Title: MeGee v. El Patio
Citation: 2023 OK 14
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: February 14, 2023

MeGee v. El Patio Annotate this Case Justia Opinion Summary In January 2021, Plaintiff-appellant Nancy MeGee, as Personal Representative of and on behalf of the Estate of David MeGee, filed a wrongful death action against Defendants-appellees El Patio, LLC and Dylan Welch, an employee of El Patio. The petition alleged Welch intentionally and negligently over-served MeGee resulting in his death. It was alleged that Welch and other El Patio employees served MeGee twelve beers and five shots of tequila over the course of seven hours and then allowed him to drive. The petition further alleged several servers bet MeGee $200.00 that he would not meet them at a bar in Oklahoma City later that night. Welch and the servers knew MeGee was leaving El Patio to drive to Oklahoma City to collect on the bet. MeGee reached speeds of 97 mph on his way and collided with the rear end of a tractor-trailer on I-40 near El Reno, Oklahoma. He was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. There were two issues presented for the Oklahoma Supreme Courts review on appeal: (1) should dram shop liability be extended to create a cause of action for a voluntarily intoxicated adult patron who is injured or dies as a result of his own intoxication; and (2) does a voluntarily intoxicated adult who accepts a bet to drive a motor vehicle and injures himself as a result of his own intoxication have a cause of action against the bettor? The Supreme Court reaffirmed its holding in Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. v. Todd, 813 P.2d 508, that the commercial vendor was not liable to the voluntarily intoxicated adult patron who injures himself. The Court declined to recognized a cause of action holding a bettor liable in circumstances alleged in this case. Read more Want to stay in the know about new opinions from the Oklahoma Supreme Court? Sign up for free summaries delivered directly to your inbox. Learn More › You already receive new opinion summaries from Oklahoma Supreme Court. Did you know we offer summary newsletters for even more practice areas and jurisdictions? Explore them here . MEGEE v. EL PATIO 2023 OK 14 Case Number: 119449 Decided: 02/14/2023 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA NOTICE: THIS OPINION HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED FOR PUBLICATION. UNTIL RELEASED, IT IS SUBJECT TO REVISION OR WITHDRAWAL. NANCY CAROL MEGEE, as Personal Representative of and on behalf of Estate of David Anthony MeGee, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. EL PATIO, LLC, an Oklahoma Limited Liability Company; and DYLAN SCOTT WELCH, an individual, Defendants/Appellees. ON APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF CUSTER COUNTY, STATE OF OKLAHOMA HONORABLE JILL C. WEEDON, DISTRICT JUDGE ¶0 Plaintiff/Appellant Nancy Carol MeGee, as Personal Representative of and on behalf of the Estate of David Anthony MeGee, brought a wrongful death action against Defendants/Appellees El Patio, LLC and Dylan Scott Welch. Personal Representative alleges that Welch and other employees of El Patio over-served alcoholic beverages to David Anthony MeGee and then bet him $200 to drive from Weatherford, Oklahoma, to Oklahoma City. MeGee died in a motor vehicle accident on his way to Oklahoma City. The trial court granted El Patio and Welch's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Personal Representative appealed. We reaffirm our holding in Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. v. Todd, 1991 OK 54, 813 P.2d 508 , that a voluntarily intoxicated adult does not have a cause of action against a commercial vendor for personal injuries or death resulting from his own intoxication. We also hold that, regardless of the sale of alcohol, an intoxicated adult who accepts a bet to drive a motor vehicle and is injured as a result of his own intoxication does not have a cause of action against the bettor. ORDER OF THE DISTRICT COURT IS AFFIRMED. Clayton B. Bruner, Weatherford, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff/Appellant. Richard M. Healy, Lytle Soulé & Felty, P.C., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendants/Appellees. KANE, C.J.: ¶1 There are two issues on appeal. First, should dram shop liability be extended to create a cause of action for a voluntarily intoxicated adult patron who is injured or dies as a result of his own intoxication? We reaffirm our holding in Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. v. Todd, 1991 OK 54, 813 P.2d 508 , that the commercial vendor is not liable to the voluntarily intoxicated adult patron who injures himself. Second, does a voluntarily intoxicated adult who accepts a bet to drive a motor vehicle and injures himself as a result of his own intoxication have a cause of action against the bettor? We recognize no such cause of action. