Opinion ID: 2513957
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Court's Past Decisions

Text: [ถ 10] We presume the legislature enacts statutes with full knowledge of the existing condition of the law and with reference to it. Almada v. State, 994 P.2d 299, 306 (Wyo.1999). [ถ 11] In Parsons v. Jow, 480 P.2d 396 (Wyo.1971), this Court affirmed the district court's order which dismissed the tort claim of Parsons, an underage passenger in an automobile operated by McCall, also underage, asserted against Jow, the owner of a bar, whose employee had sold intoxicating liquor to the underage McCall. McCall had consumed the liquor, become intoxicated, and driven his automobile into a school building, causing permanent injuries to Parsons. Affirming the district court's order that Parsons' complaint against Jow had failed to state a legally cognizable tort claim upon which relief could be granted under Wyoming tort law, this Court recognized and applied the common law rule that no cause of action existed against a vendor of liquor in favor of one injured by a vendee who becomes intoxicatedโthis for the reason that the proximate cause of the injury was deemed to be the patron's consumption of liquor and not its sale. Id. at 397. Parsons had apparently argued that a Wyoming statute, then ง 12-33, W.S.1957, 1969 Cum. Supp., made unlawful the sale of liquor to an underage person; that the statute established a civil duty of care owed by the liquor vendor to a third-party like Parsons; and that the liquor vendor's violation of the statute, and thus the duty of care, was either negligence per se or evidence of the liquor vendor's negligence. Id. This Court rejected that argument because, even assuming the liquor vendor's violation of the statute (duty), the statutory violation (duty breach) would not be a proximate cause of injury. Id. In conclusion, this Court noted that modification of the common law rule of civil non-liability of the liquor vendor was within the province of the legislature. Id. at 398. Following this decision, the Wyoming legislature did not address the subject. [ถ 12] Twelve years later, this Court decided McClellan v. Tottenhoff, 666 P.2d 408 (Wyo.1983). In that case, [t]he sole issue on appeal [was] whether a complaint against a vendor unlawfully selling liquor to a minor [in his automobile at a liquor drive-in facility] who becomes intoxicated and injures a third-party states a claim for relief in Wyoming. Id. at 409. The McClellans' complaint alleged that the liquor vendor's employee, making no effort to check the identification of James Staatz, a 17-year-old who looked young, negligently sold liquor to Staatz who was in his automobile at the liquor vendor's drive-in window; Staatz became intoxicated and killed Chad McClellan in an automobile accident. Id. at 409, 414. Relying upon Parsons, the district court had dismissed the McClellans' complaint for failure to state a legally cognizable tort claim under Wyoming law. Id. at 409. Thinking that statements in Parsons concerning the legislature's province and proximate cause had misconstrued the nature of the common law, this Court overruled Parsons. Id. at 410. Relying upon the common law's inherent dynamic principle which allows the judicially-created common law to grow and to tailor itself to meet society's changing needs and relying upon the reasoning of common law decisions from courts in Illinois, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Oregon, this Court as a common law court established a liquor vendor's common law duty of reasonable care owed to third-parties injured by an intoxicated underage vendee. Id. at 411-12. In legal effect, then, this Court established a common law tort claim upon which relief could be granted against a liquor vendor and in favor of an injured third-party. This Court based the liquor vendor's duty of reasonable care upon both งง 12-5-301(a)(v) and 12-6-101(a), W.S.1977. Id. at 412-13. Section 12-5-301(a)(v) proscribed as a misdemeanor a liquor licensee's receiving a liquor order from or making a liquor delivery to a minor or an intoxicated person in a drive-in area of the licensed premises. Section 12-6-101(a) proscribed as a misdemeanor a liquor provider's furnishing of liquor to an underage person who was not the liquor provider's legal ward, medical patient, or immediate family member. Id. at 413. This Court held that violation of either section was evidence of negligence. Id. Addressing the element of proximate cause, this Court noted that that element's well-settled meaning in negligence law was appropriate in the context of a violation of either a non-statutory or statutory duty, the ultimate test being whether the liquor licensee could foresee injury to a third-party, which was a question of fact. Id. at 414. [ถ 13] Paying careful attention to this Court's analysis in McClellan, one is struck by the close connection between the operative allegations in the complaintโa liquor vendor selling intoxicating liquor to an underage patron in