Court Opinion

ID: 9447864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:46:01.180144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:12.904996
License: Public Domain

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part and concurring in part).
The critical language of the complaint quoted in the majority opinion states exactly what defendant is alleged to have done after plaintiff left the tavern. What he did and all that he did was “ * * * give plaintiff specific and extensive instructions as to which ivay to turn his steering wheel in order that plaintiff might drive his ear from defendant’s parking lot.” (Emphasis supplied.) That language or any inference from it does not support the present statement *20in the majority opinion that “This we think is analogous to the assistance the railroad employees gave to Black in the case discussed earlier.” In Black the conductor and the brakeman helped the intoxicated man down from the train, led him to a series of steps leading up from the platform to the station, got him about half way up and left him there; then Black reeled for a moment or so and fell backward down the steps hurting himself. Here, the plaintiff left the tavern, went to his caV and started it. After all that the defendant came outside and performed the ordinary parking lot service of giving instructions so “that plaintiff might drive his car from defendant’s parking lot.”
Founded as it is on an erroneous premise I think that the first theory in the majority opinion is invalid.
The second theory finds a basis for liability in the violation by the defendant of Regulation No. 20, Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, New Jersey, Rule 1. We have no New Jersey guidance as to what the policy of that state would be in the present type of situation, namely, where plaintiff driving his car while drunk was involved in an accident because of his condition and was injured. He sues the tavern-keeper who sold him the liquor. Does the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverage Rule blot out his own contributory negligence? Here there is nothing remote about the latter; it proximately caused this accident. My view is that until the New Jersey courts answer the question in the affirmative, we have no justification for assuming that they will.
The third ground for making a jury question of the cause set out in the complaint is that if the defendant is guilty of wilful negligence plaintiff’s contributory negligence does not defeat his claim, unless of course his contributory negligence was also wilful. Tabor v. O’Grady, App. Div.1960, 59 N.J.Super. 330, 157 A.2d 701, on rehearing App.Div.1960, 61 N.J. Super. 446, 161 A.2d 267. This was not presented to the district, court at all. I think it is sound and that it necessitates a trial.