Court Opinion

ID: 9695395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:18:29.004888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:11.941316
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice.
I respectfully dissent, because I believe the case can be resolved on procedural grounds alone.
Appellants’ complaint alleges that “[t]he illegal sale of intoxicating liquors by [respondent] to Michael K. Riley, Jr., caused or contributed to the intoxication of Michael K. Riley, Jr.,” and that “Michael K. Riley, Jr.’s intoxication was a direct and approximate cause of his decision to jump into the River.” We have said, on occasions too numerous to count, that faced with a properly supported motion for summary judgment, the nonmoving party cannot simply rely on its pleadings to oppose the motion. E.g., Papenhausen v. Schoen, 268 N.W.2d 565, 571 (Minn.1978); Murphy v. Country House, Inc., 307 Minn. 344, 348, 240 N.W.2d 507, 511 (1976). Yet, that is precisely what the court allows these appellants to do. Faced with a properly supported motion for summary judgment that demonstrates that Riley’s intoxication was not a factor at all in the trooper’s decision to stop Riley (much less a substantial one), the court allows the appellants to defeat the motion based on nothing more than the complaint’s recitation of the elements of a dram shop cause of action and “the known and proven effects of alcohol.”1 Dram shop liability in Minnesota may be strict liability, but sure*382ly something more than a bare-bones complaint and common knowledge should be required to establish a genuine issue of material fact sufficient to defeat summary judgment.
I respectfully dissent.

. I discount entirely the report of appellants’ expert, which was filed in opposition to the motion for summary judgment. The court characterizes the expert’s report in this case as "an unnotarized affidavit.” Such a characterization suggests that the report lacked only a notary’s imprimatur to allow it to be considered by the district court. In reality, it lacked much more than that. Only evidence that is admissible may be considered as either supporting or opposing summary judgment. Minn. R. Civ. P. 56.05 (requiring that affidavits supporting and opposing summary judgment "shall set forth such facts as would be admissible in evidence”). The document is not an "unnotarized affidavit.” It is a letter from the expert to appellants’ lawyer, dated after the filing of respondent’s motion to dismiss. As such, it is hearsay not covered by any exception, and I cannot conceive of a reason it would be admissible. See Minn. R. Evid. 803(6) (excluding from the definition of admissible business records "[a] memorandum, report, record, or data compilation prepared for litigation”).