Case Title: Klever v. Canton Sachsenheim, Inc.

Citation: 1999-Ohio-117

Docket Number: 19981906

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1999-09-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Klever v. Canton Sachsenheim, Inc., 86 Ohio St.3d 419, 1999-Ohio-117.] 
 
 
 
 
 
KLEVER, APPELLEE, v. CANTON SACHSENHEIM, INC., APPELLANT. 
[Cite as Klever v. Canton Sachsenheim, Inc. (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 419.] 
Torts — Wrongful death — No cause of action in Ohio against liquor permit 
holder by voluntarily intoxicated patron who is “underage” pursuant to 
R.C. 4301.22(A)(1) and 4301.69, but who has attained the age of majority, 
for self-inflicted injury due to being intoxicated. 
In Ohio there is no cause of action against a liquor permit holder by a voluntarily 
intoxicated patron (or his representative) who is “underage” pursuant to R.C. 
4301.22(A)(1) and 4301.69, but who has attained the age of majority, for 
self-inflicted injury (or death) due to being intoxicated.  See R.C. 3109.01. 
(Nos. 98-1906 and 98-1966 — Submitted May 5, 1999 — Decided September 15, 
1999.) 
APPEAL from and CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Stark County, No. 
1998CA0010. 
 
Jeffrey M. Klever attended a wedding reception at the Sachsenheim Club in 
Canton, Ohio, where he drank alcoholic beverages though he was only nineteen 
years old.  He was killed in a single-car accident while traveling home from the 
reception. 
 
Jeffrey’s mother, appellee Patricia Klever, sued the club’s owner, appellant 
Canton Sachsenheim, Inc. (“Sachsenheim”), for Jeffrey’s wrongful death, alleging 
Sachsenheim’s employees failed to properly verify Jeffrey’s age prior to serving 
him, knew he was underage yet continued to serve him, and, as a result, 
negligently sold him alcohol in violation of R.C. 4301.22(A).  The court of 
common pleas granted Sachsenheim’s motion to dismiss, finding that Klever failed 
to state a cause of action under Ohio law. 
 
2 
 
The Fifth District Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment, 
holding that “an intoxicated patron or his representative may maintain a cause of 
action against a liquor permit holder under R.C. 4301.22(B) even if the patron was 
voluntarily intoxicated, where the patron is under age and therefor[e] not capable 
of making a legal decision to become voluntarily intoxicated.”  It reasoned that to 
hold an underage adult responsible for voluntarily becoming inebriated would 
violate the intent of the General Assembly when it decreed that persons under 
twenty-one are ineligible to decide whether or not to drink.  The court of appeals 
entered an order certifying a conflict after considering the variance between its 
decision and those of other districts.  See, e.g., Cole v. Broomsticks, Inc. (1995), 
107 Ohio App.3d 573, 669 N.E.2d 253; Walker v. Capri Enterprises, Inc. (1997), 
125 Ohio App.3d 154, 707 N.E.2d 1201; Lee v. Peabody’s Inc. (June 9, 1994), 
Cuyahoga App. No. 65090, unreported, 1994 WL 258640. 
 
Case No. 98-1906 is before this court upon the allowance of a discretionary 
appeal.  Case No. 98-1966 is before this court upon our determination that a 
conflict exists. 
__________________ 
 
Elizabeth A. Burick and Patricia C. Melia, for appellee. 
 
Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, L.L.P., Scott A. Richardson and 
Jacqueline A. Marks, for appellant. 
__________________ 
 
COOK, J.  In Smith v. The 10th Inning, Inc. (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 289, 551 
N.E.2d 1296, we reviewed the proposition that a liquor-serving establishment 
could be held responsible to a patron who self-inflicts injury or death due to being 
intoxicated.  We held that an intoxicated patron could not maintain a cause of 
action against the liquor permit holder for injuries resulting from his intoxication.  
 
3 
Today we are asked to decide whether the Smith bar to recovery applies where the 
intoxicated patron has not attained the legal drinking age (twenty-one) but has 
attained the age of majority (eighteen).  We conclude that an underage adult who is 
served alcohol by a liquor permit holder is legally indistinguishable from the adult 
in Smith and may not maintain a cause of action against the liquor permit holder.  
Both the statutory text and case precedent support our conclusion that Ohio’s 
Dramshop Act does not provide an intoxicated, underage adult with a cause of 
action against a liquor permit holder for self-inflicted injuries. 
I 
 
Ohio historically refused to recognize claims against tavern owners for any 
injuries caused by their intoxicated patrons.  The Ohio Dramshop Act, R.C. 
4399.18, embodies that general, common-law rule that a person (or his 
representative) may not maintain a cause of action against a liquor permit holder 
for injury resulting from the acts of an intoxicated person.  The statute creates a 
narrow exception, however, to the basic premise of non-liability by providing that 
“a person” has a cause of action against a permit holder or its employee for off-
premises injury caused by an “intoxicated person” “only when” certain criteria are 
met.  (Emphasis added.)  R.C. 4399.18. 
 
The Dramshop Act’s limited exception to non-liability codified the 
“preexisting public policy.”  Gressman v. McClain (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 359, 362, 
533 N.E.2d 732, 735.  That policy, developed through decisional law, was that an 
innocent third party could recover from a commercial proprietor for injuries 
caused by an intoxicated patron under certain circumstances. Because this statutory 
exception creates a cause of action not previously recognized by common law, the 
exception must be narrowly construed. 
II 
 
4 
 
The appellee here claims that the Ohio Dramshop Act allows a cause of 
action by an intoxicated, underage patron (or his representative) against a liquor 
permit holder for injuries (or death) that the intoxicated, underage patron inflicts 
upon himself.  We conclude that the language of R.C. 4399.18 prevents that result 
as to any intoxicated adult patron. 
 
