Source: https://www.rflaw.net/dram-shop-liability-for-serving-underage/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:17:11+00:00

Document:
G.S. 18B-123 which limits “[t]he total amount of damages that may be awarded to all aggrieved parties” to $500,000 per occurrence.
G.S. 18B-126 which sets the statute of limitations at one year.
North Carolina Courts have added further interpretation of the Dram Shop Act. In 1989, the North Carolina Supreme Court looked at the issue of “whether the personal representative of the estate of a nineteen-year-old who consumes alcoholic beverages and dies from injuries sustained in a single-car accident may recover damages under N.C.G.S. § 18B-121 from the seller of the beverages” in the case Clark v. Inn West. In Clark, the 19-year-old decedent bought and consumed four shots of tequila and four beers at the defendant bar. He became visibly intoxicated. He drove his car towards his home, after he left the bar, but instead of making it there, crashed his car and died.
The court looked at Clark and noted that in that case, “[t]he Court went on to examine the definition of ‘injury’ contained in G.S. § 18B-120(2) and concluded that the statute ‘does not preclude recovery for loss of support by their underage child, if the underage child in fact supported the parents.’” However, the court also noted that this was dictum in the opinion.
The court of appeals reasoned that the definition for “injury” in G.S. 18B-120(2) specifically states that “[d]amages for death shall be determined under the provisions of G.S 28A-18-2(b).” “As applicable to the parent of the underage person, "injury" would include funeral expenses of the underage person, G.S. § 28A-18-2(b)(3), as well as damages for loss of services, G.S. § 28A-18-2(b)(4)b, society, companionship, etc., G.S. § 28A-18-2(b)(4)c, and loss of support.” The court noted that this claim by the parents of an underaged decedent under the Dram Shop Act is distinct from the claim of a personal representative under the wrongful death statute.
The court of appeals looked at another case involving the definition of an “aggrieved party” in 1997. In Estate of Darby by Darby v. Monroe Oil Co., the decedent drove the underage driver to the store to purchase alcohol. The decedent did not contribute money but the other two passengers did. Later, all four occupants of the car died when the car ran off the road and crashed into a tree. The court held that the decedent who drove the underage driver to the store to purchase alcohol was not an “aggrieved party” because he “aided and abetted” the underage driver in the purchase of alcohol.
More recently, in 2001, the court of appeals looked at another provision of the Dram Shop Act. In Green v. Fishing Piers, Inc., three friends were at a bar late one evening into early the next morning. One of them was only 20-years-old but was served alcohol at the bar. When they left the bar, the 20-year-old was visibly intoxicated but got into her car with the two other friends. She then lost control of her car and as a result of the accident, all three occupants of the car died.
When the estate of one of the passengers filed a complaint against the bar under the Dram Shop Act, the bar filed a third-party complaint against the estate of the driver for joint and several liability. The estate of the driver argued that it could not be held liable for damages to the passengers because of the passenger’s contributory negligence.
The liability of the negligent driver or owner of the vehicle that caused the injury and the permittee or ABC board which sold or furnished the alcoholic beverage shall be joint and several, with right of contribution but not indemnification.
Because N.C.G.S. § 18B–121 creates a cause of action against the permittee or a local ABC Board only, the theory by which the liability of the negligent driver is determined must arise from some other context, be it common law negligence, the Wrongful Death Act, or otherwise. As we have discussed, the pleadings in the present case do not allege such an alternate theory of liability. Because we have held that Defendants erroneously contended that N.C.G.S. § 18B–124 creates liability on the part of Ms. Lutz's Estate, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of Ms. Lutz's Estate.
(2) Sell fortified wine, spirituous liquor, or mixed beverages to anyone less than 21 years old.
(2) Give fortified wine, spirituous liquor, or mixed beverages to anyone less than 21 years old.
If we were to hold, without any qualification, that a violation of N.C.G.S. § 18B-302 is negligence per se, it would require a trial court to charge that giving a person under twenty-one years of age a small amount of some alcoholic beverage, which does not affect his or her ability to drive, is negligence per se. We do not believe the General Assembly intended this result.
The Court held that the plaintiffs could maintain a common law negligence claim because “[t]he defendants were under a duty to the people who travel on the public highways not to serve alcohol to an intoxicated individual who was known to be driving” and “a man of ordinary prudence would have known that such or some similar injurious result was reasonably foreseeable from [the] negligent conduct” of serving alcohol to an intoxicated person who would be driving.
If you have been injured in a car accident with an impaired driver, visit www.rflaw.net for legal help.

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