his automobile at the vendor's drive-in areaโand this Court's seizing upon the statutory prohibitions against selling intoxicating liquor to an underage person (ง 12-6-101(a)) and to an underage person or an intoxicated person in the vendor's drive-in area (ง 12-5-301(a)(v)) in order to create a common law tort claim. Recognizing this close connection between the complaint allegations and the statutory proscriptions, one can confidently and reasonably conclude that the McClellan holding was narrow. This conclusion finds support in this Court's identification in that decision of the two ways in which society is harmed by the old common law rule of liquor vendor non-liability. Id. at 415. The first way is that the old non-liability rule limits recovery when an intoxicated minor driver injures someone; liquor vendors are usually in a more solid financial position than a minor. Id. The second way is that the old non-liability rule deprives society of an effective deterrent to keep liquor vendors from selling liquor to minors or to intoxicated persons. Id. This latter reference was obviously made with ง 12-5-301(a)(v) in mind because it is that section which proscribes a liquor vendor's selling liquor to an intoxicated person at the vendor's drive-in area. In other words, this Court was stating that the nonliability rule harmed society by limiting compensation to injured third parties and by failing to deter undesirable conduct. As a leading authority of tort law instructs, [t]he most commonly mentioned aims of tort law are (1) compensation of injured persons and (2) deterrence of undesirable behavior. Dan B. Dobbs, The Law of Torts ง 8, at 12 (2000). [ถ 14] McClellan's narrow holding is best seen, therefore, as a common law court's effort to cure the public mischief of the harm done to society by liquor vendors' selling intoxicating liquors to underage persons and intoxicated persons at the vendors' drive-in areas. The opinion is an excellent example of a common law court's abrogation by judicial decision of an old common law rule in order to shape social policy. In the absence of legislative activity, such judicial activity is arguably an appropriate role for a common law court in our democratic society. When the judiciary abrogates a common law rule created by the judiciary in the first place, as was done in McClellan, the judiciary is changing the common law because that change is suitable to new circumstances or conditions, the needs of society, and because the old common law rule is perceived by the judiciary to conflict with public policy. Adkins v. Sky Blue, Inc., 701 P.2d 549, 551 (Wyo.1985). Indeed, as this Court pointed out in Adkins, in McClellan this Court was declaring public policy and the purposes to be served by the new judicially-created tort claim of liquor vendor liability to third parties. Id. at 553. In deciding that McClellan would not be applied retroactively, this Court said that retroactive application of the new rule would not promote [t]he stated public policy of that new rule. Id. [ถ 15] That common law courts, in the absence of legislative activity, make and shape public policy in cases like McClellan should come as no surprise. In numerous cases, this Court has enumerated the several factors of public policy which this Court considers when contemplating a judicial abrogation or modification of an existing common law rule. For example, in Gates v. Richardson, 719 P.2d 193 (Wyo.1986), in contemplating extending a limited duty of care to persons who suffer mental distress upon observing a family member's severe injuries at the scene of an accident, this Court quoted favorably from a leading authority of tort law when it said that duty is only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the plaintiff is entitled to protection. Id. at 196 (quoting W. Page Keeton, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts ง 54, at 357-58 (5th ed.1984)). This Court then enumerated some of the key policy factors to be considered by a court: (1) the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, (2) the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, (3) the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, (4) the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, (5) the policy of preventing future harm, (6) the extent of the burden upon the defendant, (7) the consequences to the community and the court system, and (8) the availability, cost and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved. Gates, 719 P.2d at 196. For other recent examples, see also Andersen v. Two-Dot, 2002 WY 105, ถ 44, 49 P.3d 1011, ถ 44 (Wyo. 2002); Ortega v. Flaim, 902 P.2d 199, 203 n. 3 (Wyo.1995); Dellapenta v. Dellapenta, 838 P.2d 1153 (Wyo.1992); Nulle v. Gillette-Campbell County Joint Powers Fire Bd., 797 P.2d 1171 (Wyo.1990); Mostert v. CBL & Assoc., 741 P.2d 1090, 1094 (Wyo.1987); and Tader v. Tader, 737 P.2d 1065 (Wyo.1987). [ถ 16] It is elementary that public policy considerations are not the exclusive province of the