Court Opinion

ID: 9704697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:43:18.924835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:04.464221
License: Public Domain

V. J. Brennan, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully must dissent here. My colleagues have adopted a *283unique theory of liability under the dramshop act. Not that the act isn’t harsh enough on various business places, but by the majority’s theory, anyone who benefits from a licensee’s profits is vicariously liable under the principal-agency rule.
The Michigan Liquor Control Commission, under special provisions, MCL 436.2-0; MSA 18.972(15); MCL 436.19(q); MSA 18.990(q), issues hundreds of one-day licenses yearly for the same purpose as the one here. I can think of no church group or school district that does not, from time to time, support by way of a party, a golf outing or something similar, a charity of their choice. Those charities range in scope from the blind, children’s hospitals, the poor, athletic programs, etc., to other worthwhile causes which couldn’t exist without these events.
In many instances, there is more than one recipient of the charitable proceeds. Under the majority’s theory, they would all be vicariously liable.
Clearly, this extension of liability was not the intent of the Legislature. This statute has harsh sanctions. Therefore, it must be strictly construed. Nothing in the act provides for this extension, especially a broad and all-encompassing "vicarious liability” inclusion.
Here, as in Guitar v Bieniek, 402 Mich 152, 165; 262 NW2d 9 (1978), the school district is not liable under the act because it was not within the class of persons charged with the duty of not serving intoxicated persons.
The majority says that "[n]othing in the dram-shop act appears to prevent the application of vicarious liability.” However, in an act imposing harsh remedies, the terms therein must be clear and strictly construed. Thus, the terms must specifically include that class. The Legislature didn’t so we shouldn’t.
I would affirm the trial court’s ruling.