Opinion ID: 2513957
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rational relationship between legislative classification and objective

Text: [ถ 91] Having identified the class harmed by the legislation and the public purpose of the statute, we must examine the characteristic of the disadvantaged class justifying the disparate treatment and how that is relevant to the statute's purpose. In other words, is there a rational relationship between the purpose of the statute and a characteristic of the class harmed by the legislation? The fatal flaw in Wyoming's dram-shop statute appears in the final step of the Johnson test particularly because a reviewing court is no longer free to imagine any set of facts which could make the statute appear constitutional. Johnson, 838 P.2d at 167. Can it be argued that preventing a tort victim from seeking damages for a negligent alcohol provider's share of responsibility is rationally related to protection of the public? I struggle to see the connection. It may be true that subjecting violators of Title 12 to liability encourages compliance with ง 12-8-301. However, it does not logically follow that granting immunity to negligent alcohol providers who comply with Title 12 will somehow promote public safety. Under the statute, an alcohol provider may be motivated to diligently comply with each Title 12 requirement to avoid liability, such as refusing to serve minors or intoxicated persons in drivein areas, observing mandatory hours of operation, and following the myriad of other Title 12 requirements. Yet, under ง 12-8-301 the same alcohol provider has no legal incentive to refrain from serving more alcohol to an already intoxicated individual inside the establishment. Both McClellan and the 1985 statute had the effect of encouraging compliance with Title 12 by holding all persons liable who illegally provided alcohol while also protecting the public by imposing that same liability on licensees who failed to exercise reasonable care in serving alcohol to intoxicated persons inside the establishment. Viewed from this perspective, it is difficult to imagine how ง 12-8-301 is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. This is particularly true in light of the fact that the statute significantly curtails both the rights of tort victims and the responsibilities of liquor vendors as those rights and responsibilities existed after McClellan and prior to the 1986 amendment to ง 12-8-301. [ถ 92] When an intoxicated individual leaves the provider's premises, the public is in danger. Usually, but not always, the heightened risk of harm to the public results from alcohol-related traffic accidents that are tragic and foreseeable events, evident in alarming statistics. Regrettably, accidents involving intoxicated drivers in Wyoming are commonplace. In 1986, the year the legislature enacted ง 12-8-301, there were 146 fatal vehicular accidents in Wyoming. Wyoming's Comprehensive Report on Traffic Accidents, Wyoming Highway Department, Highway Safety Branch, Accident Data Management Section at 149 (1986). Seventy-one vehicular accidents, or 48.6 percent of all vehicular accidents which resulted in death that year, were alcohol-related. Id. These statistics fail to account for the many people who had injuries that resulted from alcohol-related traffic accidents but did not result in death. It is also important to note that, although the most obvious public safety concern is drinking and driving, intoxicated persons pose many other types of risks to third persons that do not involve the use of a motor vehicle. Public safety cannot be enhanced by excusing alcohol providers from the same duty owed by all other persons acting reasonably under the circumstances. Therefore, the classification of tort victims created by ง 12-8-301 is not rationally related to the apparent purpose of the statute protection of the public. [ถ 93] In prior cases where this Court has found statutory classifications were not rationally related to the legislative objective, we have not hesitated to declare the statute at issue unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. In Nehring, 582 P.2d 67, we held the automobile guest statute violated the equal protection provisions by distinguishing between paying and nonpaying guest passengers with regard to their right to sue for injuries as a result of a driver's negligence. While we recognized the legitimate legislative objective of promoting hospitality by generous drivers, we questioned whether the classification prescribed by statute had a rational relation to that objective. 582 P.2d at 78. We quoted the New Mexico Supreme Court to expose the basic flaw in the relationship: The classification fails not because it draws some distinction between paying and nonpaying guests, but because it penalizes nonpaying guests by depriving them completely of protection from ordinary negligence.... No matter how laudable the State's interest in promoting hospitality, it is irrational to reward generosity by allowing the host to abandon ordinary care and by denying to nonpaying guests the common law remedy for negligently inflicted injury. Id. (quoting McGeehan v. Bunch, 88 N.M. 308, 540 P.2d 238, 241 (1975)). We held the guest statute exceeded all bounds of rationality and constituted a denial of uniform operation under the Wyoming Constitution. Id. at 79. [ถ 94] In Phillips, 611 P.2d 821, we struck down a ten-year statute of limitation that immunized a class of defendants from certain enumerated liabilities arising from their involvement in real property improvements. The statute had the effect of granting a special immunity to architects and contractors. 