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY ¶2 David Anthony MeGee was killed in a motor vehicle accident on January 19, 2019. Prior to getting behind the wheel, MeGee had been drinking alcohol at the El Patio restaurant in Weatherford, Oklahoma. ¶3 On January 19, 2021, Plaintiff/Appellant Nancy Carol MeGee, as Personal Representative of and on behalf of the Estate of David Anthony MeGee, filed a wrongful death action against Defendants/Appellees El Patio, LLC and Dylan Scott Welch, an employee of El Patio. The petition alleges that Welch intentionally and negligently over-served MeGee resulting in his death.1 It is alleged that Welch and other El Patio employees served MeGee twelve beers and five shots of tequila over the course of seven hours and then allowed him to drive. The petition further alleges that several servers bet MeGee $200.00 that he would not meet them at a bar in Oklahoma City later that night. Welch and the servers knew MeGee was leaving El Patio to drive to Oklahoma City to collect on the bet. MeGee reached speeds of 97 mph on his way and collided with the rear end of a tractor-trailer on I-40 near El Reno, Oklahoma. He was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. ¶4 El Patio and Welch filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, pursuant to 12 O.S.2011, § 2012(B)(6). El Patio and Welch argued Oklahoma law is clear that a licensed vendor of alcohol is not liable for injuries sustained by an intoxicated adult as a result of his own voluntary consumption of alcohol and that "negligent betting" is not a cognizable theory of liability. Personal Representative responded that an exception to the current law on first-party dram shop liability should be made under the egregious facts of the case and that betting an intoxicated person to drive is actionable. The trial court granted El Patio and Welch's motion to dismiss by journal entry filed on March 22, 2021. Personal Representative appealed. This Court retained the appeal on its own motion. STANDARD OF REVIEW ¶5 A district court's dismissal of an action is reviewed de novo. See Kirby v. Jean's Plumbing Heat & Air, 2009 OK 65, ¶ 5, 222 P.3d 21 , 23. The purpose of a motion to dismiss is to test the law that governs the claim, not the facts. Id. ¶ 5, at 24. A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted will not be sustained unless it appears without doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts which would entitle the plaintiff to relief. Id. Thus, the Court must take as true all of the allegations in the challenged pleading together with all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from them. Id. Dismissal is appropriate only when there is no cognizable legal theory to support the claim or there are insufficient facts under a cognizable legal theory. Id. ANALYSIS ¶6 Personal Representative is advancing two theories of liability based on negligence--selling alcohol to a noticeably intoxicated adult and betting an intoxicated person to drive. The framework for determining whether she has stated a claim for negligence is the same for both. To maintain a cause of action for negligence, three elements must be established: (1) a duty owed by the defendant to protect the plaintiff from injury; (2) a failure to perform that duty; and (3) injuries to the plaintiff which are proximately caused by the defendant's failure to exercise the duty of care. Smith v. City of Stillwater, 2014 OK 42, ¶ 22, 328 P.3d 1192, 1200. I. Liability Based on Serving Alcoholic Beverages to a Noticeably Intoxicated Adult ¶7 The common law rule was that a liquor vendor is not civilly liable for injuries to a third party that are caused by the acts of an intoxicated patron. This Court first recognized dram shop liability in Brigance v. Velvet Dove Restaurant, Inc., 1986 OK 41, 725 P.2d 300 . We said that commercial vendors have a duty, imposed by both statute2 and common law principles, "to exercise reasonable care in selling or furnishing liquor to persons who by previous intoxication may lack full capacity of self-control to