Court Opinion

ID: 9676738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:31:24.014995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:50.626312
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
dissenting.
An individual goes to a topless bar, voluntarily gets drunk, and on the way home has a one-car accident which causes him crippling injuries. He sues the owner of the bar seeking to recover for his damages. Heretofore, a person who voluntarily became intoxicated was prevented from suing the bar owner who sold the liquor.1 No more. The Court today approves this type of lawsuit and attributes this result to legislative handiwork. In my opinion, this result is not mandated by prior case law, the Dram Shop Act, or its legislative history.
Chapter 2 of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code (Dram Shop Act) creates a statu*357tory cause of action for innocent third parties against providers of alcohol under certain limited circumstances.2 The Court today somehow interprets this rather cryptic chapter of the Alcoholic Beverage Code as creating a cause of action for the intoxicated individual seeking redress against the bar which served him. While specifically recognizing that the legislature did not indicate plainly which parties could assert a cause of action under Chapter 2, the Court justifies its result that eviscerates the concept of individual responsibility on two grounds. First, the Court states that “liability under Chapter 2 is premised on the conduct of the provider of the alcoholic beverages — not the conduct of the recipient or a third party.” 858 S.W.2d at 354. Second, the Court concludes that “Chapter 2 evinces a legislative concern for the well-being of the intoxicated individual when it speaks of the person being a clear danger ‘to himself and others.’ ” Id. (emphasis added by Court’s opinion). From these two statements, the Court reaches the conclusion that an intoxicated individual may assert a cause of action against the provider of the alcohol.
The Court is correct in its statement that Chapter 2 is based on the conduct of the provider of the alcohol. However, this statement, standing alone, does not clearly reveal a legislative intent to create a cause of action for intoxicated individuals against the provider of the alcohol. Just because the statute speaks in terms of the duty owed by the provider does not mandate that this duty is owed to the intoxicated consumer.
The Court’s statement that Chapter 2 displays a concern for the intoxicated individual by speaking of the danger “to himself and others” ignores the true meaning of this phrase. The clause “obviously intoxicated to the extent that he presented a clear danger to himself and others” establishes the quantum of evidence necessary to create liability for the provider. This phrase is almost a verbatim recitation of the standard of proof necessary to convict an individual of public intoxication.3 In fact, Senator Glasgow, the Senate sponsor of Chapter 2, explained to both the Senate Economic Development Committee and the full Senate that the “clear danger to himself and others” language was taken from the public intoxication statute.4 Nowhere in Senator Glasgow’s remarks, or in the remarks of any senator or representative, was it stated that the “clear danger to himself and others” language was adopted out of concern for the intoxicated individual or to create a cause of action for the intoxicated individual. Had the legislature intended to create a first party cause of action, it would have done so in unequivocal language. The Court simply misinterprets or ignores the legislative history be*358hind this phrase to reach its erroneous construction of Chapter 2.
As the Court correctly notes in its opinion, it is a fundamental precept that if a statute creates a liability unknown to the common law, the statute will not be extended beyond its plain meaning or applied to cases not clearly within its purview. 858 S.W.2d at 354 (citing Dutcher v. Owens, 647 S.W.2d 948, 951 (Tex.1983); Satterfield v. Satterfield, 448 S.W.2d 456, 459 (Tex.1969)). The Court also correctly states that the common law did not at the time of the passage of Chapter 2 allow an individual to sue an alcohol provider for his own injuries.5 Id. at 354. Therefore, under the Court’s own analysis, Chapter 2 should not be extended beyond its plain meaning or applied to cases not clearly within its purview. However, the Court in today’s opinion pays mere lip service to this rule of construction. Nowhere in Chapter 2 is there any language which conclusively suggests that the statute would allow an intoxicated individual to sue his alcohol provider for injuries sustained due to his own voluntary intoxication, but the Court today allows such a cause of action.
If the legislature had intended to create such a cause of action in derogation of the common law, it could have done so expressly. Since the legislature did not expressly create such a cause of action in Chapter 2, we should not derogate common law rules and create new duties when the legislature has acted in the area and failed to expressly create such a duty.
Furthermore, the Court’s decision in this case is just plain bad policy that will spawn a rash of litigation. The breadth of today’s holding is unknown and the possibilities are endless. The alcohol provider could be faced with potentially unlimited liability from a myriad of different types of claims that the intoxicated individual could allege. For example, even if the tavern arranged a ride home for the intoxicated individual, under today's opinion, the drunk could conceivably sue and recover for injuries resulting from either a fall in front of his residence or the resulting physical sickness of a “hangover.” If the intoxicated individual drove home and was arrested for driving while intoxicated, under today’s opinion, it is conceivable that the individual could sue the alcohol provider and recover his attorney’s fees, court costs, probation fees, and loss of income for the time spent in jail. There is no reasoned legal argument as to why these absurd results are not possible under today’s opinion. The legislature certainly has the power to enact legislation to adopt this bad public policy, but I disagree with the Court that it has done so.
Rather than requiring individuals to take responsibility for their actions, the Court today grants a license to individuals who are injured due to their drunkenness to sue their alcohol provider. Through its erroneous construction of Chapter 2, the Court misplaces the responsibility for such injuries — the responsibility should be on the adult intoxicated individual who voluntarily consumed the liquor, not on the alcohol provider. The reason that most jurisdictions do not allow an intoxicated individual to sue the provider of the alcoholic beverages for his or her own injuries is that such a suit totally distorts the concepts of individual responsibility and individual choice. Texas should not join the minority of states which are trampling on these basic concepts.
*359Today’s opinion turns the idea of individual responsibility for one’s own actions on its head. I dissent.6

