If the driver of any vehicle involved in a collision knows or has reason to know the collision resulted only in damage to fixtures legally upon or adjacent to a highway, the driver shall take reasonable steps to locate and notify the owner or person in charge of the property of that fact.

Minn.Stat. 169.09, subd. 5.  The state actually agreed with Mr. Larsen that a house was not a "fixture."  Nonetheless, the court of appeals devotes five plus pages, and four really long footnotes, to come to the same conclusion.

The court also rejected Mr. Larsen's claim that the state had not presented sufficient evidence that he had been driving the car (he admitted the same).  And, the court assumed, without deciding that the trial court had erred by not giving the jury an instruction on eye witness identification.  At trial Mr. Larsen had neither requested this instruction nor objection to its omission so it's "plain error" time for the court of appeals.