Opinion ID: 1142536
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: common law imposed liability

Text: The foregoing, in effect, makes improper any application of common law liability. Inasmuch as the legislature has set the perimeters for liability  perimeters which do not include liability to appellants  any application of common law would be precluded by the proviso in § 8-1-101 to the effect that common law is not effective when inconsistent with the laws of this state. When the legislature has dealt with the questions, as it has in §§ 12-5-301(a)(v) and 12-6-101(a), common law cannot be resorted to pursuant to § 8-1-101. Although such should be dispositive of the question of common law imposed liability, I note that § 8-1-101 adopts the common law of England as modified by judicial decisions. Our decision in Parsons v. Jow, supra, refused to modify the common law, but approved and judicially adopted it in Wyoming. It established the common law on this issue pursuant to § 8-1-101. To overrule that decision under the guise of amplifying common law pursuant to § 8-1-101 sets the stage whereby the bar, bench and populace cannot know what the law is and what it is not in a given circumstance until that circumstance reaches this court. The end result is a state which is not one of law but is one at the whim of this court. Certainly, at the time the transaction took place in this case, appellees believed they were operating under the law as set forth in the Parsons case (statutory directions aside). Suddenly, they find that the whim of the supreme court says otherwise. [4] This state and nation cannot successfully operate under such circumstances. I authored the opinion in Choman v. Epperley, Wyo., 592 P.2d 714 (1979), which is heavily relied upon in the majority opinion for ability of the court to declare new common law at the whim of the court. The case does not support that position. After noting applicable law in common law as modified by judicial decisions, we pointed out that the proposition which we ultimately determined to be the law was probably the common law as of the fourth year of James I (1607), but that even if it were not, it was almost universally established law, and we cited and discussed several Wyoming cases which had established the proposition as the law in Wyoming. We did not, at our whim, overrule a case which held to the contrary, nor did we adopt the proposition at our whim. Rather, we recognized an already existing status of the law. It is not the court's business to make laws. That is the function of the legislature. After reviewing the general status of the law relative to liability for furnishing alcoholic liquor or malt beverages to a minor  from the common law position through the approach taken by the various states to the issue, we said in Parsons v. Jow, 480 P.2d at 397-398: The legislature of Wyoming has not seen fit to change the common law rule as it applies in this case. Whether legislation in the nature of a dramshop act or civil damage statute should be included as a part of our liquor control code is within the province of the legislature.  (Emphasis added.) Since the date of that opinion, February 4, 1971, the legislature has not acted in the premises, reflecting satisfaction with the decision. The courts do not take kindly to intrusion by the legislature into court business, and such is improper. We should not intrude into the legislative business. To do so is also improper. Yet the majority opinion is doing just that in this case. I would affirm.