Court Opinion

ID: 9850985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:05:25.907481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:46.547728
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice
(dissenting):
I dissent from the opinion reversing and remanding this case without argument. The Court takes the view that it is “plain and unambiguous” that the phrase “intoxicating liquor,” which appeared in the 1981 version of Utah’s Dram Shop Act, see Utah Code Ann. § 32-11-1(1), (2) (Supp.1981), means the same thing as “liquor” in the 1985 and 1986 versions, see Utah Code Ann. § 32A-14-1(1), (2) (Supp.1985); id. (1986), and carries with it the obscure distinctions between “liquor” and “alcoholic beverages” contained elsewhere in the Code. See, e.g., Utah Code Ann. § 16-6-13.1 (Supp.1983); id. § 32-1-3 (Supp.1977); id. § 32-1-36.5 (Supp.1969); compare, e.g., id. § 32-7-14 with § 32-7-24 (1974). I do not find this to be apparent. It seems just as likely that the purpose of the 1985 amendment was to free those who sell or serve what is misno-mered “light” beer from their Dram Shop liability under the 1981 law1 and that the 1986 amendment was only a minor retreat *810from the 1985 position. For even though the 1986 amendment exposed those who serve beer for consumption on-premises to liability, it preserved the immunity of grocery stores and convenience stores, the latter of which often sell gasoline and alcohol together at the same stand. However ridiculous it may appear to exempt these vendors of alcohol from Dram Shop Act liability, especially in light of Utah’s otherwise strong declared public policy against drunk driving, that certainly is the effect of the 1985 and 1986 amendments. But I see no reason to look to the statute’s evisceration in 1985 for guidance on the original meaning of the 1981 version.
The heart of the 1981 version of the Dram Shop Act is its imposition of liability on those who sell or otherwise provide “intoxicating liquor.” Nothing in the 1981 version shows a plain intent that the term “intoxicating liquor” should have the same meaning as the term “liquor” used in the later versions, which imports with it the rather arcane and, some would argue, objectively rather absurd distinctions used in Utah’s laws regulating the sale of alcohol. It seems as likely, if not more so, that the term “intoxicating liquor” should be read as “intoxicating beverage.” The broad purpose of dram shop acts in general — to compel those who sell intoxicants to do so with care, upon pain of incurring tort liability — is certainly not furthered in any way by importing distinctions that may have been drawn by the legislature between various kinds of intoxicants for other purposes. A drink may be “intoxicating” and may result in the harms to which the Dram Shop Act was directed without regard to whether it contains more than 3.2 percent alcohol by volume. Nothing indicates that the legislature, in passing the 1981 Act, had any such narrow and artful distinctions in mind. In fact, given this state’s general policies regarding the sale and consumption of alcohol, there is every reason to assume that the 1981 legislature had the broadest purpose of a dram shop act in view when it passed the original statute.
In the absence of clear legislative intent indicating otherwise, I would construe the 1981 Dram Shop Act as covering all intoxicating beverages. The fact that sellers of “light” beer were somehow able to persuade the legislature to free them from liability under the Dram Shop Act in 1985 and to preserve much of that immunity in 1986 in no way convinces me that the legislature intended to grant them that immunity when it passed the initial statute.
DURHAM, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of ZIMMERMAN, J.

. Every amendment not expressly characterized as a clarification carries the rebuttable presumption that it is intended to change existing legal rights and liabilities. See 1A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 22.30 (Sands 4th rev. ed. 1985).