Opinion ID: 1271778
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: constitutionality of 1978 amendments

Text: Because of our conclusion that the 1978 amendments, if valid, would bar each of plaintiff's causes of action against defendant Shierloh, we examine plaintiff's constitutional arguments. Before testing the classifications herein presented we caution that our constitutional inquiry does not seek to determine whether the 1978 amendments were or are wise, sound, necessary, or in the public interest. There are ample reasons for concluding otherwise. We simply ask whether the legislation adopted, for whatever purposes disclosed or undisclosed, is reasonably supportable. Each day the devastating effects of the drinking driver rage unabated with all of their tragic social and economic consequences. ( Taylor v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal.3d 890, 897-898 [157 Cal. Rptr. 693, 598 P.2d 854].) We do not speculate on the influences that might have prompted the Legislature to answer this acute and growing problem by narrowly restricting rather than enlarging civil liability. In the final analysis the Legislature must answer to an informed, and perhaps ultimately aroused, public opinion for its action. We do not substitute our judgment for its own. The controlling constitutional principle moving us to our conclusion herein was well expressed by Justice Traynor over 30 years ago in Werner v. Southern Cal. etc. Newspapers (1950) 35 Cal.2d 121, 129 [216 P.2d 825, 13 A.L.R.2d 252]: This court cannot invoke the due process clause to invalidate a legislative policy that it may deem unwise without exercising judicial censorship directed not at the constitutionality of legislation but at its wisdom, ... This view has found increasing acceptance by the United States Supreme Court.... [¶] `Despite evidence to the contrary, respondents see no evil to be corrected by this legislation. We are asked to agree with respondents and call the statute arbitrary and unreasonable. [¶] Looking through the form of this plea to its essential basis, we cannot fail to recognize it as an argument for invalidity because this Court disagrees with the desirability of the legislation. We rehearse the obvious when we say that our function is thus misconceived. We are not equipped to decide desirability; and a court cannot eliminate measures which do not happen to suit its tastes if it seeks to maintain a democratic system. The forum for the correction of ill-considered legislation is a responsive legislature.' [Citation.] (Italics added.) Appellate courts sensitive to the restraints imposed by article III, section 3, of the California Constitution, fully respect the deference which must uniformly and reciprocally be extended between equal and coordinate branches of government. Plaintiff urges that the statutes at issue constitute an unconstitutional denial of equal protection of the laws, creating arbitrary and unreasonable classifications which are unrelated to any legitimate governmental purpose. (See Cooper v. Bray (1978) 21 Cal.3d 841, 847-848 [148 Cal. Rptr. 148, 582 P.2d 604]; Brown v. Merlo (1973) 8 Cal.3d 855, 861 [106 Cal. Rptr. 388, 506 P.2d 212, 66 A.L.R.3d 505].) More specifically, and as previously noted, the 1978 amendments exend to providers of alcoholic beverages a general immunity from suit, subject to the provisions of section 25602.1 of the Business and Professions Code, which preserves a cause of action by an injured person against a licensed seller or furnisher of alcoholic beverages to an obviously intoxicated minor. Plaintiff argues that the general rule of immunity and the statutory classifications drawn between licensed and unlicensed providers, and between minor and adult consumers, are neither rational nor serve any legitimate state purpose. (2) It is well settled that the Legislature possesses a broad authority both to establish and to abolish tort causes of action. As former Chief Justice Gibson put it over 30 years ago, Except as the Constitution otherwise provides, the Legislature has complete power to determine the rights of individuals. [Citation.] It may create new rights or provide that rights which have previously existed shall no longer arise.... ( Modern Barber Col. v. Cal. Emp. Stab. Com. (1948) 31 Cal.2d 720, 726 [192 P.2d 916]; accord, Werner v. Southern Cal. etc. Newspapers, supra, 35 Cal.2d 121, 125; Ferreira v. Barham (1964) 230 Cal. App.2d 128, 130 [40 Cal. Rptr. 739]; Lowman v. Stafford (1964) 226 Cal. App.2d 31, 38-39 [37 Cal. Rptr. 681].) In Werner, we upheld legislation (Civ. Code, § 48a) which precluded the recovery of general damages against newspapers and radio stations for defamation unless the plaintiff had unsuccessfully sought a suitable retraction. Discovering two