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Dram Shop and Social Host Liability

When a bar, restaurant, liquor store or private host can be held responsible for injuries caused by someone they served alcohol to - the statutes that create the claim in most states and the very different standards they set (visibly intoxicated, under the legal drinking age, or both), the states with no claim at all, social-host rules for minors, what must be proved, the notice requirements, and who can sue.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

At common law a person who served alcohol was not responsible for what the drinker later did: the drinking, not the serving, was treated as the cause of the harm. Most states have changed that by statute, and the statutes are called dram shop acts after the old measure of spirits. They make a licensed seller - a bar, restaurant, club, liquor store or convenience store - liable to a person injured by an intoxicated customer in defined circumstances, most commonly where the seller served a customer who was visibly or obviously intoxicated at the time, or served a person below the legal drinking age. The claim belongs to the injured third party (the other driver, the pedestrian, the assault victim) and in many states also to the intoxicated person's survivors in a wrongful-death claim; states divide sharply on whether the drinker, or the drinker's estate, may recover for their own injuries, and most bar it.

The standards are the whole case. A "visible intoxication" statute requires proof of what the customer looked like when served - slurred speech, unsteadiness, bloodshot eyes, behaviour - and not merely a high blood-alcohol reading later, though experts are often used to reason backward from the reading to the customer's likely appearance. Some statutes require that the seller knew or should have known, some require recklessness, and a few make the seller liable simply for serving a minor or an obviously intoxicated person without any further showing. Several states cap the damages, impose short notice requirements (a written notice to the seller within a period after the injury as a precondition to suit), or provide a "responsible vendor" defence for sellers whose staff completed approved training. A minority of states have no dram shop liability at all, either because the legislature has abolished it or because the courts never departed from the common-law rule, and in those states the injured person's only recourse is against the drinker.

Social host liability - the responsibility of a private person who furnishes alcohol at a party or in a home - is narrower still. Most states impose none for serving adults, on the reasoning that a host is not in the business and cannot monitor consumption as a bar can. Many, however, impose liability on a host who knowingly furnishes alcohol to a minor, or who allows minors to drink on property they control, and a number make that conduct a crime as well; a few extend host liability to service of a visibly intoxicated adult guest. Employers who serve alcohol at company events fall under the social-host rules in most states. Proof in every version of the claim depends on evidence gathered quickly - receipts, surveillance video, witnesses, the server's and bouncer's accounts, the arresting officer's observations - which is why these cases are investigated immediately and why bars retain video for so short a time.

Where this comes from

Dram shop and social host liability are state statute and decision, and no two states are alike; the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's Alcohol Policy Information System catalogues each state's rule. Representative statutes: Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code §§ 2.01-2.03 (provider liability for an obviously intoxicated customer; no adult social-host liability; parental liability for minors at § 2.02), Illinois Liquor Control Act, 235 ILCS 5/6-21 (liability for causing intoxication, with damage caps and a notice requirement), New York General Obligations Law §§ 11-100 and 11-101 (the Dram Shop Act and the minor-furnishing provision), and California Business and Professions Code § 25602 and Civil Code § 1714 (no liability except for furnishing alcohol to an obviously intoxicated minor, after the legislature abrogated Vesely v. Sager, 5 Cal. 3d 153 (1971)). The foundational social-host decision imposing liability for serving a visibly intoxicated adult is Kelly v. Gwinnell, 96 N.J. 538 (1984). The legal drinking age is set federally as a highway-funding condition at 23 U.S.C. § 158 and enacted by each state; it is not stated here, and neither are the notice periods or caps.

When people hire a lawyer for this

A person injured by a drunk driver or an intoxicated assailant should tell the lawyer where the person had been drinking, because the drinker's own insurance is often inadequate and the dram shop claim may be the only route to full compensation - but the claim depends on the state, on evidence that disappears within days, and in several states on a written notice to the seller with a short deadline. Bars and restaurants facing a claim should preserve video, receipts and staff statements immediately and notify their liquor-liability insurer. Parents hosting an event where minors may drink should understand that in many states they are liable civilly and criminally regardless of whether they served the alcohol themselves.

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

Related free reference tools: statute of limitations for a personal-injury claim, by state, quoted from each state's official text - part of LawyerLand's legal reference tools.