Ruling stiffens overserving-liability law
OLYMPIA — A law making bars and taverns liable for damages caused by motorists who were served alcohol after showing signs of inebriation has been stiffened by the Washington state Supreme Court.
In a 6-3 ruling Thursday, the high court held that the standard of liability is whether a drinker is “apparently under the influence” of alcohol, rather than “obviously intoxicated,” as jurors were told before reaching a verdict in a lawsuit in King County Superior Court.
The phrase “obviously intoxicated” has appeared in previous court rulings but is trumped by a provision in state criminal law that “no person shall sell any liquor to any person apparently under the influence of liquor,” Justice Susan Owens wrote for the majority.
The ruling applies only to cases such as “an innocent bystander hit by a drunk driver” because the court previously determined that the law cannot be used by people who injure themselves after drinking too much, Owens wrote.
Reversing the state Court of Appeals, which had upheld a jury verdict in favor of the Lucky 7 Saloon, the high court ordered a new trial on a lawsuit by Jeffrey A. Barrett and his family against the north Seattle watering hole.
Under the “obviously” standard, some establishments “just serve people until they could not drink anymore or are falling-down drunk,” said Helga Kahr, Barrett’s lawyer.
“I hope the taverns will take this to heart and start following the law … they’ll save hundreds of lives each year,” Kahr added.
The Lucky 7’s lawyer in the case, Nicholas P. Scarpelli, who no longer represents the business or its owners, said the ruling “is a big change in the law.”
“Apparently” is too vague, leaving bartenders and servers at sea in deciding when to cut off a drinker, Scarpelli argued. Instead, he said, the question should be whether employees “knew or should have known” a patron was drunk.
“I think everybody appreciates that restaurants and bars can’t just open the spigots and get everyone fueled up … but this is unusual,” Scarpelli said.
Gene Vosberg, president and chief executive officer of the Washington Restaurant Association, said attorneys were reviewing the decision and that he could not comment on it.
Barrett, 45, a former Boeing Co. machinist, has been unable to work or care for himself because of severe brain damage from a crash in which a pickup truck hit his car head-on on Washington 9 north of Seattle on Oct. 11, 1995.
The pickup driver, Ned Maher, a grocery worker in his early 30s at the time, bought at least three pitchers of beer at the Lucky 7 and drank at least two shortly before the crash, the justices noted.
Two hours after the crash, Maher’s blood alcohol level was 0.13, exceeding the 0.10 legal limit at the time — it is now 0.08 — and he subsequently pleaded guilty to vehicular assault while under the influence.
Superior Court Judge Larry Jordan, now retired, barred Barrett’s lawyers from citing the criminal law that businesses have a legal duty to decline to serve people who appear to be drunk.
Barrett’s lawyers suggested at trial that he was entitled to far more in damages than Maher’s insurance could cover, the high court noted.
The principal dissenter, Justice Richard B. Sanders, wrote that in rejecting “obviously” in favor of “apparently,” the majority “abandons decades of jurisprudence” and put too much onus on the business rather than the drunken driver.