. 1 J. Mosher, Liquor Liability Law § 2.02[6][a] (1990).

. Chapter 2 of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code, entitled Civil Liabilities for Serving Beverages, is set out in footnote 5 of the majority opinion.

. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 42.08(a) provides, in pertinent part:
An individual commits an offense if the individual appears in a public place under the influence of alcohol ... to the degree that the individual may endanger himself or another.
Id. (emphasis added). Thus, creating a danger to oneself or another is the evidentiary standard necessary for a conviction for public intoxication. Likewise, it is the standard to support liability under Chapter 2 — it does not in any way create a cause of action.

. Senator Glasgow stated to the Senate Economic Development Committee:
So section 2 or 3 on page 3 sets up the burden of proof [for] the cause of action under this chapter upon proof that at the time the provision occurred it was clearly apparent to the provider that the individual being sold, served or provided with an alcoholic beverage was obviously intoxicated to the extent, and we pick up that public intoxication language, a clear danger to himself and others....
Presentation of Senator Glasgow to Senate Economic Development Committee, May 25, 1987 (on audiotape) (emphasis added). Senator Glasgow then explained to the full Senate that "we think what we’re establishing is a fair burden of proof using the foreseeability that comes out of public intoxication — a clear danger to himself and others — which is what you’d done to prove if you convicted someone of public in-toxication_’’ Presentation of Senator Glasgow to Senate, May 27, 1987 (on audiotape) (emphasis added).

. The common law of this state did, however, recognize a duty owed to the general public by alcohol providers not to serve intoxicated persons alcoholic beverages when the provider knew or should have known the patron was intoxicated. El Chico Corp. v. Poole, 732 S.W.2d 306, 314 (Tex.1987). This Court in Poole allowed innocent third parties to sue alcohol providers for injuries sustained in 1984 from intoxicated patrons. Therefore, before Chapter 2 became effective on June 11, 1987, a third-party common law action against bar owners for injuries suffered at the hands of intoxicated patrons was a part of the common law of this state. However, there was not such an action established by the common law allowing intoxicated individuals to sue for injuries that resulted from their own intoxication.

. However, I do agree wholeheartedly with the Court's conclusion that the Comparative Responsibility Act applies to Chapter 2. Such a holding prevents an injured party from placing all the blame on the bar owner; instead, at least part of the responsibility will be placed on the truly culpable party in the best position to prevent the injury, the drunk driver.