Submitted by Cedric Hughes on Wed, 05/10/2006 - 01:10
On May 5, 2006, Supreme Court of Canada answered the question of whether hosts to social events are responsible for the people who are injured in an accident caused by guests, who leave the party drunk. The answer is no.
The case, Childs v. Desormeaux and the full text is available online at www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/rec/html/2006scc018.wpd.html, the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, written by Chief Justice McLachlin is clearly set out and the result is clear. One of the more complex aspects compares social hosts to commercial hosts (restaurants, for example) for whom the law is equally clear but dramatically different; commercial hosts will be held responsible.
The Court stated three reasons to why the responsibility that is put on bars and restaurants does not apply to private party hosts:
- First, the capacity to monitor alcohol consumption — commercial hosts have the means to and the incentive for monitoring alcohol consumption whereas private party hosts have neither.
- Secondly, the court said “The sale and consumption of alcohol is strictly regulated by legislatures, and the rules applying to commercial establishments suggest that they operate in a very different context than private-party hosts. This regulation is driven by public expectations and attitudes towards intoxicants, but also serves, in turn, to shape those expectations and attitudes.”
- The third difference is the “contractual nature of the relationship between a tavern keeper serving alcohol and a patron consuming it” which is “fundamentally different from the range of different social relationships that can characterize private parties in the non-commercial context.”
The extensive media coverage of this case has focused on the important statements the court has made about individual autonomy that is how it does not get “parked at the host’s door” and that guests remain responsible for their own conduct.
However, the facts of this particular case have to be looked at carefully. The host did accompany the “drunk driver” to his car and asked him if he was okay to which he responded “No problem.” The court found that there was no evidence that the host in fact knew of the guest’s inebriation. Therefore, the accident that followed was found to be unforeseeable to the host. However, in different circumstances the judgment might be different.
In response to the court’s decision, the injured person’s sister said: “while [my sister] is disappointed in the result …she helped bring national attention to the devastation that drinking and driving can cause. …Even though she didn’t win we would still want people to be taking the precautions they should be taking: be responsible, take care of your guests. Get them home. That should be a big message out there.”
This decision frees social hosts from an automatic assumption of blame for the wrongful acts of their guests. On the whole, the court decided that the host was not negligent. However, if outrageous circumstances show that the host was clearly negligent then the host may still be held responsible in some future case.
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