Kelly v. Gwinnell

• Decision Date: 27 June 1984
• Parties: Marie E. KELLY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Donald C. GWINNELL and Paragon Corp., Defendants-Appellants, and Joseph J. Zak and Catherine Zak, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 538

96 N.J. 538

476 A.2d 1219

Marie E. KELLY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Donald C. GWINNELL and Paragon Corp., Defendants-Appellants, and Joseph J. Zak and Catherine Zak, Defendants-Respondents.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Feb. 21, 1984.

Decided June 27, 1984.

[476 A.2d 1220]

Nicholas G. Radano, Lindenwold, submitted a letter brief on behalf of amicus curiae Sandra Weber, an incompetent, by her guardian ad litem, Shirley Vitiello; Walter John Sauers Weber, a minor, by his legal guardian, Shirley Vitiello; and Shirley Vitiello, individually

Michael D. Schottland, West Long Branch, for plaintiff-appellant Marie E. Kelly (Chamlin, Schottland, Rosen, Cavanagh & Uliano, West Long Branch, attorneys; Thomas W. Cavanagh, Jr., West Long Branch, on the brief).

John P. Duggan, Red Bank, for defendants-appellants Donald C. Gwinnell and Paragon Corp. (Wolff, Helies & Duggan, Red Bank, attorneys).

George N. Arvanitis, Asbury Park, for defendants-respondents (Carton, Nary, Witt & Arvanitis, attorneys; Jamie S. Perri, Asbury Park, on the brief).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

WILENTZ, C.J.

This case raises the issue of whether a social host who enables an adult guest at his home to become drunk is liable to the victim of an automobile accident caused by the drunken

driving of the guest. Here the host served liquor to the guest beyond the point at which the guest was visibly intoxicated. We hold the host may be liable under the circumstances of this case

At the trial level, the case was disposed of, insofar as the issue before us is concerned, by summary judgment in favor of the social host. The record on which the summary judgment was based (pleadings, depositions, and certifications) discloses that defendant Donald Gwinnell, after driving defendant Joseph Zak home, spent an hour or two at Zak's home before leaving to return to his own home. During that time, according to Gwinnell, Zak, and Zak's wife, Gwinnell consumed two or three drinks of scotch on the rocks. Zak accompanied Gwinnell outside to his car, chatted with him, and watched as Gwinnell then drove off to go home. About twenty-five minutes later Zak telephoned Gwinnell's home to make sure Gwinnell had arrived there safely. The phone was answered by Mrs. Gwinnell, who advised Zak that Gwinnell had been involved in a head-on collision. The collision was with an automobile operated by plaintiff, Marie Kelly, who was seriously injured as a result.

After the accident Gwinnell was subjected to a blood test, which indicated a blood alcohol concentration of 0.286 percent. ¹ Kelly's expert concluded from that reading that Gwinnell had consumed not two or three scotches but the equivalent of thirteen drinks; that while at Zak's home Gwinnell must have been showing unmistakable signs of intoxication; and that in fact he was severely intoxicated while at Zak's residence and at the time of the accident.

Kelly sued Gwinnell and his employer; those defendants sued the Zaks in a third party action; and thereafter plaintiff amended

her complaint to include Mr. and Mrs. Zak as direct defendants. The Zaks moved for summary judgment, contending that as a matter of law a host is not liable [476 A.2d 1221] for the negligence of an adult social guest who has become intoxicated while at the host's home. The trial court granted the motion on that basis. While this disposition was interlocutory (plaintiff's claim against Gwinnell and his employer still remaining to be disposed of), the trial court entered final judgment in favor of Zak pursuant to Rule 4:42-2 apparently in order to allow an immediate appeal. Pressler, Current N.J. Court Rules, Comment R.4:42-2. The Appellate Division affirmed, Kelly v. Gwinnell, 190 N.J.Super. 320, 463 A.2d 387 (1983). It noted, correctly, that New Jersey has no Dram Shop Act imposing liability on the provider of alcoholic beverages, and that while our decisional law had imposed such liability on licensees, common-law liability had been extended to a social host only where the guest was a minor. Id. at 322-23, 463 A.2d 387. (But see Figuly v. Knoll, 185 N.J.Super. 477, 449 A.2d 564 (Law Div.1982).) It explicitly declined to expand that liability where, as here, the social guest was an adult. Id. at 325-26, 463 A.2d 387

