I've been following this interesting court case that was being argued in the Supreme Court of Canada. The heart of the case - Say you host a house party where guests bring their own booze. A guest gets drunk and leaves the party and decides to drive. While he drives, he gets into a horrible car accident. Is the host of the house party responsible for the drunk driver's actions?
The Globe and Mail has an article that covers this which is entitled, "
Hosts Not Liable For Partygoer Driving Drunk."
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that two hosts of a New Year's Eve party were not responsible for the havoc caused by a guest who drunkenly drove away from their house and caused crippling injuries to a teenage girl.
In a unanimous decision the court upheld an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that said the two were not liable for the pain and suffering of Zoe Childs, when the car she was riding in was rammed by Desmond Desormeaux on Jan. 1, 1999, causing her to become a paraplegic. Her boyfriend was killed.
Mr. Desormeaux had been drinking at a "bring your own bottle" party hosted by Julie Zimmerman and Dwight Courrier in a suburb of Ottawa. Mr. Desormeaux went to jail for his crime, but he had no car insurance to pay Ms. Childs. She sued the hosts, claiming they should have stopped him from getting in his car in a drunken state.
The top court said the couple, who did not directly serve alcohol to Mr. Desormeaux, could not have foreseen the possibility of an accident that would injure Ms. Childs.
"I conclude that as a general rule, a social host does not owe a duty of care to a person injured by a guest who has consumed alcohol . . ," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote for the court. "A person who accepts an invitation to a party does not park his autonomy at the door. The guest remains responsible for his or her conduct."
I completely agree with the ruling that the judges made. It would be very unjust to blame one's stupid choice on someone else like the party hosts. If the party hosts were liable, then that's injustice because we end up with a society where people aren't responsible for their own actions. In addition, if the party hosts were held liable, then where do we draw the line? Could the liquor store that sold booze to the drunk driver be liable as well? How about the car manufacturer for building the car?
Anyway, I'm somewhat surprised that this had to go all the way up to the Supreme Court. I may be naive, but common sense immediately tells me that the party hosts aren't liable. One my friends said that it probably had to go to the Supreme Court to settle the issue once and for all since there have been similar claims. This sets precedence in the law.
The other interesting I read was about how this ruling could affect us if party hosts were indeed found liable. The article suggested that if you were holding a wedding reception at a party hall, you would have to get insurance for every one of your guests because each of one of them can potentially drink too much and drive, and therefore become a legal liability. That would dramatically increase the cost of throwing a wedding, or any party that may involve alcohol.
In either case, sound reasoning prevails this time.
