Court Opinion

ID: 9781724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:17:52.813905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:35.082653
License: Public Domain

FABE, Chief Justice,
with whom CARPENETI, Justice, joins, dissenting.
Today the court effectively overrules its decision in Loeb v. Rasmussen, 1 which held that a liquor licensee "is not entitled to assert the comparative fault of the minor/consumer, in an action for damages resulting from the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquor." 2 Because the issues that the court grapples with were already addressed and decided in Loeb, and because I do not believe that the high threshold for overruling settled precedent has been met, I would adhere to Loeb and affirm the superior court's decision to hold the liquor store liable for the deceased minors' share of the fault for the accident.
Stare decisis requires that we "overrule a prior decision only when clearly convinced that the rule was originally erroneous or is no longer sound because of changed conditions, and that more good than harm would result from a departure from precedent. 3 We have stated that "a prior decision may be abandoned because of 'changed conditions' if 'related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine, [or] facts have so changed or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application. " 4
The court concludes that Loeb has been superseded by the enactments of AS 09.17.060, which codified our system of comparative negligence, and AS 09.17.080, which instituted our system of pure several lability. The court states that the liquor vendor defendant in Loeb was "unable to rely on" these tort reform statutes because the claims in that case arose before these statutes were enacted. 5 But the Loeb court specifically addressed the policy questions raised by comparative negligence, and the subsequent adoption of a scheme of pure several liability has not "robbed [Loeb ] of significant application" or rendered it "no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine."
Comparative negligence was judicially adopted long before the Loeb claims arose, and the Loeb court also specifically addressed its codified version. 6 The Loeb court concluded that AS 09.17.060 was "not at all inconsistent with our past decisions, holding that the laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors and obviously intoxicated persons are intended to place the entire responsibility for subsequent harm on the violator."" 7 In other words, the Loeb court specifically rejected the argument, made by the Loeb dissent 8 and revived here by the court, 9 that the adoption of a comparative negligence system robbed AS 04.21.020 of its character as an exceptional statute, which for policy reasons confers extra liability on a licensed liquor vendor when harm results from its ille*1169gal sale of alcohol to a minor. The Loeb court reasoned that "children are not competent to assess in any meaningful way the risks involved in the use of alcohol" and that while a liquor vendor might be "able to exploit this lack of competence" by selling alcohol to a minor, there was no legitimate reason to allow the vendor "to exploit it further, by having its liability to the plaintiff reduced because [the minor] failed to exercise the same degree of care for her own safety reasonably expected of one more able to assess the risks, when she purchased and used [the liquor vendor's] product." 10 This reasoning retains its strength today and is as applicable in this case as it was in Loeb.
While the Loeb court addressed the effect that the adoption of comparative negligence had on cases involving the sale of alcohol to minors, it did not specifically address the effect of the adoption of pure several liability. It determined that there was no need to do so because that case "[did] not involve multiple defendants." 11 It went on to explain that "[mlultiple defendants might complicate a case when an injured third party brings action against both the minor and the liquor licensee, or when more than one liquor licensee has unlawfully provided the minor with liquor.12 As the court recognizes in this case, the adoption of pure several Hability means that "of the total fault for harm attributable to defendants-not the claimant-the court shall enter a judgment against each defendant only for the defendant's own percentage of the total fault."13 But here, as in Loeb, the estates of the deceased minors are the only claimants and only one defendant, the liquor vendor, remains in the case. The issue before the court is, precisely as it was in Loeb, simply whether the liquor vendor defendant's liability should be reduced by the amount of the intoxicated minor claimants' comparative negligence, not how liability should be apportioned between multiple defendants. The Loeb court appears to have assumed that the adoption of pure several liability would not change the outcome of such a case. I believe that this assumption was correct.
The adoption of pure several liability does not alter the rationale behind the Loeb decision and thus should not alter the outcome of this case. Adoption of a scheme of pure several lability ensures that a liquor vendor cannot be held liable for all of the damages in a situation where multiple actors are at fault, such as other drivers in a case involving a multiple-vehicle car accident, or the Cancels and the Binghams in the instant case. But where, as here, a single liquor vendor fllegally sold aleohol to minors who became intoxicated and acted irresponsibly, the Loeb exception should continue to hold the liquor vendor liable for the intoxicated minorg' share of the fault in order to accommodate our judgment that "children are not competent to assess in any meaningful way the risks involved in the use of alcohol." 14 If adoption of a comparative negligence system did not eliminate this exception and the policy reasoning behind it, adoption of pure several Hability should not eliminate it either.
The Loeb court recognized that there was a "split of authority in this area of law" in other jurisdictions and nonetheless concluded that its holding "best comports with existing Alaska law and sound public policy." 15 The court states today that "Loeb now represents the minority view." 16 But Loeb represented the minority view at the time it was decided. Loeb was a decision grounded in Alaskan law and policy, not the adoption of the decisions or reasoning of other states.
The court discusses the state of dram shop law in the four jurisdictions whose decisions were cited in Loeb: Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, and Louisiana. Florida retains a system of dram shop Hability similar to Loeb's.17 As *1170was the case when Loeb was decided, Iowa does not apply comparative negligence in dram shop actions and holds liquor vendors entirely liable for the actions of intoxicated patrons who were sold to illegally. 18 But Towa only allows suits by innocent parties.19 The dram shop statute in Minnesota now contains language that specifically limits the liability of liquor vendors based on comparative negligence or related principles 20 -the type of language Alaska's dram shop statute did not contain when Loeb was decided, and still does not contain today. Though no appellate court has addressed the issue, Louisiana does seem to have changed course since Loeb, as the court notes, 21 apparently decid ing that adoption of a comparative negligence system should reduce a liquor vendor's liability by the amount of an intoxicated minor's comparative fault. But this is precisely the conclusion that Loeb rejected. 22 These de velopments in a handful of states hardly constitute "a general erosion of support" for Loeb or its reasoning. 23 Loeb remains a minority position, grounded in Alaskan law and policy, as it was at the time that it was decided. Thus no significant "changed conditions" 24 exist that justify overruling it.
Finally, the court simply has not addressed whether "more good than harm would result from a departure from precedent." 25 I am not convinced that more good than harm would result from reducing the consequences faced by liquor vendors who illegally sell aleohol to minors. While the Loeb rule may, as the court points out, "cause[ ] the liquor provider to provide insurance for all of the minor's conduct after furnishing alcohol" 26 illegally, a liquor vendor can quite easily avoid shouldering this responsibility by consistently checking identification and refusing to furnish aleohol to minors.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. 822 P.2d 914 (Alaska 1991).

