Court Opinion

ID: 9850842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:03:33.858824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:44.447956
License: Public Domain

RANSOM, Justice (specially concurring). Access to the courts is the implicit and universal constitutional right of persons seeking a remedy for harm caused by others. Access is conditioned only upon existence of some breach of duty that gives rise to a cause of action recognized at law. I agree that full tort recovery under this right is a substantial and important individual interest. In 1966, Hall1 held there was no recognition of a tavemkeeper’s liability at common law. In 1977, Marchiondo2 noted it would not be improper for the court to address the issue in the absence of legislative action. In 1982, changing what it characterized as an outmoded and unjust rule of law, the Lopez3 court followed those states which, by reason of their legislature’s failure to act, have imposed tavernkeeper’s liability under common-law negligence principles. In doing so, Lopez recognized statutory or regulatory duties of a tavernkeeper to refrain from serving an obviously intoxicated person. In 1986, the legislature capped the tavernkeeper’s liability at $50,-000. I agree that the substantial individual interest in full tort recovery requires a substantial state interest before the former may be altered for any class of persons. I concur in this Court’s adoption of the intermediate scrutiny test for review of this equal protection issue. I further agree that, on its face, there is discernable from the legislation no substantial or important governmental interest in selecting for limited tort recovery the more seriously injured victims of persons wrongfully served alcoholic beverages; nor any such interest in selecting for special protection those tavernkeepers who sell alcoholic beverages to persons known to be intoxicated. This case does not demonstrate, however, that a substantial state interest might not have been shown if the defendant had pressed forward responsibly with the burden enunciated by this Court today. See Jones v. State Bd. of Medicine, 97 Idaho 859, 871-74, 555 P.2d 399, 411-14 (1976) (remanding for full development of record as to any real crisis for the Idaho health care industry to which a cap on medical malpractice recoveries may bear a fair and substantial relationship), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 914, 97 S.Ct. 2173, 53 L.Ed.2d 223 (1977). Here, there is no record. The party with the burden of showing a substantial state interest in limited tort recovery against tavernkeepers stood mute, in default. While I would be dissatisfied with anecdotal evidence and speculative argument about the impact of full tort recovery in New Mexico, I can fathom the production of evidence from which might be found a real crisis to those affected industries in whose welfare this staté has an important governmental interest. Consequently, I would apply the holding of this case to the defaulting defendant alone, and I would reserve for future decision, on a fully developed record, whether unconstitutionality of limited tort recovery has universal application against tavernkeepers.  . Hall v. Budagher, 76 N.M. 591, 417 P.2d 71 (1966).   . Marchiondo v. Roper, 90 N.M. 367, 563 P.2d 1160 (1977).   . Lopez v. Maez, 98 N.M. 625, 651 P.2d 1269 (1982).