Stephens v. Bonneville Travel, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 March 1997
• Docket Number: No. 950412,950412
• Parties: 313 Utah Adv. Rep. 44 Wayne V. STEPHENS and Suzanne M. Stephens, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Michael Wayne Stephens and as guardians ad litem for Alex Ryan Stephens and Rebecca Marie Stephens, minors, and Ralph Siebert and Eileen Siebert, individually, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. BONNEVILLE TRAVEL, INC., a California corporation dba Beehive Business and Leisure Travel, Defendant and Appellee.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 518

935 P.2d 518

313 Utah Adv. Rep. 44

Wayne V. STEPHENS and Suzanne M. Stephens, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Michael Wayne Stephens and as guardians ad litem for Alex Ryan Stephens and Rebecca Marie Stephens, minors, and Ralph Siebert and Eileen Siebert, individually, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. BONNEVILLE TRAVEL, INC., a California corporation dba Beehive Business and Leisure Travel, Defendant and Appellee.

No. 950412.

Supreme Court of Utah.

March 28, 1997.

Gordon L. Roberts, James T. Blanch, Salt Lake City, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Dale J. Lambert, Mark L. Anderson, Salt Lake City, for defendant and appellee.

HOWE, Justice:

Plaintiffs Wayne and Suzanne Stephens and Ralph and Eileen Siebert appeal from the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant Bonneville Travel, Inc., dba Beehive Business and Leisure Travel ("Beehive"), based on the court's ruling that Utah Code Ann. § 32A-14-101 (the "Dramshop Act" or "Act") does not apply to an entity that provides liquor to an apparently intoxicated person in a noncommercial social setting.

FACTS ¹

Beehive is a travel agency that is not in the business of selling, storing, serving, manufacturing, or distributing alcoholic products. On Friday, September 11, 1993, Michael Marino had lunch with Allison Pinder, a Beehive travel agent, during which he consumed three mixed drinks and two glasses of wine. Pinder testified that the purpose of this luncheon was to discuss travel plans for Marino and his wife. Marino paid for the lunch and the drinks.

Toward the end of that same afternoon, several Beehive employees expressed an interest While at Beehive, Marino consumed an unspecified quantity of vodka from the bottle brought into the office by the employee. Approximately two hours after leaving Beehive, Marino was involved in a multi-car traffic accident that resulted in injuries to plaintiffs and to the Stephens' minor children, as well as the death of the Stephens' 12-year-old son.

in having an alcoholic drink. One of the employees, who had purchased a bottle of vodka on her lunch hour, went to her car and brought the bottle into the office. About that same time, Marino called one of the Beehive employees and asked what the "girls" were doing after work. Marino arrived at Beehive's office at approximately 5 p.m.

Plaintiffs asserted claims against Marino, the Sage Club, a private club at which Marino consumed an undetermined amount of alcohol the day of the accident, ² and Beehive Travel under the Dramshop Act. The claims against Marino and the Sage Club were settled. This action was brought solely against Beehive.

Plaintiffs contend that the specific and plain language of the Dramshop Act extends potential liability to "any person" ³ who provides "liquor" to a person enumerated in the Act regardless of the location where the liquor is provided. Beehive maintains that the language of the statute and its legislative history indicate that liability is imposed only on those who are in the business of selling liquor and who serve liquor in a commercial vending setting, not in a location like Beehive where serving liquor is not part of its regular business. The trial court granted Beehive's motion for summary judgment, ruling that the Dramshop Act does not impose liability for providing liquor in a social, noncommercial setting.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is proper only when there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Utah R. Civ. P. 56(c); Wilcox v. Geneva Rock Corp., 911 P.2d 367, 368 (Utah 1996); Higgins v. Salt Lake County, 855 P.2d 231, 235 (Utah 1993). In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, " '[w]e determine only whether the trial court erred in applying the governing law and whether the trial court correctly held that there were no disputed issues of material fact.' " Wilcox, 911 P.2d at 368 (quoting Ferree v. State, 784 P.2d 149, 151 (Utah 1989)). Because both parties stipulated to the facts for purposes of the motion for summary judgment and this appeal, there are no issues of material fact. The only issue before us is solely a question of law: whether the trial court properly interpreted and applied the Dramshop Act. In matters of pure statutory interpretation, an appellate court reviews a trial court's ruling for correctness and gives no deference to its legal conclusions. State v. Vigil, 842 P.2d 843, 844 (Utah 1992).