The phrasing and structure of R.C. 4399.18 do not countenance a reading 
that allows the contemplated “intoxicated person” (the person causing the injury) 
to be one and the same with the contemplated injured “person” (the person with the 
authorized cause of action).  Specifically, the statutory language envisions that the 
injured person and the intoxicated person be two different persons.  The first 
example is the language “a person, and the executor or administrator of the estate 
of a person, who suffers injury, death or loss to person or property as a result of 
the actions or omissions of an intoxicated person do not have a cause of action 
against a liquor permit holder or an employee of a liquor permit holder who sold 
beer or intoxicating liquor to the intoxicated person” unless certain facts are 
present.  (Emphasis added.)  R.C. 4399.18. Second, the statute again connotes two 
separate participants with the language “[a] person has a cause of action against a 
liquor permit holder or an employee of a liquor permit holder for injury, death, or 
loss to person or property caused by the negligent actions or omissions of an 
intoxicated person * * *.”  (Emphasis added.) R.C. 4399.18. It would be odd for 
the General Assembly to draft such language to denote the actions of, and 
consequences to, a single individual.  Jeffrey Klever cannot be said to have 
suffered death as a result of the actions of an intoxicated person and, therefore, 
Patricia Klever cannot be the administrator of a person who suffered death as a 
result of the actions of an intoxicated person.  She is, rather, the administrator of a 
person who suffered death as a result of his own actions.  The statute simply 
 
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cannot be construed as providing a cause of action to the “intoxicated person” 
himself, and thus, it cannot provide a derivative cause of action to his legal 
representative. 
 
Our holding here comports with this court’s judgment in Smith, supra, and 
with judgments of other courts that have considered the issue.  See LaGuire v. 
Kain (1992), 440 Mich. 367, 487 N.W.2d 389; Nutting v. Zieser (Iowa 1992), 482 
N.W.2d 424; Randall v.  Excelsior (1960), 258 Minn. 81, 103 N.W.2d 131. 
III 
 
Though we anchor our decision here on statutory construction rather than the 
personal responsibility/public policy rationale of Smith, if we were to apply Smith, 
we would nonetheless hold that the Smith rule should apply to an underage adult 
drinker. 
 
Rather than characterizing an underage adult drinker as statutorily 
“ineligible” or “not capable of making a legal decision to become voluntarily 
intoxicated,” as did the court of appeals in this case, we think it more legitimate 
public policy to regard drinking by a nineteen-year-old as unlawful.  R.C. 
4301.22(A)(1); R.C. 4301.69.  In Smith, this court assessed responsibility for 
avoiding consumption of intoxicating amounts of liquor while here we consider the 
responsibility of an adult under the age of twenty-one to avoid consumption of 
alcohol altogether.  Given the prohibitions of youthful drinking set forth in the 
Dramshop Act, we cannot agree with the court of appeals that the General 
Assembly meant to protect the underage adult drinker with the Dramshop Act.  If, 
according to Smith, public policy should bar an intoxicated individual from legally 
blaming the bartender who served him, it would seem that the same rationale 
would likewise prevent an underage adult drinker, for whom taking the first sip 
from the first drink is unlawful, from legally blaming the server. 
 
6 
 
We reject the proposition that the public policy setting the drinking age at 
twenty-one trumps the personal-responsibility policy favored in Smith.  The 
Dramshop Act itself certainly offers no basis for such a proposition.  The General 
Assembly’s preference for twenty-one as the legal drinking age could easily have 
sprung from an effort to protect the peace and third persons from youthful drinkers 
rather than from an effort to protect the youthful drinker.  “[T]here are statutes 
which are considered to create no duty of conduct toward the plaintiff, and to 
afford no basis for the creation of such a duty by the court. * * * [I]n many cases 
the evident policy of the legislature is to protect only a limited class of 
individuals.”  Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5 Ed.1984) 224, Section 36; see, also, 
Lajoie v. Maumee River Yacht Club (Feb. 2, 1990), Lucas App. No. L-89-014, 
unreported, 1990 WL 7976, quoting Prosser, supra, at 222-223 (“[P]rohibiting 
liquor sales after a certain hour or limiting sales on Sunday are ‘intended only to 
protect such interests  * * * as public peace, morality and quiet, rather than the 
safety of any particular class of individuals.’ ”). 
 
Our decision harmonizes with jurisdictions that lack a Dramshop Act.  For 
example, although Hawaii has concluded that innocent third parties may recover 
from a liquor permit holder via common law, it has refused to further modify the 
common law by permitting a voluntarily intoxicated underage adult to recover for 
his self-inflicted injuries.  See Winters v. Silver Fox Bar (1990), 71 Hawaii 524, 
797 P.2d 51.  Like the Supreme Court of Hawaii, we believe that to place persons 
between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one within a protected class for 
Dramshop liability purposes would be “inconsistent with the expression of 
legislative intent to treat those within [the] age bracket of eighteen to twenty years 
as responsible adults in all other respects.”  Winters, 71 Hawaii at 531-532, 797 
P.2d at 54-55. 
 
7 
IV 
 
Accordingly, we hold that in Ohio there is no cause of action against a liquor 
permit holder by a voluntarily intoxicated patron (or his representative)  who is 
“underage” pursuant to R.C. 4301.22(A)(1) and 4301.69, but who has attained the 
age of majority, for self-inflicted injury (or death) due to being intoxicated.  See 
R.C. 3109.01.  The court of common pleas correctly dismissed Klever’s complaint 
for failure to state a cause of action. 
 
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is reversed. 
Judgment reversed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
 
DOUGLAS and RESNICK, JJ., concur in judgment only.