Opinion ID: 891698
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The recklessness standard limits social host liability.

Text: {33} Our construction of social host to include individuals and companies who host in licensed establishments does not, contrary to Pharmaceutical Defendants' predictions, create a slippery slope leading to the creation of a duty to the whole world or, at least, to the whole bar. We think this characterization is unrealistic under the Liquor Liability Act. As a general rule, an individual has no duty to protect another from harm. Edward C., 2010-NMSC-043, ¶ 16, 148 N.M. 646, 241 P.3d 1086. A duty to act under a specific standard of care towards a specific group of people may be imposed, however, by statute or common law, see id. ¶ 15; in this case the Liquor Liability Act imposes a duty on social hosts not to act recklessly in the service of alcohol beverages to their guest, Section 41-11-1(E). Recklessness, as defined by the Uniform Jury Instructions for liquor liability, is the intentional doing of an act with utter indifference to or conscious disregard for a person's [rights or safety]. UJI 13-1641(4) NMRA. A plaintiff, therefore, has two sizeable hurdles to be successful in a suit under a social host liability theory: to establish facts from which a well-instructed jury could identify a guest/host relationship, and to prove reckless misconduct resulting from that relationship. {34} The Liquor Liability Act's recklessness standard for social hosts indicates that the Legislature did not intend to impose on social host a meaning as broad as that attributed to the phrase by Solberg, where an individual who antes up at a tavern may be liable as a social host. 760 P.2d at 870. We agree with Dube that [a]pplying existing social values and customs, it cannot reasonably be argued that the common practice of patronizing eating and drinking establishments with companions, each participant paying a fair share of the charges, imposes social host liability on each member of the group in the event one individual visibly drinks to excess and causes damage afterward. 868 N.E.2d at 623 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Liquor Liability Act's statutory limitation on the duty act[s] as [a] safeguard[] against indiscriminately imposing liability upon a person who gives someone else an alcoholic beverage. Born, 514 N.W.2d at 690. The mere presence of an individual in a bar is not enough to impose a duty on her or him; nor is merely purchasing a round for friends, or even a stranger. Cf. State v. Marquez, 2010-NMCA-064, ¶ 18, 148 N.M. 511, 238 P.3d 880, cert. quashed, 2010-NMCERT-006, 148 N.M. 584, 241 P.3d 182 (holding that a passenger in a car could be charged with aiding and abetting crimes committed by a driver who drove intoxicated). {35} In creating the Liquor Liability Act, our Legislature endorsed a public policy that an individual or company who hosts a party where alcohol is gratuitously served, whether at a bar or in a private home, can be expected to refrain from reckless activity in association with providing alcohol to guests. The following may reflect the reasoning of the Legislature in imposing liability on social hosts for the reckless service of alcohol: [W]e believe that given society's extreme concern about drunken driving, any change in social behavior resulting from the rule will be regarded ultimately as neutral at the very least, and not as a change for the worse; but that in any event if there be a loss, it is well worth the gain. Kelly v. Gwinnell, 96 N.J. 538, 476 A.2d 1219, 1224 (1984). When individuals split a check, purchase a drink for a friend, or engage in other socially acceptable practices, such action, alone, does not create a guest/host relationship and is not reckless under the Liquor Liability Act. In the Act, the Legislature limited liability only to those actions of a social host that are considered reckless under our contemporaneous social values and customs.