ANALYSIS

The issue before us is narrow. We are asked to determine whether the Dramshop Act imposes liability upon any person who provides liquor, a defined term under the Act, to a person listed in the Act regardless of the location where the "liquor" is served or whether the provider is engaged in the commercial sale of "liquor." The Dramshop Act provides in pertinent part:

(1) Any person who directly gives, sells, or otherwise provides liquor, or at a location allowing consumption on the premises, any alcoholic beverage, to the following persons, and by those actions causes the intoxication of that person, is liable for injuries in person, property, or means of support to any third person, or to the spouse, child or parent of that third person, resulting from the intoxication:

...;

(b) any person who is apparently under the influence of intoxicating alcoholic beverages or products or drugs;

(c) any person whom the person furnishing the alcoholic beverage knew or should have known from the circumstances was under the influence of intoxicating alcoholic beverages or products or drugs[.]

Utah Code Ann. § 32A-14-101(1) (1994).

When faced with a question of statutory construction, we look first to the plain language of the statute. K & T, Inc. v. Koroulis, 888 P.2d 623, 627 (Utah 1994). In construing a statute, we assume that "each term in the statute was used advisedly; thus the statutory words are read literally, unless such a reading is unreasonably confused or inoperable." Savage Indus., Inc. v. Utah State Tax Comm'n, 811 P.2d 664, 670 (Utah 1991) (footnote omitted). "Only if we find some ambiguity need we look further." Schurtz v. BMW of N. Am., Inc., 814 P.2d 1108, 1112 (Utah 1991); see also World Peace Movement of Am. v. Newspaper Agency Corp., 879 P.2d 253, 259 (Utah 1994) ("Only when we find ambiguity in the statute's plain language need we seek guidance from the legislative history and relevant policy considerations.").

We turn to the specific language of the Dramshop Act. The term "alcoholic beverages" is defined in the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act ("ABCA"), of which the Dramshop Act is a part, to include both "beer" and "liquor." Utah Code Ann. § 32A-1-105(2). "Liquor" is defined to exclude "any beverage defined as a beer, malt liquor, or malted beverage that has an alcohol content of less than 4% alcohol by volume." ⁴ Id. § 32A-1-105(24)(b). Thus ABCA distinguishes between "alcoholic beverages" and "liquor," the former including the latter as well as beer.

The Dramshop Act employs these definitions. The Act provides that "[a]ny person who directly gives, sells, or otherwise provides liquor, or at a location allowing consumption on the premises, any alcoholic beverage," (emphasis added) may be liable. Examining the text, it is clear that the requirement "or at a location allowing consumption on the premises" modifies the term "alcoholic beverages" but not the word "liquor." Thus, according to the Act's plain language, "any person" serving any "alcoholic beverage" is potentially liable if the serving occurs at "a location allowing consumption on the premises." However, a person who serves "liquor" is potentially liable regardless of the location where the "liquor" is served. In other words, the Dramshop Act imposes its standard of care on a broader class of servers, by eliminating the location requirement, whenever the more powerful "liquor" is provided.

Beehive counters the Act's plain language, arguing that the statute was "inartfully drafted" and that "it seems apparent that the term 'premises' in subsection (1) [of the Act] modifies both the terms 'liquor' and 'alcoholic beverage.' " We disagree. Such a reading would render the term "liquor" as used in the Dramshop Act completely superfluous and thereby would violate our well-established rule that "statutory provisions should be construed to give full effect to all their terms." Vigil, 842 P.2d at 845 (emphasis added). Beehive's interpretation would impose the same liability on servers of "liquor" and "alcoholic beverages" although the Dramshop Act employs both of the definitionally distinct terms and treats servers of those drinks differently.

Although the statute's text seems clear, Beehive contends that Utah case law supports the trial court's decision not to extend liability to Beehive. Although this court has never addressed the issue, in Sneddon v. Graham, 821 P.2d 1185 (Utah.Ct.App.1991), the court of appeals interpreted the Dramshop Act and applied it to a situation in which a person had provided beer, an "alcoholic beverage" but not "liquor" under ABCA, to an acquaintance in his home. The analysis of the court of appeals was similar to our analysis in this case. The court first observed that the text of the Act, coupled with the definitions provided by ABCA, was not ambiguous. It noted that "alcoholic beverages" were statutorily defined to include both "beer" and "liquor" and that the term "liquor" was defined to exclude "beer." Id. at 1188. The court then stated that "[t]he statute's plain language explicitly limits liability to persons who provide alcoholic beverages 'at a location allowing consumption on the premises,' " id., thereby rejecting plaintiff's claim. The result reached by the court of appeals would be reached by following our analysis in this case, and we adopt its holding. However, the court proceeded to state that "the Dramshop Act does not apply to individuals in a noncommercial social...