The Appellate Division's determination was based on the apparent absence of decisions in this country imposing such liability (except for those that were promptly overruled by the Legislature). ² Id. at 324-25, 463 A.2d 367. The absence of such determinations

is said to reflect a broad consensus that the imposition of liability arising from these social relations is unwise. Certainly this immunization of hosts is not the inevitable result of the law of negligence, for conventional negligence analysis points strongly in exactly the opposite direction. "Negligence is tested by whether the reasonably prudent person at the time and place should recognize and foresee an unreasonable risk or likelihood of harm or danger to others." Rappaport v. Nichols, 31 N.J. 188, 201, 156 A.2d 1 (1959); see also Butler v. Acme Mkts., Inc., 89 N.J. 270, 445 A.2d 1141 (1982) (supermarket operator liable for failure to provide shoppers with parking lot security). When negligent conduct creates such a risk, setting off foreseeable consequences that lead to plaintiff's injury, the conduct is deemed the proximate cause of the injury. "[A] tortfeasor is generally held answerable for the injuries which result in the ordinary course of events from his negligence and it is generally sufficient if his negligent conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the injuries." Rappaport, supra, 31 N.J. at 203, 156 A.2d 1; see Ettin v. Ava Truck Leasing Inc., 53 N.J. 463, 483, 251 A.2d 278 (1969) (parking tractor-trailer across street is substantial factor in cause of accident when truck with failed brakes collides into trailer)

Under the facts here defendant provided his guest with liquor, knowing that thereafter the guest would have to drive in order to get home. Viewing the facts most favorably to plaintiff (as we must, since the complaint was dismissed on a motion for summary judgment), one could reasonably conclude that the Zaks must have known that their provision of liquor was causing Gwinnell to become drunk, yet they continued[476 A.2d 1222] to serve him even after he was visibly intoxicated. By the time he

left, Gwinnell was in fact severely intoxicated. A reasonable person in Zak's position could foresee quite clearly that this continued provision of alcohol to Gwinnell was making it more and more likely that Gwinnell would not be able to operate his car carefully. Zak could foresee that unless he stopped providing drinks to Gwinnell, Gwinnell was likely to injure someone as a result of the negligent operation of his car. The usual elements of a cause of action for negligence are clearly present: an action by defendant creating an unreasonable risk of harm to plaintiff, a risk that was clearly foreseeable, and a risk that resulted in an injury equally foreseeable. Under those circumstances the only question remaining is whether a duty exists to prevent such risk or, realistically, whether this Court should impose such a duty

In most cases the justice of imposing such a duty is so clear that the cause of action in negligence is assumed to exist simply on the basis of the actor's creation of an unreasonable risk of foreseeable harm resulting in injury. In fact, however, more is needed, "more" being the value judgment, based on an analysis of public policy, that the actor owed the injured party a duty of reasonable care. Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928). In Goldberg v. Housing Auth. of Newark, 38 N.J. 578, 583, 186 A.2d 291 (1962), this Court explained that "whether a duty exists is ultimately a question of fairness. The inquiry involves a weighing of the relationship of the parties, the nature of the risk, and the public interest in the proposed solution." See also Portee v. Jaffee, 84 N.J. 88, 101, 417 A.2d 521 (1980) (whether liability for negligently inflicted emotional harm should be expanded depends "ultimately" on balancing of conflicting interests involved).

When the court determines that a duty exists and liability will be extended, it draws judicial lines based on fairness and policy. In a society where thousands of deaths are caused each

year by drunken drivers, ³ where the damage caused by such deaths is regarded increasingly as intolerable, where liquor licensees are prohibited from serving intoxicated adults, and where long-standing criminal sanctions against drunken driving have recently been significantly strengthened to the point where the Governor notes that they are regarded as the toughest in the nation, see Governor's Annual Message to the N.J. State Legislature, Jan. 10, 1984, the imposition of such a duty by the judiciary seems both fair and fully in accord with the State's policy. Unlike those cases in which the definition of desirable policy is the subject of intense controversy, here the imposition of a duty is both consistent with and supportive of a social goal--the reduction of drunken driving--that is practically unanimously accepted by society.

While the imposition of a duty here would go beyond our prior decisions, those decisions not only point clearly in that direction but do so despite the presence of social considerations similar to those involved in this case--considerations that are claimed to invest the host with immunity. In our first case on the subject, Rappaport, supra, 31 N.J. 188, 156 A.2d 1, we held a licensee liable for the consequences of a customer's negligent operation of his automobile. The customer was a minor [476 A.2d 1223] who had become intoxicated as a result of the consumption of liquor at various premises including the licensee's. While observing that a standard

of conduct was contained in the statute prohibiting...