operate a motor vehicle and who may subsequently injure a third party." Id. ¶ 18, at 304. Since Brigance, a third party injured by a drunk driver may state a cause of action against the commercial vendor that over-served the driver. ¶8 In Ohio Casualty v. Todd, we were asked to determine whether a Brigance action should be extended to a voluntarily intoxicated adult patron who injures himself. We held that a tavern has no liability to an intoxicated adult who voluntarily consumes alcoholic beverages in excess and is injured as a result of his own intoxication. See Ohio Cas., 1991 OK 54, ¶ 20, 813 P.2d at 512. In reaching this conclusion, we explained that the commercial vendor's statutory and common law duty not to serve intoxicated persons is to protect innocent third parties, not to protect the voluntarily intoxicated adult from injuring himself. ¶9 We began Ohio Casualty by recognizing the tavern owner's statutory3 duty not to serve alcoholic beverages to an intoxicated adult and then examined whether violation of the statute amounted to negligence per se. See id. ¶¶ 9-11, at 510. The Court explained that the following elements must be established before the violation of a statute is negligence per se: (1) the injury must have been caused by the violation; (2) the injury must be of a type intended to be prevented by the statute; and (3) the injured party must be a member of the class intended to be protected by the statute. Id. ¶ 9, at 510. This Court found that the intoxicated driver was not a member of the class the statute was intended to protect. Id. ¶¶ 10-11, at 510. The Court reiterated what it said in Brigance: "[T]he purpose behind Section 537(A)(2) was to protect innocent third parties who were injured by intoxicated persons." Id. ¶ 10, at 510. We concluded: We find nothing in Section 537(A)(2), or in any of the statutes regulating the sale of alcohol, which indicate that the legislature intended to protect the intoxicated adult who, by his own actions, causes injury to himself. Instead, it appears that the legislature intended to protect the "unsuspecting public" - in effect all of the populace except the willing imbiber. Thus, a violation of Section 537(A)(2) does not amount to negligence per se under the facts of this case. Id. ¶ 11, at 510 (citations omitted).4 The Court also found Article 28, § 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution5 did not create a civil remedy in tort for the voluntarily intoxicated adult against the tavern owner. See id. n. 1, at 510. ¶10 The Court then turned to whether the tavern owner has a common law duty to an intoxicated adult patron who injures himself. Id. ¶¶ 12-19, at 510-12. We found no such common law duty. The Court discussed the concept of duty and liability as matters of public policy "subject to the changing attitudes and needs of society." Id. ¶ 13, at 511 (citing Brigance, 1986 OK 41, ¶ 12, 725 P.2d at 303). When Ohio Casualty was decided in 1991, the Court identified no public policy that demanded the extension of dram shop liability to the voluntarily intoxicated adult. Id. ¶ 18, at 512. Rather, societal considerations aimed at deterring drunk driving called for personal accountability: Here, the question is simply whether the intoxicated adult must bear the responsibility for his own injury which occurred due to his voluntary consumption of an excessive amount of alcohol. In the absence of harm to a third party, the act of serving an alcoholic beverage to an intoxicated adult customer and allowing the customer to exit the establishment does not constitute a breach of duty which is actionable in common law negligence. The public policy of protecting the innocent from the intoxicated would not be furthered by such an extension of Brigance. This holding does not ignore the conduct of the tavern owner, as the opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part fears. If a third party is injured, the rule of Brigance provides a cause of action against the tavern owner as well as the driver. Furthermore, the tavern owner who disregards the condition of his customers does so at the risk of criminal prosecution as well as forfeiture of his liquor license. Id. ¶ 19, at 512 (emphasis added). ¶11 This appeal presents the same question addressed in Ohio Casualty. We decline Personal Representative's invitation to deviate from our holding in Ohio Casualty. Rather, we reaffirm this Court's precedent. A voluntarily intoxicated adult patron who is injured as a result of his own