Pardey v. Boulevard Billiard Club, 84-373-Appeal

• Citation: 518 A.2d 1349
• Decision Date: 22 December 1986
• Docket Number: No. 84-373-Appeal,84-393-Appeal.,84-373-Appeal
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Rhode Island
• Parties: Bette Kay PARDEY v. BOULEVARD BILLIARD CLUB. Mario PEREIRA v. BOULEVARD BILLIARD CLUB.

518 A.2d 1349

Bette Kay PARDEY v. BOULEVARD BILLIARD CLUB. Mario PEREIRA v. BOULEVARD BILLIARD CLUB.

Nos. 84-373-Appeal, 84-393-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

December 22, 1986.

Albert B. West, Providence, for plaintiff.

William J. Burke, Cranston, Aram Schefrin, Lovett Schefrin & Gallogly, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

WEISBERGER, Justice.

This matter is before us on appeal from judgments entered in the Superior Court in favor of the plaintiffs, Mario Pereira and Bette Kay Pardey, for injuries sustained in an automobile accident. The plaintiffs' actions were consolidated for trial and predicated upon Rhode Island's dram shop act, G.L. 1956 (1976 Reenactment) § 3-11-1.¹ The trial justice, sitting without a jury, found defendant Boulevard Billiard Club liable for the plaintiffs' injuries as a result of its sale of alcoholic beverages to a minor in violation of § 3-11-1. The facts of the controversy are as follows.

On October 26, 1979, Wayne Rivard, Chris Beaupre, and plaintiff Mario Pereira, all residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, drove to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where they consumed alcoholic beverages on the premises of the Boulevard Billiard Club. On that date, Wayne Rivard was a minor. The trial justice found that the bartender knew or should have known that Rivard was a minor at the time he served him the intoxicating beverages.

At approximately 12:30 a.m., Rivard, Beaupre and Pereira left Boulevard Billiard Club in a motor vehicle operated by Rivard. In North Attleboro, Massachusetts, Rivard lost control of the vehicle and crossed the center line on Route 1, striking a vehicle driven by Bette Kay Pardey, also a Massachusetts resident. Both Wayne Rivard and Chris Beaupre were killed. The plaintiffs Mario Pereira and Bette Kay Pardey sustained serious injuries. At the hospital, a blood analysis of Rivard revealed a.13 percent alcohol content.

Subsequent to the accident, Pardey executed two joint tortfeasor releases both of which reserved her rights in regard to other possible responsible parties. Mario Pereira, however, executed a general release.

The defendant raises the following issues on appeal: (1) whether the trial justice properly applied Rhode Island, rather than Massachusetts, law; (2) whether the trial justice properly determined that the Rhode Island dram shop act should be accorded extraterritorial effect; (3) whether the trial justice correctly determined that defendant acted in violation of title 3; (4) whether § 3-11-1 applies to a nonbusiness corporation or is limited in application only to the actual person who furnished the alcohol; (5) whether the general release executed by Mario Pereira constitutes a bar to his recovery against defendant; and (6) whether the trial justice correctly determined that plaintiff Pereira's claim was not barred by any assumption of the risk on his part.

I

At the threshold we must determine whether the trial justice correctly applied § 3-11-1 to the instant case. All parties to this action, with the exception of defendant, are Massachusetts residents. The accident occurred in Massachusetts. The defendant, Boulevard Billiard Club, is located in Rhode Island, and defendant's sale of alcohol to Wayne Rivard occurred on defendant's Rhode Island premises.

In Woodward v. Stewart, 104 R.I. 290, 299, 243 A.2d 917, 923, cert. denied, 393 U.S. 957, 89 S.Ct. 387, 21 L.Ed.2d 371 (1968), this court abandoned the lex loci delicti conflict-of-laws doctrine in favor of an interest-weighing approach. Under this approach, the rights and liabilities of the parties to a tort action are determined in accordance with the law of the state that bears the most significant relationship to the event and the parties. Busby v. Perini Corp., 110 R.I. 49, 290 A.2d 210 (1972). The factors that must be weighed in deciding which law to apply are (1) predictability of result; (2) maintenance of interstate and international order; (3) simplification of the judicial task; (4) advancement of the forum's governmental interests; and (5) application of the better rule of law. Brown v. Church of The Holy Name of Jesus, 105 R.I. 322, 252 A.2d 176 (1969).

In this case the wrongful conduct of defendant occurred in Rhode Island, and defendant is a Rhode Island corporation. Rhode Island certainly has a significant interest in not only deterring violations of its dram shop act, but also in compensating those injured as a result of the intoxication of persons served alcohol in contravention of title 3. Further, Rhode Island has a substantial governmental interest in applying § 3-11-1 to defendant, a Rhode Island licensee, for its dispensation of intoxicating liquors in violation of state law. In dram shop actions arising out of automobile accidents, the place where the liquor was unlawfully sold is of greater significance than the location of the accident because, when an intoxicated person is driving, the actual site of the crash is largely fortuitous. See Patton v. Carnrike, 510 F. Supp. 625 (N.D.N.Y. 1981).