611 P.2d at 825. Conversely, it limited a specific class of plaintiffs from full recoveryโthose who suffered damages as a result of the negligence of an architect or contractor. `The arbitrary quality of the statute clearly appears when we consider that architects and contractors are not the only persons whose negligence in the construction of a building or other improvement may cause damage to property or injury to persons.' Id. (quoting Skinner v. Anderson, 38 Ill.2d 455, 231 N.E.2d 588, 591 (1967)). `That the statute benefits all architects and construction contractors is significant only if the benefits conferred upon them are not denied to others similarly situated.' Id. at 826 (quoting Skinner, 231 N.E.2d at 591). We held in part that the statute granted immunity from suit for only a narrow spectrum of defendants in violation of the equal protection provisions. Id. at 831. [ถ 95] Here, the majority concludes the legislature could rationally have thought the classification requiring an injured third party to look to only the intoxicated adult for compensation promotes individual responsibility on the part of those who choose to drink and drive or otherwise abuse alcohol and, in that manner, protects the public. The majority insists the legislature properly could have concluded that to do otherwise would impose an unacceptable burden upon the alcohol provider to recognize its customer is intoxicated and to foresee that a customer may drink and drive. This assertion is fallacious for several reasons. First, it can be presumed, in a great majority of the circumstances, a jury will consider proximate cause and place liability squarely on the shoulders of the intoxicated person. Second, the legislature imposed responsibility on the alcohol provider to determine whether its drive-in customer is intoxicated, a much more difficult task given the attenuated nature of the contact with that person not being able to observe the volume of alcohol previously consumed or the typical behaviors accompanying intoxication. See ง 12-5-301(a)(v) (forbids the furnishing of alcohol to an intoxicated person in the drive-in area). It is, at best, questionable whether serving alcohol to an intoxicated customer in the drive-in area poses any greater danger to the public than serving an intoxicated person inside the premises. This is particularly true considering the intoxicated person must only be in the drive-in area and thus may not necessarily be driving a vehicle. Finally, to support the conclusion that imposing the alcohol provider's share of liability on the intoxicated person will act as a deterrent and encourage personal responsibility on the part of the intoxicated person thereby assisting in protecting the public, this Court must agree that an already intoxicated customer is cognizant of the statute's effect and has the capacity to conclude he should refrain from further alcohol consumption to avoid assuming more than his personal share of responsibility for injuries he may cause upon leaving the establishment. It is difficult to imagine a more illogical conclusion. As between an intoxicated patron and a licensed alcohol provider, no doubt exists as to who has the greater capacity to control whether more alcohol is consumed and is in fact capable of exercising personal responsibility. [ถ 96] I also question whether individual responsibility was the legislative objective behind the dram-shop statute because it is directly contrary to the policy underlying Wyoming's comparative negligence statute in which the legislature chose to allocate the consequences to all those with fault. In 1986, the Wyoming legislature abolished joint and several liability by amending ง 1-1-109 to provide that a party at fault be required to pay for his proportionate share of the fault. 1986 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 24, ง 1; Haderlie v. Sondgeroth, 866 P.2d 703, 708 (Wyo.1993). The adoption of comparative fault mandates that the trier of fact determine issues of proximate cause and allocate liability accordingly. In a comparative fault case, the jury must consider the negligence of not only the parties but also all the participants in the transaction producing the injuries sued upon. [3] Board of County Commissioners of County of Campbell v. Ridenour, 623 P.2d 1174, 1191 (Wyo.1981). [ถ 97] Instead of promoting individual responsibility, the current version of ง 12-8-301 excuses an alcohol provider from responsibility for its own negligence by precluding recovery for its proportion of fault when it acts legally but fails to exercise the degree of care required of a reasonable person in light of all the circumstances. Try as I might, I can find no rational basis to distinguish between victims injured by persons illegally served alcohol or intoxicated persons served in a drive-in area and those injured due in part to the negligence of a person serving an obviously intoxicated adult inside an establishment. [ถ 98] The Greenwalts suggest the true legislative purpose of ง 12-8-301 is to protect alcohol vendors from the expense of liability insurance to cover their potential negligence. Lacking any indication in the legislative history of the intent of the body as a whole, we are offered evidence of the intent of the sponsor of the legislation which would suggest that, at least, to be his purpose. [4] However, we cannot consider the intent of one legislator as reflecting the intent of the legislature as a whole. Independent Producers Marketing Corp. v. Cobb, 721 P.2d 1106, 1108 (Wyo.1986). Obviously, if the Greenwalts' contention were true, it would not constitute a legitimate legislative purpose and would raise other constitutional issues such as the prohibition in Article 3, Section 27 of the Wyoming Constitution against special laws granting exclusive immunity to corporations or individuals. Having found the medical profession was not entitled to such preferential treatment, we certainly should not find alcohol providers are entitled to it. Hoem, 756 P.2d at 783. [ถ 99] I am fully cognizant of the deference we are required to give the legislature and our obligation not to encroach into the legislative field of policy making. However, it is likewise this Court's duty to declare unconstitutional statutes that clearly violate Wyoming's constitutional mandates. Painter v. Abels, 998 P.2d 931, 939 (Wyo.2000). Even with considerable effort, I can find no rational relationship between this statute and a legitimate state concern. Following the rationale of our longstanding equal protection jurisprudence, I would find the Greenwalts have carried their burden of proof that the dram-shop statute creates classifications of tort victims and tortfeasors without furthering a legitimate state interest.