Case Title: Shannon v. Wilson

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1997-06-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
Marlan Dale SHANNON, Individually and as
Administrator of the Estate of Charles
Shannon, Deceased v. L.K. WILSON and
Elizabeth Ashworth, Individually and as
Partners of City Liquor, a Partnership

96-762                                             ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
                 Opinion delivered June 23, 1997


1.   Courts -- judicially created rules should be modified when
     outmoded or unjust -- court free to amend common law. -- When
     a judicially created rule becomes outmoded or unjust in its
     application, it is appropriate for the judiciary to modify it;
     the field of common law is the primary concern of the supreme
     court; accordingly, the court, not the legislature, should
     extirpate those rules of decision that are admittedly unjust,
     for it is to the judiciary that the power of government is
     given to provide protection against individual hurt; thus, as
     a part of the state's common-law doctrine, the supreme court
     has a duty to change the common law when it is no longer
     reflective of the economic and social needs of society. 

2.   Intoxicating liquors -- strict nonliability rule against one
     selling liquor to minor -- existing common-law rule takes away
     basic jury function of determining proximate cause. --  Under
     the existing common-law rule, no cause of action exists
     against one selling liquor because the drinking of liquor, not
     the remote sale of it, is considered to be the proximate cause
     of any injury; this strict nonliability rule keeps the issue
     of a vendor's illegal sale of alcohol to a minor from a jury
     and takes away the basic jury function of determining
     proximate cause; while questions of foreseeability and
     causation may be ones of fact, proximate causation is usually
     a question for the jury; like any other question of proximate
     causation, the question whether an act or condition is an
     intervening or concurrent cause is usually a question for the
     jury.    

3.   Negligence -- proximate cause is efficient and responsible
     cause -- intervening causes will not necessarily relieve
     original actor of liability. -- Implicit in the common-law
     rule is that proximate cause must be the immediate cause; the
     supreme court, however, has held that proximate cause is the
     efficient and responsible cause but that it need not be the
     last or nearest one; the mere fact that other causes intervene
     between the original act of negligence and the injury for
     which recovery is sought is not sufficient to relieve the
     original actor of liability if the injury is the natural and
     probable consequence of the original negligent act or omission
     and is such as might reasonably have been foreseen as
     probable; the original act or omission is not eliminated as a
     proximate cause by an intervening cause unless the latter is
     of itself sufficient to stand as the cause of the injury; the
     intervening cause must be such that the injury would not have
     been suffered except for the act, conduct, or effect of the
     intervening agent totally independent of the acts or omission
     constituting the primary negligence. 

4.   Intoxicating liquors -- selling of alcohol may be proximate
     cause of injuries along with proximate cause of consumption --
     injury-producing behavior is reasonably foreseeable. -- The
     selling of alcohol may be a proximate cause of injuries along
     with the proximate cause of the consumption; the two are not
     mutually exclusive; selling alcohol to minors can be a
     proximate cause because the consumption, resulting
     intoxication, and injury-producing behavior is reasonably
     foreseeable.  

5.   Negligence -- proof required for -- duty discussed. -- In
     order to prove negligence, there must be a failure to exercise
     proper care in the performance of a legal duty that the
     defendant owed the plaintiff under the surrounding
     circumstances; duty is a concept that arises out of the
     recognition that relations between individuals may impose upon
     one a legal obligation for the other. 

6.   Intoxicating liquors -- seller's duty to act with care when
     selling liquor to patrons found in affirmative requirements of
     statutes -- pubic policy of state to protect minors from
     adverse consequences of alcohol consumption. -- The
     legislature's determination that it is the public policy of
     the State of Arkansas to protect minors as a special class of
     citizens from the adverse consequences of alcohol consumption
     is clear from the affirmative requirements of the statutes
     enacted by it; the statutes establish an affirmative duty for
     alcoholic-beverage license holders to safeguard against minors
     purchasing alcohol; these statutes serve to regulate the
     liquor industry and to promote the safety of the citizenry as
     a whole; the statutes establishing affirmative obligations
     upon license holders authorized to sell alcohol and the
     statute classifying as a felony the criminal act of selling or
     furnishing alcohol to minors for monetary gain create a duty
     for licensees to exercise a high standard of care for the
     protection of minors; a breach of this duty can lead to a suit
     for negligence. 

7.   Negligence -- violation of statute is evidence of negligence -
     - licensed vendor's violation of statute prohibiting sale of
     alcohol to minors is evidence of negligence to be submitted to
     jury. -- The violation of a statute is evidence of negligence;
     on the issue of proximate cause, it is often enough to point
     out that the act could not have occurred if the law had been
     obeyed; a licensed vendor's violation of the statute
     prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors is evidence of
     negligence to be submitted to a jury.
8.   Intoxicating liquors -- common-law cause of action against
     vendor who knowingly sells alcohol to minor recognized --
     juries allowed to determine whether violation of criminal
     statute prohibiting sale of alcohol to minors is proximate
     cause of subsequent alcohol-related injury to minor or third
     party. -- On the basis of past cases decided by the supreme
     court regarding its obligation to adapt the common law to an
     ever-changing society and as a matter of policy, the supreme
     court recognized a common-law cause of action against a vendor
     of liquor who knowingly sells alcohol to a minor; therefore,
     the holding in Carr v. Turner, 238 Ark. 889,