. Id. at 919-20.

. Pratt & Whitney Canada, Inc. v. Sheehan, 852 P.2d 1173, 1176 (Alaska 1993) (internal quotation marks omitted).

. Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 855, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992)).

. Op. at 1150-51.

. Loeb, 822 P.2d at 918-19. The court refers to Loeb's discussion of AS 09.17.060, which codified comparative negligence, as "dicta" (Op. at 1150 n. 63) because the claims at issue in Loeb arose before the enactment of AS 09.17.060. However, comparative negligence had already been judicially adopted in Kaatz v. State, 540 P.2d 1037 (Alaska 1975), and the court does not explain how the codification of this already adopted rule should invalidate the Loeb court's analysis.

. Loeb, 822 P.2d at 918.

. Id. at 922 (Moore, J., dissenting).

. Op. at 1154-55.

. Loeb, 822 P.2d at 919.

. Id. at 920 n. 15.

. Id.

. Op. at 1150.

. Loeb, 822 P.2d at 919.

. 1d.

. Op. at 1153.

. See Booth v. Abbey Rd. Beef & Booze, Inc., 532 So.2d 1288, 1290 (Fla.Dist.App.1988). In Florida, a liquor vendor is exposed to liability based on an illegal sale to a minor only if the sale was made "willfully," which distinguishes Florida *1170law from Alaska law. Fra Stat. anm. § 768.125 (West 2005). However, a "willful" sale to a minor can be established by circumstantial evidence relating to the minor's apparent age. See Gorman v. Albertson's, Inc., 519 So.2d 1119, 1120 (Fla.Dist.App.1988). Thus, the practical difference between Florida's "willfuiness'" requirement and Alaska's immunity for liquor vendors who conduct a "good faith" identification check may be small.

. Slager v. HWA Corp., 435 N.W.2d 349, 358 (Iowa 1989).

. Id. at 351-52. Some other states also do not reduce a liquor vendor's liability by the amount of an intoxicated patron's comparative negligence, providing some support for Loeb, but also do not allow suits by intoxicated patrons themselves. See, eg., Aanenson v. Bastien, 438 N.W.2d 151, 152-54 (N.D.1989).

. See Stat anm. § 3404.801 (West 2004) (providing that dram shop actions are subject to comparative negligence); VanWagner v. Matti-son, 533 N.W.2d 75, 80 (Minn.App.1995) (recognizing that the legislature has explicitly made dram shop actions subject to comparative negligence).

. Op. at 1153-54.

. $22 P.2d at 918 n. 8.

. Op. at 1153.

. Pratt & Whitney Canada, Inc. v. Sheehan, 852 P.2d 1173, 1176 (Alaska 1993).

. Id.

. Op. at 1151.