Drinking Game Sends Bar Owner to Prison

If an 18-year old drinks himself to death in a bar, the bar should be sued.  If a 21-year old drinks himself to death, the bar owner should not be sued, but such a lawsuit against the bar owner wouldn't be outrageous.  When a 31-year-old woman, while at a bar with her mom and sister, drinks herself to death, the bar owner should not be sued.  And he certainly shouldn't go to prison.  There's something rotten in Kansas.  (Via CrimLaw).  UPDATE: Doug Berman says that reading "the full story makes the prosecution seem less outrageous," so please read the full story.

The 31-year-old woman played a drinking game while at a bar with her mother and sister.  When he went home, she died of alcohol poisoning. Prosecutors charged the bar owner with involuntary manslaughter, and he was convicted at trial. Here's the best line from the story:

Goodpasture's mother, Bev Brown, said Scott deserved punishment. "A lot of us are at fault, including myself," said Goodpasture's mother, Bev Brown. "But he took a life and I think he should be punished for it."

Let's talk about moral duties (putting aside that the decedent was 31-years old).  Who has a greater moral duty to the 31-year old woman - her mother, or the bartender?  Mom "let" her adult daughter drink herself to death, and she blames the bar owner.  Unbelievable.

Comments

[mythago]

If a 21-year old drinks himself to death, the bar owner should not be sued, but such a lawsuit against the bar owner wouldn't be outrageous. When a 31-year-old woman, while at a bar with her mom and sister, drinks herself to death, the bar owner should not be sued.

I don't understand your distinction. A 21-year-old is a legal adult and may drink alcohol legally. Do you propose some kind of judge-created law of graduated adulthood?

What you omitted from your post is that the bar owner is not going to prison because of this drinking game. He's apparently going to prison because he's got two prior felonies. From the story:

Scott's attorney, Kerry Granger asked the court for a downward departure from state sentencing guidelines, arguing the law that resulted in Scott's two driving while suspended convictions being counted as felonies has since been changed. The offense is now considered a misdemeanor.

"If Billy's convictions hadn't fallen into that very narrow space, he wouldn't be facing this sentence," Granger said.

[Mike]

What you omitted from your post is that the bar owner is not going to prison because of this drinking game.

I don't understand. So you're telling me that if he hadn't been convicted for this drinking game, he still would have gone to prison? What am I missing?

[Doug B.]

Mike, though I see your concerns about the mom's shifting of blame, I also see the rationale for the prosecution given the allegation (which we can assume was accepted by the jury) that the bar owner was sponsoring a drinking game.

According to the article, Kansas has a law to prevent bars from sponsoring drinking games. The defendant, it appears, not only violated this law, but presumably did so in an extreme way that helped produce such an insanely high BAC in the woman who died.

And one reason to make a criminal case here is because various tort doctrines might have precluded wrongful death liability under these circumstances.

Though I am not defending the outcome here, I do think the full story makes the prosecution seem less outrageous (although Mom's comments are still ridiculous).

[mythago]

So you're telling me that if he hadn't been convicted for this drinking game, he still would have gone to prison? What am I missing?

What you're missing is that he is getting jail time as a result of this convinction because he has two prior felonies. You said: "When a 31-year-old woman, while at a bar with her mom and sister, drinks herself to death, the bar owner should not be sued. And he certainly shouldn't go to prison." Even the guy's own lawyer said that he wouldn't have gotten a prison term without the priors.

Still waiting to hear why it would be worse if this had happened to a 21-year-old.

[Mike]

What you're missing is that he is getting jail time as a result of this convinction because he has two prior felonies.

It's really a simply actual and proximate causation issue. The proximate cause of his prison sentence is that someone drank herself to death. Thus, he is, in fact, going to prison because a 31-year old died after playing a drinking game. There's so much wrong with that, that it's hard to know where to start. Why was someone 31-years old playing a drinking game at a bar? Why should a bartender be held liable for someone who, tens past 21-years of age, be held responsible for her death. It's bad enough if he had been sued; it's worse that he's going to prison for it.

A 21-year-old is a legal adult and may drink alcohol legally. Do you propose some kind of judge-created law of graduated adulthood?