intoxication cannot maintain a civil action against the commercial vendor.6 Like the Court in Ohio Casualty, we are cognizant that when a court creates a cause of action based on public policy, as we did in Brigance, it "has a burden to responsibly chart the boundaries beyond which the new cause of action does not serve the public, and should not be the law." Id. ¶ 18, at 512. Attitudes about drinking and driving and the needs of society have not changed over the last 32 years in such a way that dram shop liability should be extended to the voluntarily intoxicated adult. To the contrary, we heed to the Ohio Casualty Court's warning that if we "were to create a cause of action against the tavern owner, the inebriate could be rewarded for his own immoderation. Such was not the intent of Brigance, nor will we allow such a reward." Id. ¶ 15, at 511. II. Liability Based on Betting an Intoxicated Adult to Drive ¶12 Personal Representative presses a second theory of liability based on allegations that El Patio employees bet or incentivized MeGee to drive to Oklahoma City in an intoxicated state. Personal Representative asserts that MeGee was financially destitute and "$200.00 was an immense amount of money" to him. She emphasizes that the negligent betting theory of liability is separate from dram shop liability. Her negligent betting claim does not rely on MeGee being over-served at El Patio. Rather, she contends there is a common law duty not to bet a drunk person to drive. ¶13 As always, we begin with the existence of a duty. Whether a duty exists is a question of law. See Smith, 2014 OK 42, ¶ 22, 328 P.3d at 1200. If the defendant does not have a duty to protect the plaintiff from injury, there can be no set of facts available to create liability for negligence as a matter of law. See id. While negligent betting and over-serving are separate theories of liability, the duty inquiry is the same: Did the El Patio employees have a duty to protect MeGee from injuring himself?7 ¶14 Again, our analysis hinges on to whom the duty is owed, i.e., whether there is a duty to protect the plaintiff from injury. There may be a duty not to bet an intoxicated person to drive, but that duty is owed to innocent third parties, not the voluntarily intoxicated adult. MeGee was not an innocent third party. Rather, he was a voluntarily intoxicated adult who drove a motor vehicle and, tragically, died as a result of his own intoxication. El Patio employees may have had a duty not to bet MeGee to drive to protect third parties from injuries caused by MeGee, but they did not have a duty to protect MeGee from injuring himself. ¶15 We hold that a voluntarily intoxicated adult who accepts a bet to drive a motor vehicle and is injured or dies as a result of his own intoxication does not have a cause of action against the bettor. A voluntarily intoxicated adult is responsible for his condition and must be accountable for his own injuries. Allowing an intoxicated adult to be rewarded for his decision to drive does not deter drunk driving or further the public policy of protecting the innocent from the intoxicated. Echoing what this Court said in Ohio Casualty, in the absence of harm to a third party, betting an intoxicated adult to drive does not constitute a breach of duty actionable in common law negligence. Our holding does not ignore the conduct of the bettor. If a third party is injured, there may be a cause of action against the bettor as well as the driver. ¶16 We do not recognize a common law duty to protect a voluntarily intoxicated adult from injuring himself.8 The facts alleged are egregious, but, without the existence of a duty, Personal Representative has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. No cognizable legal theory supports Personal Representative's claims. The trial court properly dismissed the lawsuit. CONCLUSION ¶17 It remains the law in Oklahoma that a voluntarily intoxicated adult who is injured as a result of his own intoxication does not have a cause of action against the commercial vendor that over-served him. A voluntarily intoxicated adult who accepts a bet to drive a motor vehicle and is injured or dies as a result of his own intoxication does not have a cause of action against the bettor. ORDER OF THE DISTRICT COURT IS AFFIRMED. CONCUR: Kane, C.J., Rowe, V.C.J. (by separate writing), Winchester and Kuehn, JJ. and Mitchell, S.J. DISSENT: Kauger, Edmondson, Gurich (by separate writing) and Darby (by separate writing), JJ. DISQUALIFIED: Combs, J. FOOT