judicial department. The legislative department of our state government lives and works in that province, too, because it exercises plenary legislative power. Wyo. Const. art. 2, ง 1 (separation of powers); art. 10, ง 2 (the police power of the state); and art. 19, ง 10 (manufacture, sale and keeping for sale intoxicating liquor permitted in the state under such regulation as the legislature may prescribe). [1] [ถ 17] Following this Court's publication of McClellan, the Wyoming legislature became active in this province of public policy considerations surrounding the particular social problem narrowly addressed in that case. In the General Session of the Forty-Eighth State Legislature, which convened in January 1985, Representative Thomas Jones introduced House Bill No. 0390, an act to create Wyoming statute ง 12-8-301 relating to alcoholic beverages and limiting causes of action in cases of voluntary intoxication in some cases. Dig. of House J., Forty-Eighth State Legis., Gen. Sess., at 416 (1985). Winding its way through the legislative process, the bill was passed by both the House and the Senate and was signed by the Governor, becoming effective May 23, 1985, as 1985 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 205, ง 1. It became Wyoming statute ง 12-8-301 in its enacted form. Before we closely examine its provisions and compare the tort claim thus legislatively created with that judicially created tort claim in McClellan, we pause to explain the nature and scope of the legislative department's exercise of its constitutionally-secured police power. The Legislative Department's Police Power [ถ 18] As we noted a few lines ago, the Wyoming Constitution expressly recognizes the legislative department's police power. In Article 2, ง 1, of the Wyoming Constitution, the people have granted the legislative department its powers of government. In Article 10, ง 2, of the Wyoming Constitution, the people have specifically granted the legislative department the police power of the state which is supreme over all corporations as well as individuals. And, in Article 19, ง 10, of the Wyoming Constitution, the people have granted the legislative department regulation of the manufacture, sale, and keeping for sale of intoxicating liquors. In the early days of statehood, this Court expressed unqualified recognition of the plenary legislative power when it said: The people of a State, in framing their constitution, committed to the legislature the whole lawmaking power of the State, which they did not expressly or impliedly withhold. Plenary power in the legislature is the rule, for all purposes of civil government, and a prohibition to exercise a particular power is an exception.... [E]very subject within the scope of civil government is liable to be dealt with by the legislature. State ex rel. Bennett v. Barber, 4 Wyo. 56, 61-62, 32 P. 14, 16 (1893) (citation omitted). In addition, this Court has said that the police power is most essential and very comprehensive. Under that power regulations are prescribed for the protection of the public health, public safety, and public morals, or, as more generally stated, the public welfare; and it is held to embrace regulations not only to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, but to extend to regulations designed to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources, and add to its wealth, or to promote the public convenience or general prosperity. State v. Sherman, 18 Wyo. 169, 176, 105 P. 299, 300 (1909). [ถ 19] No one disputes that regulation of all matters concerning intoxicating liquors is an area over which the legislative department is free to exercise its plenary police power. The judicial department has always recognized that the power of the lawmaker to prohibit or regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages is practically unlimited. Berry v. Arapahoe & Shoshone Tribes, 420 F.Supp. 934, 941 (D.Wyo.1976) (citations of Wyoming cases omitted). And see generally, Pierce v. Albanese, 144 Conn. 241, 129 A.2d 606, 611 (1957); Ziffrin, Inc. v. Reeves, 308 U.S. 132, 138-41, 60 S.Ct. 163, 167-68, 84 L.Ed. 128 (1939); 1 James F. Mosher, Liquor Liability Law ง 2.05[1], at 2-50 (1987); and Daniel A. Klein, Annotation, Supreme Court's views as to extent of states' regulatory powers concerning or affecting intoxicating liquors, under Federal Constitution's Twenty-First Amendment, 134 L.Ed.2d 1015 (2000). [ถ 20] The product of the legislative department's comprehensive exercise of its plenary police power in matters concerning alcoholic beverages is largely found in Title 12 of the Wyoming statutes which contains nine chapters, numerous articles within each chapter, and numerous sections within each article. For other provisions in other titles addressing still other matters concerning intoxicating liquors, see Wyo. Stat. Ann., Cross References Ann., Title 12, at 215. It is within this comprehensive regulatory scheme that we find the evidence of the legislature's exercise of its