Court Opinion

ID: 9741511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:56:59.866967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:24.483211
License: Public Domain

*409Lynch, J.
(concurring). I write separately only to note my disagreement with the court’s suggestion (ante at 406) that a social host can deter a guest from becoming intoxicated and that a host is in the same position as a bartender in a commercial establishment who must refuse to serve an intoxicated person or incur civil and criminal penalties. I doubt that there are many among those that entertain in their homes who would, in a family setting, have the temerity to suggest that a parent or perhaps a mother-in-law should immediately cease the consumption of spirituous drink because, in the host’s opinion, that family member was at risk of becoming intoxicated. Even greater folly might be required for a host to attempt to “shut off” a guest, as a bartender might, when that guest was not only a family member, but a former Marine Corps drill instructor, “Green Beret,” or linebacker for the New England Patriots. As I said in McGuiggan v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 398 Mass. 152, 164 (1986) (Lynch, J., concurring), “social activities themselves usually impose constraints on extreme behavior.” If they do not, there is little a civilized host can do except pare down the guest list.