Case Name: James FUHRMAN and Sharon Fuhrman, Husband and Wife, Edward Gehring and Marianne Gehring, Husband and Wife, Donald L. Delong and Lucile M. Delong, Husband and Wife, and Howard C. Williams and Jo Ann Williams, Husband and Wife, Appellants, v. TOTAL PETROLEUM, INC., Appellee, v. Diane REIFENSTAHL, Third-Party Defendant
Court: Iowa Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Iowa
Decision Date: 1987-01-14
Citations: 398 N.W.2d 807
Docket Number: No. 85-1564
Parties: James FUHRMAN and Sharon Fuhrman, Husband and Wife, Edward Gehring and Marianne Gehring, Husband and Wife, Donald L. Delong and Lucile M. Delong, Husband and Wife, and Howard C. Williams and Jo Ann Williams, Husband and Wife, Appellants, v. TOTAL PETROLEUM, INC., Appellee, v. Diane REIFENSTAHL, Third-Party Defendant.
Judges: All justices concur except SCHULTZ, J., REYNOLDSON, C.J., LARSON and LAVORATO, JJ., who dissent.
Reporter: North Western Reporter 2d
Volume: 398
Pages: 807–815

Head Matter:
James FUHRMAN and Sharon Fuhrman, Husband and Wife, Edward Gehring and Marianne Gehring, Husband and Wife, Donald L. Delong and Lucile M. Delong, Husband and Wife, and Howard C. Williams and Jo Ann Williams, Husband and Wife, Appellants, v. TOTAL PETROLEUM, INC., Appellee, v. Diane REIFENSTAHL, Third-Party Defendant.
No. 85-1564.
Supreme Court of Iowa.
Jan. 14, 1987.
Thomas D. Hobart of Meardon, Sueppel, Downer & Hayes, Iowa City, and Thomas Wynia, Story City, for appellants.
Raymond R. Stefani and Richard A. Ste-fani of Gray, Stefani & Mitvalsky, Cedar Rapids, for appellee.

Opinion:
HARRIS, Justice.
Few problems in recent years have so divided this court as those which relate to tort liability based on the furnishing of intoxicants, especially when the facts fall outside of Iowa's dramshop statute. This appeal presents another request that we fashion a common law tort theory to extend the right of recovery beyond the dramshop statute. (Stated another way, the question here is whether the legislature, in enacting the dramshop law, intended to preempt the field and set the metes and bounds of recovery rights in tort suits based on the sale or furnishing of intoxicants. I We recently faced the same question in Connolly v. Conlan, 371 N.W.2d 832 (Iowa 1985). As has become almost traditional in questions on this troublesome point, we were sharply divided, but our holding was certainly clear:
[T]he legislature expressly kept licensees and permittees under the dram shop act. In doing so, it struck for them a balance: They would remain strictly liable under the acts and would continue to be compelled to post financial responsibility. But, under the scheme, their liability was limited to serving persons "while he or she is intoxicated" or "to the point where he or she is intoxicated." The liability ended there.
Social policies might support the expanded liability suggested by the plaintiffs. But the legislature was not persuaded by them, and we are bound to adhere to the limitations of the legislative plan.
371 N.W.2d at 833.
Less than three months after Connolly was filed the trial court here was presented with a case which was controlled by it. Under the circumstances of course the trial judge had only two options; she could either apply Connolly or else refuse to. Connolly was applied and the sole question on appeal is whether this application was error. It was error only if we change our minds and overrule Connolly, which we are not inclined to do.
By reason of the posture of this appeal the facts alleged by plaintiffs can be stated succinctly. The plaintiffs were injured when their car collided with one driven by a seventeen-year-old juvenile, Diane Moss Reifenstahl (a third-party defendant who is not involved in this appeal). It is alleged that Reifenstahl was intoxicated after having been sold beer by defendant Total Petroleum, Inc. Plaintiffs however admit they have no evidence that Reifen-stahl was or became intoxicated at the time the beer was purchased or consumed at Total. After purchasing the beer Reifen-stahl left the store and drove to a nearby park where the beer was consumed. It was after this that she resumed driving and the accident occurred. The facts therefore fall outside the dramshop law because it is not claimed that, while on the premises, Reifenstahl was or became intoxicated.
For three reasons we adhere to our Connolly decision.