plenary police power in the form of those specific sections creating the third-parties' tort claim against those liquor licensees and non-licensees who furnish intoxicating liquor to persons who become intoxicated and cause damage to those third parties. [ถ 21] We now return to the Forty-Eighth State Legislature's product of 1985, ง 12-8-301. In its enacted form, that 1985 law read as follows: (a) No licensee is liable for damages caused by an intoxicated person to whom the licensee legally sold or furnished alcoholic liquor or malt beverages unless the licensee sold or provided alcoholic liquor or malt beverages to a person who was intoxicated, and: (i) It was reasonably apparent to the licensee that the person buying or receiving the alcoholic liquor or malt beverage was intoxicated; or (ii) The licensee knew or reasonably should have known from the circumstances that the person buying or receiving the alcoholic liquor or malt beverages was intoxicated. (b) No person who is not a licensee who has gratuitously and legally provided alcoholic liquor or malt beverage to any other person is liable for damages caused by the intoxication of the other person. (c) This section does not affect the liability of the intoxicated person for damages. (d) This section does not affect the liability of the licensee or person if the alcoholic liquor or malt beverage was sold or provided in violation of title 12 of the Wyoming statutes. (e) For purposes of this section licensee is defined in W.S. 12-1-101(a)(viii) and includes the licensee's employee or employees. 1985 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 205, ง 1. [ถ 22] Presumably, the legislature enacted this statutory tort claim with full knowledge of and with reference to Parsons and McClellan. Almada, 994 P.2d at 306 (We presume the legislature enacts statutes with full knowledge of the existing condition of the law and with reference to it.). It is in that light that we closely examine this 1985 statute to identify the ways in which the legislature, in its first entry onto the field of liquor provider civil liability, changed the landscape established by this Court in those two earlier common law decisions. As we begin that examination, let us remember, too, that legislative authority repeals common law decisions. Wyo. Stat. Ann. ง 8-1-101 (LexisNexis 2001); and see, Snell v. Ruppert, 541 P.2d 1042, 1046 (Wyo.1975), overruled on other grounds, Ferguson Ranch, Inc. v. Murray, 811 P.2d 287 (Wyo.1991). [ถ 23] The 1985 version of ง 301 consisted of five subsections, (a) through (e). Subsection (a) addressed the civil liability of a licensee, as that term was defined in subsection (e). In regard to a licensee's civil liability for damages caused by an intoxicated person to whom the licensee lawfully provided liquors, the legislature declared that a licensee was not liable unless the intoxicated customer was intoxicated at the time the liquor was furnished and either (1) it was reasonably apparent to the licensee that the customer was intoxicated or (2) the licensee knew or reasonably should have known from the circumstances that the customer was intoxicated. 1985 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 205, ง 1; Wyo. Stat. Ann. ง 12-8-301 (Michie May 1985 Cum.Supp.) In addition, in subsection (d) the legislature declared that a licensee was liable if it furnished liquor in violation of Title 12 of the Wyoming statutes. Id. Importantly, in this law the legislature also addressed the question of a non-licensee's civil liability. Subsection (b) states that the non-licensee was not liable if he/she gratuitously and legally provided liquor to any person. Id. [ถ 24] Comparing the narrow common law tort claim judicially created in McClellan with this 1985 legislatively created tort claim, one immediately sees that the legislature substantially changed the common law tort claim landscape. The narrow common law tort claim of liquor vendor liability for furnishing liquor to an intoxicated minor in his automobile at the vendor's drive-in area was expanded to a broad statutory tort claim of liquor vendor liability for furnishing liquor to any intoxicated person at any location, whether a drive-in area or inside the licensed premises. Also, the non-licensee liquor provider was addressed. One also notes that the legislature did not change the pre-existing common law rule of the intoxicated person's liability. ง 12-8-301(c) (Michie May 1985 Cum.Supp.) [ถ 25] As the above and foregoing examination makes clear, at the close of the Forty-Eighth State Legislature's General Session in 1985, the legislative and executive departments had enacted a full and comprehensive regulatory scheme expressing the state's social policy in the problematic area of liquor provider liability. That scheme covered, as the common law had not, all the actors: the licensed liquor provider, the non-licensed liquor provider (social host), the intoxicated person, and the injured third party. [ถ 26] In less than a year after the close