Court Opinion

ID: 9524462
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:52:54.329705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:25.652807
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
This is another in what has grown to be a list of tort suits arising from the furnishing of alcohol to persons who were or became intoxicated. Our court has been sharply divided on the question, especially on the issue of whether the legislature has preempted the field.
It seems that the question cannot be put to rest. We have made judicial pronouncements that the field is preempted by legislation. See Fuhrman v. Total Petroleum, Inc., 398 N.W.2d 807, 808-09 (Iowa 1987). There has. been at least one legislative pronouncement to the same effect. 1986 Iowa Acts ch. 1211, § 11. As soon as the ink is dry on a pronouncement of pre-emption *662another appealing set of facts arises, coupled with a request that we fashion a new common-law theory of recovery to be appended to the limited but absolute liability the legislature designed. See Iowa Code ch. 123 (1987).
As asserted in trial court the plaintiffs’ claims were limited to theories under Iowa Code ch. 123. Defendants are social hosts. Except for our holding in Clark v. Mincks, 364 N.W.2d 226 (Iowa 1985), we have never attached liability under chapter 123 to persons who were not commercially involved in the sale or furnishing of alcohol. The legislature repudiated Clark v. Mincks by name. 1986 Iowa Acts ch. 1211, § 11.
Notwithstanding any prior judicial or legislative pronouncements the majority seems prompted to expand on the metes and bounds of liability which were fixed by the legislature. We should resist the temptation. The legislature will surely have the last word; it is entitled, so long as it acts within the framework of the Constitution, to set limits of tort liability.
I would affirm.