Dram Shop
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Dram shop is a legal term in the United States for laws covering the liability of people serving liquor.
Under dram shop liability laws, a party injured by an intoxicated person can sue establishments contributing to that person’s intoxication. Take two friends who go out drinking, get in a fight, and one punches the other. The injured friend can then sue the bar. Also, most dram shop laws cover serving alcohol to a minor. Thus in Texas, minors can sue a drinking establishment for their own injuries sustained while intoxicated. In other states, dram shop liability extends to serving the "habitually intoxicated." Accordingly, an alcoholic’s family can sue the bar that let him squander away the family’s savings.
The wide variety of dram shop laws across the states suggests that the extent to which bars may be blamed for a drunken person’s behavior gives some states pause. A couple of hold-out states impose no dram shop liability — most notably Nevada, whose tourist industry would probably go out of business otherwise. In another small group of states, such as Alabama, Alaska, and Michigan, liability is limited to illegal alcohol sales, such as serving minors or known alcoholics.
However, the vast majority of states allow for recovery when the defendant knew (or should have known) the customer was intoxicated — a fuzzy test in application. Some states have attempted to address this problem through more exacting tests. Missouri’s recently revised dram shop law requires proof that the party demonstrates "significantly uncoordinated physical action or significant physical dysfunction." In Texas, a patron must be so obviously intoxicated that he presents a clear danger to himself and others.
On the other hand, in Massachusetts, a patron exhibiting "loud and vulgar" behavior was determined to be "visibly intoxicated," and a bar was sued for serving a customer who left, drank at two more bars, and then got into a car accident three hours later.
Under Illinois’ dram shop law, plaintiffs can recover after demonstrating: (1) proof of sale of alcohol to the patron; (2) injuries sustained by the patron; (3) proximate cause between the alcohol sale and intoxication; and (4) that intoxication was at least one cause of the third party damages. Notably absent from that list is that the defendant knew or should have known the patron was intoxicated, meaning that every person who sold the patron alcohol, whether or not he was intoxicated at the time, can face some degree of liability. Liability can then extend to casinos and convenience stores; one Illinois court allowed a lawsuit against a company that dropped off self-serve barrels of beer at a union picnic. At least one can appreciate Illinois’ courts' honesty in stating that the dram shop act is intended "to place responsibility for damages caused by intoxicants on those who profit from the sale of alcohol … [and] to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people from the dangers of traffic in liquor."