Court Opinion

ID: 9857746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 15:57:14.651453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:53.437493
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority that the bar employee who ejected the minor driver did not breach a recognized duty to the plaintiffs. I do not agree, however, with the majority’s conclusion that the acts of the convenience store and bartender could not, as a matter of law, be proximate causes of the collision. I strongly disagree with the majority’s failure to resolve the paramount issue: whether we will recognize a common-law claim against a licensee in a case which falls outside the coverage of the dramshop statute.
I. The Common-Law Claim.
It is no secret that this court has been deeply divided on extending common-law liability to liquor cases. The primary impediment has been the view that the legislature has preempted all common-law liability of licensees, even for acts of the licensee that fall outside the coverage of the act. This view, with which I have consistently and stridently disagreed, is that if any acts of a licensee are covered by the dramshop statute then all acts of the licensee are immunized from common-law suit, even those acts which are not covered by the statute. I believe this court has erred in applying preemption principles so broadly-
Because Sinclair is a licensee, it is a party covered by section 123.92. In this case, however, Sinclair only sold the beer; it did not also serve it. Under section 123.92, Sinclair cannot be statutorily liable. Thorp v. Casey’s General Stores, Inc., 446 N.W.2d 457, 462 (Iowa 1989). I agree with the majority on that point. However, because the statute does not even purport to apply here, I believe we should recognize a common-law claim.
The public policy of our liquor control law, which includes the dramshop statute, is to promote “the protection of the welfare, health, peace, morals, and safety of the people of the state.” Iowa Code § 123.1. Interpretation of our dramshop statute, and the scope of its preemption, should be viewed with this policy in mind. Recognition of a common-law cause of action, to the extent it would deter the negligent furnishing of alcohol, would further that policy.
Based largely on these considerations, we have recognized a common-law cause of action for furnishing alcohol to a minor by a wowlicensee, Bauer v. Dann, 428 N.W.2d 658, 661 (Iowa 1988), noting that the sale of alcohol to a minor is not an act covered by the dramshop statute.
It is a disservice to the public and a frustration of the rights of innocent victims such as these plaintiffs to continue to apply the rule of preemption in all claims against licensees, even when the statute does not apply.
The preemption argument becomes less and less defensible as the legislature continues to constrict the coverage of the dramshop statute. The dramshop statute used to apply to a broad class of suppliers, including “any person” under Iowa Code section 129.2 (1950), and to a broad class of acts by those persons, including furnishing alcohol in any manner “contrary to the provisions of this title.” Id. A similarly broad scope of the dramshop statute prevailed until recent times; however, the statute now applies only to licensees or permittees, Iowa Code § 123.92 (1991), and for only one type of act by the licensee: the sale to an intoxicated person. Id. The statute now even requires that the beverage be served as well as sold. Id.
*357As long as the legislature continues to restrict the scope of the dramshop statute, and our court persists in its view that whatever rights the statute grants to victims shall be exclusive, the number of persons recovering for alcohol-caused damages by licensees will continue to diminish. In an age of increased awareness of the problems presented by drunk driving,1 encouragement of this trend by our court should be unthinkable.
I believe our court should recognize a common-law cause of action under these circumstances; however, the majority forestalls the adoption of this theory by resolving this case on a strained, and I believe erroneous, application of proximate cause principles.
II. The Proximate Cause Issue.
The majority holds that, even if we were to recognize a common-law cause of action, this would not help these plaintiffs because any negligence by the defendants could not, as a matter of law, be the proximate cause of the collision. As I understand the majority, it holds that the owner of the pickup would have entrusted his vehicle to this intoxicated minor even if the owner were not intoxicated. The driver was ejected from the bar as being too young, and because it was cold, the argument goes, the owner was somehow justified in giving his keys to the minor so he could run the pickup in the parking lot and keep warm while the owner stayed in the bar.
This is pure speculation. It is certainly not a conclusion compelled as a matter of law, as the majority seems to believe. In fact, I believe a reasonable fact finder would find just the opposite: that an owner acting reasonably under the circumstances would not give his keys to an intoxicated driver and invite him to operate his vehicle, either in the lot or on the streets. It is at least a question which a fact finder should be able to decide. It should not be decided by the court as a matter of law.
I believe the majority, by failing to give its imprimatur to a common-law cause of action, and by distorting our law of proximate cause, has created unfairness and confusion in the law, and I cannot be a part of it.
LAVORATO, J., joins this dissent.

. According to the President’s Commission on Drunk Driving, in the ten years preceding the study, 250,000 people had been killed as the result of drunk drivers. This amounts to over half of the motor vehicle fatalities. Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving, Final Report, 1 (1986).