Cuevas v. Royal D'Iberville Hotel

• Decision Date: 12 November 1986
• Docket Number: No. 55469,55469
• Parties: Catherine Oakes CUEVAS v. The ROYAL D'IBERVILLE HOTEL, et al.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 346

498 So.2d 346

Catherine Oakes CUEVAS v. The ROYAL D'IBERVILLE HOTEL, et al.

No. 55469.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 12, 1986.

Robert O. Homes, Jr., Gulfport, for appellant.

David B. Strain, Bryant, Stennis & Colingo, Gulfport, Charles Pringle, Biloxi, for appellee.

En Banc.

ROY NOBLE LEE, Presiding Justice, for the Court:

Catherine Oakes Cuevas appeals from a judgment entered in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial District of Harrison County, Mississippi, dismissing her complaint against the Royal D'Iberville Hotel, which sought damages for personal injuries sustained when she fell over a rail at the hotel. The complaint alleged that the Royal D'Iberville Hotel furnished her alcoholic beverages at a time when she was visibly intoxicated in violation of Mississippi Code Annotated Sec. 67-1-83(1) (1972).

Appellant was injured November 12, 1981, when she fell while attending a medical technician's convention. She fell over a railing, which was approximately eight (8) inches lower than the minimum height as required by standard building codes, thirty (30) feet to the lobby floor, sustaining serious injuries. Immediately prior to the accident, appellant had been drinking intoxicants in the hotel lounge with several other medical technicians. Appellant contends that she was visibly intoxicated; that she was served alcoholic beverages in the lounge; that her inebriated condition caused or contributed to the fall and injuries; and that appellee was negligent and liable because of violating Sec. 67-1-83(1), supra.

The question presented for decision by this Court is whether or not the lower court erred in dismissing the appellant's suit on motion for summary judgment, specifically whether or not appellee was liable to appellant for selling and furnishing her intoxicants in violation of Sec. 67-1-83(1), if the intoxication proximately caused or contributed to appellee's injury.

Section 67-1-83(1) provides the following, in part:

(1) It shall be unlawful for any permittee or other person to sell or furnish any alcoholic beverage to any person who is known to be insane or mentally defective, or to any person who is visibly intoxicated, or to any person who is known to habitually drink alcoholic beverages to excess, or to any person who is known to be an habitual user of narcotics or other habit forming drugs....

Subsection (4) further provides that any person who violated any of the provisions of the statute shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500.00), or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term of not more than six (6) months, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court. In addition, the Commission was required to revoke the permit of any permittee who violates the provisions of the section.

In W. Prosser, The Law of Torts Sec. 36 (4th ed. 1971), Professor Prosser made the following general comments on legislation similar to our statute:

It is not every provision of a criminal statute or ordinance which will be adopted by the court in a civil action for negligence, as the standard of conduct of a reasonable man. Otherwise stated, there are statutes which are considered to create no duty of conduct toward the plaintiff, and to afford no basis for the creation of such a duty by the court. The courts have been careful not to exceed the purpose which they attribute to the legislature.

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In many cases the evident policy of the legislature is to protect only a limited class of individuals. If so, the plaintiff must bring himself within that class in order to maintain an action based on the statute.

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The class of persons to be protected may of course be a broad one, extending to all those likely to be injured by the violation. Thus a statute ... must clearly be intended for the benefit of any member of the public who may be injured by the act or thing prohibited....

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The same limitation of the effect of the statute to accomplish only the supposed policy of the legislature is found in the requirement that the harm suffered must be of the kind which the statute was intended, in general, to prevent.

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If the statute is not construed to cover the plaintiff, or the particular type of harm, many courts have held that its violation is not even evidence of negligence, and can have no effect on liability at all.

W. Prosser, The Law of Torts, at 192, 194-95, 201. See also Haver v. Hinson, 385 So.2d 605, 608 (Miss.1980); Robertson v. Yazoo and M.V.R.R. Co., 154 Miss. 182, 122 So. 371 (1929); U-Haul Co. v. White, 232 So.2d 705, 708 (Miss.1970).

