Opinion ID: 3184455
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Common Law Backdrop

Text: In Wiener, the plaintiff was injured in a car accident as she was riding home from an off-site fraternity party, where the vehicle’s underage driver had consumed alcohol. The plaintiff brought common-law negligence claims against the fraternity, the owner of the off-site venue, and the fraternity member who had purchased the alcohol that was provided at the party. The trial court dismissed those claims. On review, this court observed: “Ordinarily, a host who makes available intoxicating liquors to an adult guest is not liable for injuries to third persons resulting from the guest’s intoxication. There might be circumstances in which the host would have a duty to deny his guest further access to alcohol. This would be the case where the host ‘has reason to know that he is dealing with 768 Deckard v. Bunch persons whose characteristics make it especially likely that they will do unreasonable things.’ Such persons could include those already severely intoxicated, or those whose behavior the host knows to be unusually affected by alcohol. Also included might be young people, if their ages were such that they could be expected, by virtue of their youth alone or in connection with other circumstances, to behave in a dangerous fashion under the influence of alcohol.” Wiener, 258 Or 639 (citing Rappaport v. Nichols, 31 NJ 188, 156 A2d 1, 9 (1959) (footnotes omitted). With regard to the fraternity member who supplied the alcohol and the owners of the venue, this court acknowledged that, under the circumstances described above, a person could be liable to a third person for allowing another person to become intoxicated. 258 Or at 640. However, the court concluded that the allegations against the fraternity member and the venue owners were insufficient to assert a breach of duty to the plaintiff, because: (1) the fraternity member acted only as a conduit in providing alcohol to the people who served it to others; and (2) the venue owners furnished the premises, but they had no duty to protect the guests or others from the actions of those who were allowed to become intoxicated. Id. at 640-42. Turning to the fraternity, this court concluded that its status as host and its direct service of alcohol to the driver were sufficient to create a duty “to refuse to serve alcohol to a guest when it would be unreasonable under the circumstances to permit him to drink.” Id. at 643. Accordingly, this court reversed the dismissal of the common law negligence claim against the fraternity. Id. at 643-44. Six years later, in Campbell, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant tavern owners were liable for injuries that the plaintiff sustained in a car accident caused by a customer to whom the owners had served alcohol while she was “perceptibly” intoxicated. The plaintiff further alleged that the tavern owners knew or should have known that the customer would leave the tavern by driving a car, thereby creating an unreasonable risk of harm to others. Campbell, 279 Or at 239. The case was tried to the court, which entered a judgment for the plaintiff. The tavern owners appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support the court’s verdict; the defendants did not contend Cite as 358 Or 754 (2016) 769 that the allegations of the complaint failed to state a claim. Id. On review, this court reiterated its previous statement in Wiener that a person who negligently furnishes alcohol to a person who already is severely intoxicated may be held liable for damages to a third person who suffers injuries as a consequence. Id. at 239-40 (citing Wiener, 258 Or at 639). The court then discussed Rappaport again, and ultimately adopted the following reasoning from that case: “When alcoholic beverages are sold by a tavern keeper to a minor or to an intoxicated person, the unreasonable risk of harm not only to the minor or the intoxicated person but also to members of the traveling public may readily be recognized and foreseen; this is particularly evident in current times when traveling by car to and from the tavern is so commonplace and accidents resulting from drinking are so frequent.” Id. at 240 (citing Rappaport, 156 A2d at 8-9). The court in Campbell also noted that Oregon statutory law prohibited the service of alcohol to “visibly” intoxicated persons and was similar in that regard to New Jersey law, which prohibited serving alcohol to “apparently” intoxicated persons. Id. at 241 n 2 (citing former ORS 471.410(3) (1971), renumbered as ORS 471.410(1) (1977) (“No person shall give or otherwise make available any alcoholic liquor to a person visibly intoxicated.”); former ORS 472.310(3) (1977), repealed by Or Laws 1995, ch 301, § 74; Oregon Liquor Control Regulations No. 10-065(2)). However, this court adopted the reasoning of Rappaport as a matter of common-law negligence, not based on or because of a statute.10 Campbell, 279 Or at 241 n 2. This court in Campbell held that there was suf- ficient evidence to support an inference that, in serving alcohol to the patron while she was visibly intoxicated, the tavern owners had reason to know that, upon leaving the 10 The court adopted the “visibly intoxicated” standard as a common-law negligence standard, although, in the context of a negligence per se claim, this court previously had held in Stachniewicz that the visibly-intoxicated standard was “particularly inappropriate for the awarding of civil damages because of the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, of determining whether a third party’s injuries would have been caused, in any event, by the already inebriated person.” Stachniewicz, 259 Or at 586-87. 770 Deckard v. Bunch tavern, she would drive away in a car. Id. at 243. The court reasoned that, “[u]nder the rule of Rappaport, however, which we now adopt for application in such cases, a tavern keeper is negligent if, at the time of serving drinks to a customer, that customer is ‘visibly’ intoxicated because at that time it is reasonably foreseeable that when such a customer leaves the tavern he or she will drive an automobile.” Id. at 243-44. This court in Campbell therefore concluded, as a matter of first impression, that a tavern owner may be liable in common-law negligence for damages inflicted off-premises on a third party by a patron who had been served while visibly intoxicated. Id. at 239, 243-44.11 The court’s statement that a tavern owner who serves a visibly intoxicated patron is negligent should not be understood to suggest that the issue of foreseeability has been conclusively established by judicial notice in such circumstances. As this court stated in Chartrand: “In Campbell, when we took judicial notice of the facts discussed above, we did not remove from the definition of negligence the ‘knew or should have known’ element; nor did we suggest by our language that the ‘knew or should have known’ element need not be proved at all but may be supplied by judicial notice. The facts that in current times traveling by car to and from a tavern is commonplace and car accidents resulting from drinking are frequent are not the type of indisputable facts that qualify for judicial notice under OEC 201. Judicial notice cannot replace the need for proof of an essential element of the tort claim as alleged in this case, i.e., proof that the defendant knew or should have known that the customer would drive a vehicle from the tavern.” Chartrand, 298 Or at 694-95. The third case leading to the 1979 legislation was Davis. In that case, two taverns sold kegs of beer to minors without requiring proof of age. Another minor drank some of the beer and, after becoming intoxicated, drove his car 11 The court expressly noted that it had not reached that issue in Wiener. Id. at 238. Cite as 358 Or 754 (2016) 771 negligently, causing an accident that resulted in the death of another person. This court held that the taverns were negligent per se in violating ORS 471.130(1) (1975), “which [made] it unlawful to sell [alcohol] to any person ‘about whom there is any reasonable doubt of his having reached 21 years of age,’ without first requiring [identification or other] proof of age[.]” Davis, 284 Or at 355-57. It was in that setting that the 1979 legislature considered the matter of the liability of social hosts and commercial providers to third parties for overservice of alcohol.