Court Opinion

ID: 9862124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:01:47.096388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:30:18.937736
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: The essential facts in this case are undisputed. They are well set forth in the foregoing judgment of the court. Likewise, as to the applicable law. My disagreement with the court’s judgment is the conclusion that has been reached in applying the law to the facts. In refusing to set aside the verdict, the court is giving mere lip service to the oft-quoted standard for deciding when directed verdicts and judgments n.o.v. should be granted. That is so because the evidence of complicity here is overwhelming. The effect of this decision is to give carte blanche to the trier of fact in a dram-shop case. That should not be. Dramshop cases should be subject to the same even-handed standards as are applied in any other case. Other members of this court have suggested that legislative action is needed. With that suggestion, I also disagree. The doctrine of complicity is a judicially created doctrine. Any attempt to explicitly define the doctrine would either leave something out or say too much. Ideally, the doctrine should be given a commonsense meaning and allowed to evolve on a case-by-case basis. Such is the nature of the common law. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.