COMPENSATING THE LEGLESS
The dangers of allowing an American to get
drunk, by Rowlinson Carter A CALIFORNIAN motorist on his way home after a night on the town last year stopped at a bar for a nightcap but was turned away by the doorman because he was obviously drunk. He climbed back into his car and soon afterwards ran over and killed a pedestrian. Applying the Dram Shop Law, the drunken driver then sued the bar for not physically restraining him from getting back into the car and his subsequent misfortune. He has won the case and been awarded $12 million. Com- pensation for the dead pedestrian's family was not taken into consideration.
On the other side of the country in Dover, New Hampshire, three men were hard at the bottle all day. They started at noon, drank through the afternoon, con- tinued through dinner at a restaurant, stopped off at an off-licence for more supplies, continued drinking during a police chase which they managed to shake off, and then went to a party. They may have dropped into a bar known as the Sand Dollar for a final drink. The driver thought they did but neither of his passengers had any recollection of what they were doing at this stage of the proceedings; the owners of the Sand Dollar said they did not serve them. In any case, there was another police chase which ended in a collision with a lamp-post that left one of the passengers a quadraplegic. His parents sued both the Sand Dollar bar — which, while still protesting innocence, settled out of court — and the restaurant where the men had dinner fairly early on in their binge. The restaurant got off lightly: $275,000 instead of the $1 million asked for.
These are by no means isolated cases in the United States. Twenty-three states have Dram Shop Laws, which were created at the turn of the century but more or less forgotten until recently discovered by lawyers. 'A 19th-century artifact of Pro- hibition which with the help of inventive lawyers has grown into a legal monster,' said the lawyer representing the owners of the Sand Dollar. Twelve other states have established common law liability that can be fashioned to the same end.
Bruce and Jane Smith have now sold the Sand Dollar and decided to stay out of the bar-keeping business because they do not know what they are supposed to do with a drunk. 'The liquor law says you can't have him on the premises, the Dram Shop Law says you can't let him leave the premises, the police won't give him a ride home, and there's no taxi service — what are you going to do with him?' Mrs Smith asks. The lawyer who represented the quadraplegic takes a different view: 'It's a fundamental principle of our laws that people can be deterred from negligent behaviour,' he says. 'If bars are starting to get more cautious, that's evidence the law is working very well.'
And so it is the Dram Shop Law and other laws which permit lawyers to chase ambulances not with the intention of com- pensating victims or hammering culprits but to identify the party, no matter how remotely connected with an incident, with the most accessible assets. It used to be the fattest insurance policy, but that cushion has been removed because all of a sudden bar owners find they cannot afford the rising premiums or cannot find cover at all. Lawyers increasingly work on the no suc- cess, no payment principle; in the case of success, their 'fees' may amount to 80 per cent of the take. No one, it seems, can hide from lawyers once they get the bit between their teeth. A recent case in New Jersey laid down the precedent that the host of a private party could be held responsible and sued — for injuries caused by a drunken guest leaving the party.
No wonder the insurance companies have taken fright. One interpretation of the law says that a bar may be exposed to damages if a customer at the end of a pub-crawl pops in for a coffee or perhaps even to make a telephone call and is not immediately 'arrested'. Bartenders are being trained to recognise signs of intoxica- tion: 'Slurring words, dropping change, aggressive behaviour'. If one asks whether formal training in this art is strictly neces- sry, it is pointed out that the vulnerable barman is also encouraged to recognise people who are drunk but don't show any outward signs of their condition. Barmen of the future will require powers not far short of divine ommiscience.
Bar Harbour, Maine, used to compete with Newport, Rhode Island, as the prefer- red watering-hole for America's outstan- dingly rich. Prohibition was treated lightly. If from time to time discretion was deman- ded, the parties and the booze were simply transferred to the yachts moored offshore. Bar Harbour was not intimidated by Pro- hibition but it is terrified of what looks like its reincarnation. The most vociferous pre- sence on television these • days, after obscure religious sects asking for money, is Madd — 'Mothers Against Drunken Driv- ing'. Liquor advertisers appear to have caught the scent in the wind and are hoping to forestall the equivalent of tobacco health warnings by volunteering such homilies as (for Bacardi and diet Coke) 'Enjoy it in moderation.'
A man who has seen the future and doesn't like the look of it used to be a member of an extraordinary government think-tank devoted to everything from some mysterious applications of cuneiform to 'Star Wars' weapons systems. He now runs a private hotel in Bar Harbour. It has never been licensed, although in the past he kept aside a few bottles that guests could 'borrow'. That arrangement has ceased, so I went out and bought a bottle of wine. As I poured myself a third glass, he asked nervously whether I intended to go out afterwards. I hoped he would be reassured that as I had no car it would in any case be on foot. He was not. This man, a professional thinker most of his adult life, had worked out an interpretation of the law which would expose him to almost unlimited liability if I, as a drunk pedes- trian, were run over and killed by an even drunker driver. In the circumstances I should be doing the driver an enormous favour.
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