I. We think Connolly was rightly decided. The question is not whether we privately agree with the legislative parameters of the dramshop act. The question rather is whether the legislature did in fact set them. In Connolly we cited the legislative history of the act as first traced in
Nelson v. Restaurants of Iowa, Inc., 338 N.W.2d 881, 883-84 (Iowa 1983). That history led us to conclude that the legislature preempted the field of dramshop torts. We adhere to the view that the legislature deliberately prescribed not only the extent but also the limits of dramshop liability.
II. The most recent legislation on the subject, enacted since the filing of our Connolly opinion, does not signal legislative surrender to judicial proclivities to innovate in the area of dramshop liability. Iowa Code section 123.49(1) was amended for the expressed purpose of overturning our holding in Clark v. Mincks, 364 N.W.2d 226 (Iowa 1985).
In Mincks we created a common law right of recovery against social hosts, who of course are not covered under the statutory dramshop scheme. We did so by appending the recovery to a criminal provision in the beer and liquor control act. See Iowa Code § 123.49(1) (prohibits sale or furnishing of beer to intoxicated persons).
The legislative response was prompt and its message was clear. Iowa Code section 123.49 was amended by adding the following language:
a. A person other than a person required to hold a license or permit under this chapter who dispenses or gives an alcoholic beverage, wine, or beer in violation of this subsection is not civilly liable to an injured person or the estate of a person for injuries inflicted on that person as a result of intoxication by the consumer of the alcoholic beverage, wine, or beer.
b. The general assembly declares that this subsection shall be interpreted so that the holding of Clark v. Mincks, 364 N.W.2d 226 (Iowa 1985) is abrogated in favor of prior judicial interpretation finding the consumption of alcoholic beverages, wine, or beer rather than the serving of alcoholic beverages, wine, or beer as the proximate cause of injury inflicted upon another by an intoxicated person.
1986 Iowa Acts ch. 1211, § 11.
Plaintiffs' appeal in the present case is an invitation for us to undertake another Mincks-type venture, not under the auspices of section 123.49(1), but under a similar criminal provision. The point is exactly the same; we are again requested to jerry-rig a common law tort theory beyond the confines of the statutory dramshop law. This time the expanded theory would be appended to section 123.47 (prohibiting sale or furnishing of spirits to persons under legal age).
The intervening legislative message demands rejection, not acceptance, of plaintiffs' theory. The amendment announces and stresses a legislative policy of reverting to our "prior judicial interpretation" which placed tort liability on the consumer of the alcohol, not on the furnisher. See Cowman v. Hansen, 250 Iowa 358, 368, 92 N.W.2d 682, 687 (1958).
III. Finally, under the doctrine of stare decisis, we should now be greatly less inclined to extend liability than we were in Connolly. It is sometimes contended that frequent shifts and changes in the law, especially as given in appellate opinions, are to be expected in matters upon which we so strongly and obviously disagree and that a lawyer or judge accepts a closely divided majority decision at considerable peril. We often reexamine prior precedents and occasionally change them. There nevertheless comes a point at which it is clearly in the public interest for precedents to have a certain reliability. American appellate decisions should not be, as a recent critic somewhat cynically charged, entirely biodegradable. In his epic addresses on "The Nature of the Judicial Process," Benjamin N. Cardozo said:
[T]he judge, even when he is free, is still not wholly free. He is not to innovate at pleasure. He is not a knight — errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own idea of beauty or of goodness. He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles.
When we refuse to adhere to our own recent precedents it adds another dimension to the weighty problems encountered by the bench and bar.
The trial court was correct in applying our holding in Connolly.
IV. Plaintiffs also contend that Iowa Code section 123.92, not on its face but as applied in Connolly, unconstitutionally denies them equal protection of the laws. The challenge is subject to the rational basis test. Bishop v. Eastern Allamakee Community School District, 346 N.W.2d 500, 505 (Iowa 1984). We think the interpretation easily passes muster.
The legislative plan calls for a carefully limited class of persons to whom recovery rights were given. Robinson v. Bognanno, 213 N.W.2d 530, 532 (Iowa 1973). The purpose of the act was to impose strict liability for a tort which would be extremely difficult to prove by traditional methods. It was rational for the legislature to limit this strict liability to situations where the operator served persons who were or who thereby became intoxicated. Seivert v. Resnick, 342 N.W.2d 484, 485 (Iowa 1984).
AFFIRMED.
All justices concur except SCHULTZ, J., REYNOLDSON, C.J., LARSON and LAVORATO, JJ., who dissent.