Court Opinion

ID: 9705679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:16:12.273889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:13.499172
License: Public Domain

HARVEY A. HOLTAN,* Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Subsequent to the 1990 amendment to the comparative fault statute, the Minnesota Supreme Court filed Lefto v. Hoggsbreath Enters., Inc., 581 N.W.2d 855 (Minn.1998). The issue in Lefto, as in the instant ease, is the interpretation of the term “other person” as used in the Civil Damages Act, Minn.Stat. § 340A.801, subd. 1 (1998). This court must assume the supreme court considered the scope of the 1990 amendment in Lefto when it defined “other person” as follows:
[Cjonsistent with our previous construction of the term “other person,” we conclude that the term “other person” refers to any other person injured by the intoxication of another and who played no role in causing the intoxication.
Lefto, 581 N.W.2d at 857. Appellant is not an “other person” within the meaning of the statute because the record supports the district court’s finding that the sale in question was illegal and that appellant played a role in causing the intoxication.
The majority opinion’s contention that the supreme court’s Lefto definition of “other person” is merely dictum is contradicted by its inclusion in the “Syllabus by the Court.” Id. at 855. The supreme court, without directly attacking the amended comparative fault statute, preempted the operation of the statute in the instant case by its interpretation of “other person,” but did not preempt its operation in Lefto.
Lefto retains the benefit of the amended comparative fault statute, Minn.Stat. § 604.01, subd. la (1998), for application to all persons described in the category of persons contained in Minn.Stat. § 340A.801, subd. 1 (1998), to protect the historic relational and mutual obligations these persons have with the injured person. “Other person,” or as Lefto holds, “any other person,” does not have the same interest to protect. Because, in Lefto, complicity was not involved in any way, factually or legally, we must accept Lefto’s definition of “other person” as a generic definition applicable to all cases.

 Retired judge of the district court, serving as judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals by appointment pursuant to Minn. Const, art. VI, § 10.