Mississippi statutes relating to the sale of alcoholic beverages have sometimes been referred to as the Mississippi Dram Shop Law. Such references are misleading because true dram shop acts are civil liability acts wherein the legislature specifically imposed liability on the seller of intoxicating liquors when a third party is injured as a result of the intoxication of the buyer where the sale caused or contributed to such intoxication. ¹

This Court has addressed previously similar questions involving the statutes, and third-party claimants. In Munford, Inc. v. Peterson, 368 So.2d 213 (Miss.1979), suit was brought to recover for the death of the plaintiff's decedent, Scott Peterson, who was killed in an automobile accident when the minor driver of the vehicle lost control. That driver, Tommy Blankenship, was intoxicated at the time of the fatal accident as a result of consuming beer sold to him by Munford's employees. The case held that Mississippi Code Annotated Sec. 67-3-53(b) (1972), which prohibits the sale of beer or wine to a minor, was adopted for the protection of the general public, including persons such as the decedent Peterson. The Court also held that Munford was guilty of negligence per se in selling the alcoholic beverages to the minors, and, if such negligence proximately caused or contributed to the injury and death of Peterson, the plaintiffs were entitled to recover. The general public was held to be a protected class and decedent Peterson, a minor, was a member of that protected class.

Boutwell v. Sullivan, 469 So.2d 526 (Miss.1985), involved an action by a third-party complainant against a social host for the death of the complainant's decedent alleged to have been caused by the intoxication of the operator of an automobile, whose host had supplied him with beer. There, the host was held not to be liable because he was not covered by the statute and, under the common law, no liability was imposed. 469 So.2d at 528; City of Jackson v. Wallace, 189 Miss. 252, 196 So. 223 (1940).

We now reiterate our holding in Munford, Inc. v. Peterson, supra, that the Mississippi law, which prohibits the sale of beer or wine to a minor, was adopted for the protection of the general public and that Peterson, a minor, was a member of that protected class. Society has a greater interest in protecting the welfare of minors than other groups listed in Sec. 67-3-53(b), Sec. 67-1-81 and Sec. 67-1-83. Minors comprise a larger segment of society than do the others listed. The future of society is dependent upon the welfare and protection of its youth. Minority is easily determined by the dispenser of intoxicants, e.g., an ID can be required. We hold that the public, e.g., a third-party class whether minor or adult, is protected under the statute from the negligent acts of an intoxicated person, and has a claim against a person or business furnishing alcoholic beverages in violation of the statute. However, we do not think the legislature intended to impose liability upon a dispenser of intoxicants to an adult individual, such as appellant here, who voluntarily consumes intoxicants and then, by reason of his inebriated condition, injures himself. ² We further hold that such a person as appellant is excluded from the protected class as articulated in Munford, Inc. v. Peterson, supra. ³

The judgment of the lower court is affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

WALKER, C.J., HAWKINS, P.J., and ANDERSON, J., concur.

DAN M. LEE, ROBERTSON, PRATHER and SULLIVAN, JJ., Dissent.

GRIFFIN, J., not participating.

DAN M. LEE, Justice, dissenting:

Catherine Cuevas filed suit in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial District of Harrison County, Mississippi, seeking to recover damages for injuries she sustained when she fell over a rail at the Royal D'Iberville Hotel on November 12, 1981. Cuevas originally alleged that the hotel was liable on two grounds: (1) by maintaining a substandard, low rail; and, (2) by furnishing her with alcoholic beverages at a time when she was visibly intoxicated, thereby violating Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 67-1-83(1) (Supp.1985). A settlement was reached with respect to the claim based on the low rail. At the motion of the defendants, the trial judge granted summary judgment with respect to the second issue and--relying on the case of Munford, Inc. v. Peterson, 368 So.2d 213 (Miss.1979)--noted that the law in Mississippi does not allow an action against a tavern operator for damages sustained by a person who has voluntarily consumed intoxicating liquors and is subsequently injured as a result of his or her intoxication.

From that judgment, Cuevas appeals and asserts the following:

(1) One who sells intoxicants in violation of the Mississippi Dram Shop law is liable to the consumer thereof if the intoxication proximately causes injury to the consumer. (2) The circuit court erred in dismissing the plaintiff's claim on a motion for summary judgment.

I.

On November 12, 1981, Catherine Cuevas was injured when she fell over a railing at the Royal D'Iberville Hotel in Biloxi; she was attending a medical technician's convention. The accident was occasioned, in part, by the fact that the railing was more than eight inches lower than the minimum height required by building codes and, in part, by the...