Court Opinion

ID: 9595322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:38:40.408559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:27.664749
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that Iowa’s dramshop law preempts all common-law claims, even those that arise outside the narrow scope of the act. Unfortunately, the scope of the statute has been dramatically restricted in recent years, thus expanding the cases in which there is no liability for a provider of alcohol.2 Those sellers whose acts fall outside the dramshop statute may provide alcohol with absolute impunity. This case is a good example of the socially unacceptable fallout from a legal system that ignores the dual reality of what is happening: (1) victims are denied any compensation, and (2) there is no effective deterrent under the facts of this case to persons providing alcohol illegally or negligently.
It should come as no surprise that potential civil liability is an effective deterrent to the negligent furnishing of alcohol. The New Hope of Solution, Presidential Comm’n on Drunk Driving, at 1-2 (Final Report 1984) [hereinafter Presidential Commission Final Report]. Alcohol-impaired driving is the number one killer of young people in this country. Presidential Comm’n Final Report at 1-2.
As I have observed before,
[t]he wisdom of legislation, or the lack of it, is not for us to decide. The parameters of the common law, however, are very much the responsibility of the court, and we have a constitutional mandate to “issue all writs and process necessary to secure justice” for Iowa’s litigants. Iowa Const, art. V, § 4. The majority opinion abdicates our common-law responsibilities to the legislature and sacrifices justice in the name of judicial consistency.
Eddy v. Casey’s Gen. Store, Inc., 485 N.W.2d 633, 638 (Iowa 1992) (Larson, J., dissenting). There is nothing in the dram-shop statute that expressly preempts the field. Moreover, it is ludicrous to hold that the dramshop statute preempts the field even though the statute does not apply-
The “preemption” argument is a specious argument. [The dramshop statute] is purely a strict liability statute; it has nothing to do with actions based on negligence. It makes no more sense to say, as the majority does, that a strict liability statute “preempts” a suit based on negligent furnishing of alcohol than it does to say that adoption of strict liability under section 496A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts preempts a products liability claim based on negligence. This, of course, has never been our rule. Dramshop statutes such as Iowa Code section 123.92 and common-law suits are entirely separate concepts. The former imposes strict liability without proof of negligence or proximate case, while the latter requires proof of both.
Eddy, 485 N.W.2d at 639 (Larson, J., dissenting).
There are many other reasons for recognizing a common-law cause of action, and I have discussed them at length in Eddy. I incorporate them here as well.
I would reverse.
LAVORATO, C.J., and STREIT, J., join this dissent.

. See Eddy v. Casey's Gen. Store, Inc., 485 N.W.2d 633, 638 (Iowa 1992) (Larson, J., dissenting).