A person can't legally drink before she is 21-years old. Thus, a bartender could reasonably foresee that someone who has only been legally allowed to drink for a few days or a few months is more likely to not know his limits than someone who is 31-years old. There are exceptions on both ends (a 21-year old who can really take 'em down, and a 31-year old used to virgin daiquiris), but most people go friggin nuts when they turn 21.

[Mike]

And, of course, my original statement must be read in context: "If a 21-year old drinks himself to death, the bar owner should not be sued, but such a lawsuit against the bar owner wouldn't be outrageous.

There's an obvious difference between a legal rule that should not exist because it's misguided and a legal rule that makes no sense at all.

[Maren Chaloupka]

There appears to have been at least some evidence that the bar sponsored the drinking contest. Put otherwise, the bar and its employees fattened their wallets by encouraging people to take unreasonable risks. This doesn't appear to be a case of a bartender merely serving someone who is quietly drinking himself into a hole all night. If there was evidence that the bar sponsored the contest, then the implication is that its employees were actively egging customers on to drink unreasonably for the benefit of the bar.

If that's the evidence, I might well sue the bar. Is it foreseeable that people who may engage in such a contest could be impaired before the contest even begins? Or could be mentally ill or mentally retarded? Or could be inexperienced drinkers? Did they know how many drinks they had served to this woman, such that her BAC exceeded 0.40%?

If so, then the bar owed her a duty of care. Her mother and sister didn't sponsor the contest and had nothing meaningful to gain from the decedent's participation in it. The bar made money from its customers whipping themselves into a frenzy and trying to outdrink each other. It should pay the reasonable costs associated with the benefits it received.

[mythago]

Exactly.

Mike, again, you're coming up with some rather shaky excuses to justify your earlier, flip comment about how it would be worse if the bar had served a 21-year-old. Are you really saying that a bar has a duty to be more careful serving its 21-year-old customers than its older customers?

[Mike]

Mythago, I'm trying to understand what exactly are we disagreeing over.

My earlier comment was this: "If a 21-year old drinks himself to death, the bar owner should not be sued, but such a lawsuit against the bar owner wouldn't be outrageous." There's a big difference between a law that should not exist, and one whose very existence is outrageous. Again, an owner should not be sued. But if an owner was sued under such circumstances, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't blog about it. I wouldn't think that the law was shockingly out of control and needed reformed. In sum, such a suit would not be "outrageous."

OTOH, I find it outrageous that someone was convicted of a felony and went to prison because some 31-year-old drank herself to death. Now, news stories don't tell us much. My opinion would change if the woman was mentally handicapped or had some other condition rendering her unable to make sound choices that a reasonable person would have seen. (While news stories don't tell it all, I suspect it would have included any such impairment in the story.) Here, it seems the prosecutor used a mere violation of no-drinking-games law as a basis for the manslaughter conviction.

Anyhow, I've spent more words explaining my post than I spent writing the post. You're welcome to have the last word.

[mythago]

That's a clever way of trying to get the last word, Mike, but I'm just not fathoming why 21 vs. 31 really ought to make a difference from the law's perspective.

[Helen]

That is unbelievable but there is low. And if anyone ever worked as a bar tender or a waiter he knows that it is his responsibility not to let people get too drunk. And all of them pass exam for example Techniques of alcohol managemnt. But what I do not understand is why the place was not fined and taken away the lisence!

[Jeff]

I just want to say that if the courts are going to hold bartenders and bar owners liable for drinking decisions, of persons of legal age, that results in death or serious illnesses then the state or federal government should provide the necessary training to such bartenders so that they are better educated as to how much they can serve an individual. I think this is absolutely rediculous and I would place a lot of blame on the mother. Obviously the drinking was learned from her mother because she was in the bar with her. Her own mother couldn't recognize the severity of the alcohol affects on her, how can you hold a bartender criminally liable for her death.

[Alcohol Recovery Info]

You are totally correct in your “unbelievable” assessment of this case. Who knew the 31-year-old woman better, the bartender or her mother? Why didn’t the mother tell her daughter to quit drinking when “enough was enough”? A bartender may be tending to dozens of customers and should not be expected to keep count of all the drinks that he or she serves. Sure, a bartender should stop serving a person who has had “too much to drink” but maybe this 31-year-old woman didn’t appear to be overly drunk. No, the major responsibility here lies with the 31-year-old woman and with her mother, not with the bartender.