bases upon which the Legislature reasonably could have so acted, namely, the danger of excessive recoveries, and the public interest in the free dissemination of ideas (35 Cal.2d at p. 126), we rejected an equal protection claim similar to that herein advanced. We observed that It [the Legislature] is not prohibited by the equal protection clause from striking the evil [of excessive damages] where it is felt most (p. 132), and that The Legislature can make a classification for the purpose of applying a statute, not to the group classified, but to everyone except that group (p. 134). Similar reasoning sustains the 1978 amendments at issue here. (3) a) General rule of immunity. The Legislature's decision to abrogate Vesely, Bernhard and Coulter, and thereby preclude or substantially limit the liability of a provider of alcoholic beverages, may have been based upon a premise that it is unfair to require the provider (and his insurer) to share both the supervisory responsibility and the legal blame with the consumer, whose voluntary consumption of alcoholic beverages is perhaps the more direct and immediate cause of any consequent injuries. We deem such a determination to be a rational one because for many years prior to Vesely the courts of this state (including ours) uniformly had followed such provider-immunity rule. The Legislature also reasonably might have assumed that the imposition of sole and exclusive liability upon the consumer of alcoholic beverages would encourage some heightened sense of responsibility in the drinker for his acts, thereby ultimately reducing the frequency of alcohol-caused injuries. (See, e.g., Ewing v. Cloverleaf Bowl (1978) 20 Cal.3d 389, 410 [143 Cal. Rptr. 13, 572 P.2d 1155] [dis. opn. by Clark, J.].) For these reasons we conclude that the general rule of immunity announced in the 1978 amendments is both founded upon a possible rational basis and reasonably related to a legitimate state purpose. (4) b) Special rule of liability for licensed providers. Assuming, as we do, that the Legislature acted properly in abrogating the causes of action previously authorized in our Vesely, Bernhard and Coulter opinions, is the preservation of liability against licensed providers serving obviously intoxicated minors rationally related to some legitimate state purpose? We conclude that it is. We are not unmindful of the fact that the 1978 amendments constitute a patchwork of apparent inconsistencies and anomalies. Thus a licensed seller of liquor is liable to anyone injured by an obviously intoxicated minor served by the seller, while a nonlicensed, presumably illegal seller is not so liable. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602.1.) A preferred liability status is thus given to those sellers who refuse to obtain licenses. The obviously intoxicated minor, and those injured by him, retain a cause of action against the seller, but an adult consumer, and those similarly injured by him do not ( ibid. ). Accordingly, whether or not the selling or supplying of the liquor is a tortious cause of a resultant injury turns on the license status of the supplier and the age of the consumer. Causation in a common law sense, whether actual or physical, proximate or legal, has never pivoted on such a perilous and seemingly irrelevant fulcrum. Nonetheless, our function is to find, if possible, some means to sustain, not reject, those amendments. Limiting the liability to licensed, commercial providers may be reasonable because, presumably, such persons are experienced in the business of selling liquor and, ignoring the welcome ring of the cash register, can more readily detect signs of intoxication among their patrons. It is also probable that such licensees are in a better position to defray the costs of liability and insurance than the usual social host or other unlicensed provider, although as we stressed in Coulter the risk to third persons from an intoxicated driver is identical, whether the hand that poured the drinks was that of a social host or bartender. As for limiting the class of protected consumers to minors, the Legislature might reasonably have deemed such persons more in need of safeguarding from intoxication than adults, because of the comparative inexperience of minors in both drinking and driving. Given society's solicitous concern with minors (e.g., Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25658, prohibiting sales of liquor to minors), the Legislature perhaps might reasonably suspend the sole theory otherwise advanced in justification of the subject legislation, namely, that it is the consumption alone, not the furnishing, of liquor which causes the resultant deaths and injuries. With effort, a reasonable basis for the 1978 amendments may be found. The judgment is affirmed.