Another factor that is weighed in conflict-of-laws questions, predictability of result, concerns enabling parties to know beforehand the consequences of a certain course of action. Turcotte v. Ford Motor Co., 494 F.2d 173, 178 n. 6 (1st Cir.1974). Boulevard Billiard Club is a Rhode Island corporation subject to the law of this state. Under that law, a vendor of alcoholic beverages is liable to persons suffering injury at the hands of intoxicated persons to whom they have supplied alcoholic beverages in violation of title 3. If this court were to allow Rhode Island liquor vendors to escape the liability imposed by § 3-11-1 simply because the resulting accident occurred outside state borders, the consequences of title 3 violations would be unpredictable indeed.

Massachusetts law is not offended by application of § 3-11-1 to this case since Massachusetts has its own dram shop law that regulates Massachusetts licensees. Application of Rhode Island law therefore effectuates, rather than frustrates, the policies of both states. See Zucker v. Vogt, 329 F.2d 426, 428 n. 2 (2nd Cir.1964). Although the actual collision occurred in Massachusetts, the wrongdoing on which liability against defendant is premised took place in Rhode Island. A determination that § 3-11-1 controls the outcome of this case maintains interstate order because it provides a remedy to persons who suffer harm in one state resulting from the wrongful conduct that occurred in another state and for which no other remedy is available.

Application of § 3-11-1 constitutes an application of the better rule of law in this case because the Massachusetts dram shop act governs Massachusetts vendors only and would not, therefore, provide a remedy in the instant case. Mass.Gen.Laws Ann. ch. 138, § 34 (West Supp. 1986). The interest in simplification of the judicial task also points to application of Rhode Island law. Consequently, we hold that § 3-11-1 properly governs defendant's liability under the facts of this case.

II

The defendant further asserts that, even if Rhode Island law would otherwise govern the case at bar, § 3-11-1 has no extraterritorial effect. We disagree. Although some courts have determined that the applicability of their state dram shop acts is limited to injuries occurring within the state of sale, the better-reasoned authorities have given extraterritorial effect to these statutes if they are remedial in nature and such application is consistent with legislative intent. E.g., Trapp v. 4-10 Investment Corp., 424 F.2d 1261 (8th Cir.1970); Patton v. Carnrike, 510 F. Supp. 625 (N.D.N.Y. 1981); Bankord v. DeRock, 423 F. Supp. 602 (N.D.Iowa 1976); Zucker v. Vogt, 200 F. Supp. 340 (D.Conn. 1961). But see Graham v. General U.S. Grant Post No. 2665, 43 Ill.2d 1, 248 N.E.2d 657 (1969) (dram shop act has no extraterritorial effect).

General Laws 1956 (1976 Reenactment) § 3-1-5 specifically states that title 3 "shall be construed liberally in aid of its declared purpose which declared purpose is the promotion of temperance and the achievement of reasonable control of the traffic in alcoholic beverages." In light of this legislative mandate, limitation of the statute's effect to those violations of title 3 that fortuitously result in an automobile accident within Rhode Island's borders would be inconsistent with legislative intent. As this court stated in Beaupre v. Boulevard Billiard Club, 510 A.2d 415 (R.I. 1986) "Section 3-11-1 represents the current trend in our society to deal with the serious problem of alcohol-related injury by holding those individuals who dispense intoxicating beverages in violation of liquor laws responsible for the consequences of their actions." Id. at 416. Since the statute addresses the illegal dispensation of liquor, it must be applied extraterritorially when the resulting injury is directly related to violations of the statute by Rhode Island licensees.

A remedial statute is one that provides a remedy for injury as compensation for loss. Ayers-Schaffner v. Solomon, 461 A.2d 396 (R.I. 1983); Newman v. George A. Fuller Co., 72 R.I. 113, 48 A.2d 345 (1946). Section 3-11-1 is a remedial statute because it provides a remedy to those who suffer injury resulting from violations of title 3. Because extraterritorial application of § 3-11-1 furthers the statute's remedial purpose and is consistent with legislative intent, we find that the statute must be applied to accidents that occur outside Rhode Island when injury is proximately caused by the violation of the Rhode Island dram shop statute within this state.

III

The defendant asserts that it is not liable under § 3-11-1 because plaintiffs failed properly to allege that its sale of alcoholic beverages to Wayne Rivard violated title 3. The plaintiffs allege in their complaints that defendant, a holder of a class-D retailer's license, violated G.L. 1956 (1976 Reenactment) § 3-8-5, as amended by P.L. 1979, ch. 326, §...