of that general session, however, the budget session of that same legislature saw legislative activity to amend ง 12-8-301. Representatives Thomas Jones, Jack Sidi, Ellen Crowley, Dick Wallis, and Donald Jackson sponsored House Bill 0013, [a]n act to amend W.S. ง 12-8-301 relating to alcoholic beverages, denying liability for legally selling or furnishing alcoholic beverages. Dig. of House J., Forty-Eighth State Leg., Budget Sess., at 60-62 (1986). Introduced February 18, 1986, the bill moved quickly without incident through the legislative process of both chambers and was approved by the Governor on March 11, 1986. Id.; 1986 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 6, งง 1, 2. In its enacted form as ง 12-8-301, it reads today as it did then: (a) No person who has legally provided alcoholic liquor or malt beverage to any other person is liable for damages caused by the intoxication of the other person. (b) This section does not affect the liability of the intoxicated person for damages. (c) This section does not affect the liability of the licensee or person if the alcoholic liquor or malt beverage was sold or provided in violation of Title 12 of the Wyoming statutes. (d) For purposes of this section licensee is as defined in W.S. 12-1-101(a)(viii) and includes the licensee's employee or employees. Wyo. Stat. Ann. ง 12-8-301 (LexisNexis 2001). [ถ 27] Examining the section's four subsections, one readily sees significant legislative retrenchment of civil liability compared to the 1985 legislation. Importantly, in this regard a licensee which legally furnishes liquor to an intoxicated customer is not liable for damages caused by that customer's intoxication. ง 12-8-301(a). However, the civil liability of a licensee or non-licensee person who sells or provides liquor in violation of Title 12 of the Wyoming statutes remains intact. ง 12-8-301(c). [ถ 28] Searching Title 12 of the Wyoming statutes for those provisions which if violated will expose the licensee or non-licensee person to civil liability for damages caused by an intoxicated person to whom liquor was sold or provided, one finds several that are pertinent. A non-licensee person, for example, a social host, is exposed to civil liability if he or she furnishes liquor to an underage person who is not the liquor provider's legal ward, medical patient, or immediate family member. Wyo. Stat. Ann. ง 12-6-101(a) (LexisNexis 2001). Stated conversely, if the relationship of legal ward, medical patient, or immediate family member does exist between the liquor provider and the underage person, the liquor provider is deemed to have legally furnished liquor to the underage person and, therefore, is not liable to a third party damaged by the intoxicated underage person. [ถ 29] On the other hand, a licensee is exposed to civil liability in several instances. If a licensee, after receiving written notice from a court, parent, or guardian of an underage person or ward of the latter's minority, sells liquor to the underage person, then the licensee is exposed to liability. Wyo. Stat. Ann. ง 12-5-502 (LexisNexis 2001). Similarly, if a licensee, after receiving written notice from the spouse or dependent of a habitual drunkard of the latter's neglect of support obligations, sells liquor to the habitual drunkard, then the licensee is exposed to liability. Id. Another instance of a licensee's liability exposure is found if a licensee sells liquor at the licensee's drive-in area to an underage person or to an intoxicated person. Wyo. Stat. Ann. ง 12-5-301(a)(v) (LexisNexis 2001). [ถ 30] We note that the legislature has not changed the intoxicated person's exposure to civil liability for damages he or she causes. ง 12-8-301(b). Consequently, if a licensee or non-licensee person sells or provides liquor to another in violation of Title 12 and that consumer damages a third party, then both the liquor provider and the intoxicated person are exposed to civil liability. On the other hand, if the licensee or nonlicensee person legally provides liquor to a consumer and that consumer damages a third party, then only the intoxicated consumer is exposed to civil liability. [ถ 31] As the legislature has broadly drawn the statutory tort claim, it covers the myriad ways by which an intoxicated person can cause damage. An intoxicated person can cause damage to himself or herself or a third party negligently or intentionally, when using a mobile vehicle (automobile, airplane, railroad engine, etc.), or when not using a mobile vehicle. See Mosher, supra, ง 1.02[2]โ[4], at 1-5 through 1-9. [ถ 32] Our foregoing review of the statutorily created and amended tort claim as it existed in 1986 and at the time of the Sampsell-Greenwalt automobile accident in question reveals that, although retrenchment of liability occurred in some ways, the legislative product remained a full and comprehensive regulatory scheme expressing the State's social policy in this most complex area of damages caused by intoxicated members of our society.