Court Opinion

ID: 9659719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:53:15.437262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:11.041815
License: Public Domain

Rogosheske, Justice
(concurring specially).
While I am compelled to agree with the scope of application intended by the 1911 Legislature in enacting our Civil Damage Act, I cannot endorse the language of the opinion which might be read to imply that the strict liability we have held the statute imposes upon a commercial seller of liquor can, with equal justification, be imposed upon a social host even though he may or may not carry either the type of, or sufficient, liability insurance to protect against the risk of such liability.
Hopefully, everyone ought to share the view that we are our “brother’s keeper,” and that no social host worthy of another’s visit to his home or to his party should be permitted to ignore his duty to exercise reasonable care for the sobriety of his guest because of the potential harm to innocent third parties which could result if he negligently permits his guest to become intoxicated.1 However, it must be understood that this is not the peculiar nature of the liability imposed upon a liquor dealer, and now a social host, by our Civil Damage Act. As briefly alluded to in the opinion, it is “strict liability” without regard to fault in the sense that the dealer, and now the host, engaged in any intentional or negligent misconduct. Dahl v. Northwestern Nat. Bank, 265 Minn. 216, 220, 121 N. W. 2d 321, 324 (1963). As previously applied only to a commercial seller who makes a sale of liquor for consumption either on or off his premises, this means in plain language that if he sells or otherwise transfers liquor to a minor, causing his intoxication, or to one obviously intoxicated, and the intoxicated person injures a third party in his person, *125property, or means of support, the seller is strictly liable for all damages resulting. It is no defense to the seller that he exercised every reasonable precaution to avoid making such illegal sale. Hahn v. City of Ortonville, 238 Minn. 428, 57 N. W. 2d 254 (1953). Nor is it a defense that the injured party was himself contributorily negligent. Kvanli v. Village of Watson, 272 Minn. 481, 139 N. W. 2d 275 (1965).
The reason why this construction of our statute has evolved is our recognition that its ultimate purpose is a dual one involving both penal and remedial objectives; penal in that it intends to suppress the mischief of illegal sales by a liquor dealer to the end that there will be self-policing against illegal sales by dealers, and remedial in that the statute assures recovery of damages by an innocent person from a commercial activity which can best bear the burden of loss by insuring against it as a cost of engaging in a hazardous business for profit. This evolution of the peculiar nature of our statute is the result of resolving numerous and difficult problems of its construction and application which have arisen since its enactment, and more particularly, during the past 15 years.2
However desirable it may appear to impose the same strict liability upon a social host as upon a commercial vendor, the consequences may mean jeopardy so far as at least the remedial purpose of our statute is concerned. The objective of advancing the remedy of recovery in future cases because the liquor industry can best bear the burden of loss is not present when recovery is sought from an uninsured private individual.
It thus seems to me that it is necessary to note that the result of our decision may be to effectively dull one edge of what has been a sharp two-edged tool fashioned by the legislature to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public by carefully *126controlling the commercial sale or transfer of liquor to minors or intoxicated persons. Inevitably, attempts will now be made to amend the statute, or our construction of it, and to inject into it the element of fault or proof of negligence. I offer these observations in aid of those who will seek to improve the statute and its application. In this developing area of law, where we have not yet been directly confronted with whether or not nonstatutory common-law liability based on negligence should be imposed on private individuals, and indeed on commercial vendors,3 it is important to keep clearly in mind the host of public policy considerations which must be weighed in resolving the threshold issue of whether such a remedy should be in addition to or a substitute for the liability imposed by our Civil Damage Act.
Mr. Justice Todd and Mr. Justice MacLaughlin, not having been members of this court at the time of the argument and submission, took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

 Mr. Chief Justice Hallows’ dissent in Garcia v. Hargrove, 46 Wis. 2d 724, 176 N. W. 2d 566 (1970), quoted in the majority opinion, arose out of the Wisconsin court’s refusal to impose common-law liability upon a commercial liquor dealer and has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature of the liability imposed by a statute similar to our Civil Damage Act.

 For a review of the problems confronting this court up to the fall of 1961, see Note, 46 Minn. L. Rev. 169. For a more recent review, see Hagglund & Arthur, Dram Shop Law in Minnesota, 28 Bench and Bar of Minn., Feb. 1972, p. 17.

 See, Note, 49 Minn. L. Rev. 1154; Hagglund & Arthur, Dram Shop Law in Minnesota, 28 Bench and Bar of Minn., Feb. 1972, p. 17.