Willis v. Omar

• Decision Date: 09 July 2008
• Docket Number: No. 2007-164-Appeal.,2007-164-Appeal.
• Citation: 954 A.2d 126
• Parties: Elizabeth WILLIS, individually and PPA, as mother and natural Guardian of Brianna Mari Serapiglia v. Maurice OMAR et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

954 A.2d 126

Elizabeth WILLIS, individually and PPA, as mother and natural Guardian of Brianna Mari Serapiglia v. Maurice OMAR et al.

No. 2007-164-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 9, 2008.

William Savastano, North Smithfield, for Plaintiff.

Ronald Langlois, for Defendant.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, SUTTELL, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

Justice GOLDBERG, for the Court.

This case came before the Supreme Court on March 10, 2008, on appeal by the plaintiff, Elizabeth Willis, individually, and as mother and natural guardian of Brianna Mari Serapiglia (plaintiff),¹ from a Superior Court judgment in favor of the defendants, Maurice Omar (Maurice) and Barbara Omar (Barbara and collectively defendants or Omars). The plaintiff has appealed to this Court, arguing that the trial justice erred in granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment; she contends that the trial justice erred in the application of the law and failed to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we affirm the judgment.

Facts and Travel

The facts of this case stem from a Friday night of drinking, mixed with drunk driving, that resulted in permanent injuries to an intoxicated plaintiff from a single-car collision in a vehicle operated by plaintiff's equally intoxicated boyfriend.

On August 30, 2002, at around 5:30 p.m., plaintiff arrived at Steven N. Grise's (Grise) apartment in Manville, Rhode Island, for a planned dinner date. After a kamikaze cocktail² at Grise's apartment the two left in Grise's 1975 red pickup truck to meet defendants for dinner at a pizza restaurant in Smithfield, Rhode Island. At the restaurant, both the twenty-four-year-old Grise and the twenty-two-year-old plaintiff consumed two margaritas, along with their pizza. After dinner, defendants invited plaintiff and Grise, who is Barbara's nephew, to their home. When they arrived at around 8 p.m., Maurice produced two pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea—a concoction composed of vodka, tequila, rum, gin, and Crème de Menthe. He fortified the beverages with Cabo Wabo Tequila³ and began pouring.

The record before us discloses that defendants served these drinks to plaintiff and Grise "non-stop" for more than three hours. The plaintiff contends that Maurice encouraged her to continue drinking, telling her: "You're Irish. You can do better than that." The amount of alcohol that Grise consumed is in dispute, as plaintiff informed police from her hospital room that the couple only "had a couple a drinks,"⁴ and that it was Grise who poured the Cabo Wabo. The plaintiff later recalled consuming eight drinks at the Omar residence, and she admitted that she was "blurry-eyed" and Grise was staggering when they left in the red truck.

The two drove less than a mile to the home of plaintiff's aunt, intending to pick up plaintiff's niece. However, plaintiff's aunt refused to allow her daughter to leave with plaintiff because she believed that plaintiff was drunk. Undaunted, a visibly intoxicated plaintiff left her aunt's home with the inebriated Grise at the wheel. After driving a short distance, Grise crashed his vehicle into a utility pole and surrounding rock on Old River Road in Lincoln, Rhode Island. At the scene of the accident, Grise was observed staggering, with a strong odor of alcohol on his person. Blood alcohol tests administered at Rhode Island Hospital later that night indicated that plaintiff's blood alcohol was 0.261 and that Grise's was 0.196.⁵

The plaintiff suffered severe injuries, resulting in the amputation of her left leg. On November 5, 2002, a criminal information was filed, charging Grise with two felonies—operating a vehicle under, the influence of alcohol, res injury, in violation of G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.6, and driving to endanger, resulting in serious bodily injury, in violation of § 31-27-1.1. On June 24, 2003, Grise entered into a plea agreement to both counts and was sentenced to ten years at the Adult Correctional Institutions, with two years to serve and the rest suspended, with probation. The defendants' brief indicates that plaintiff settled a personal-injury claim against Grise for $300,000.

On October 27, 2003, plaintiff filed suit against defendants alleging negligence and civil liability for crimes and offenses, under G.L.1956 § 9-1-2.⁶ A Superior Court trial justice granted summary judgment for defendants, holding that Rhode Island has not embraced social-host liability for drunk-driving casualties, in the absence of an accompanying special relationship. See Ferreira v. Strack, 652 A.2d 965, 967 (R.I. 1995) (holding that, absent a special relationship, social hosts do not owe a duty of care to individuals injured by an intoxicated driver who previously was drinking at the defendants' home). Judgment was entered on October 10, 2006, and plaintiff timely appealed.

Standard of Review

This Court reviews the grant of summary judgment on a de novo basis. United Lending Corp. v. City of Providence, 827 A.2d 626, 631 (R.I.2003). "[W]e will affirm a summary judgment if, after reviewing the admissible evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, we conclude that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Lucier v. Impact Recreation, Ltd., 864 A.2d 635, 638 (R.I.2005) (quoting DiBattista v. State, 808 A.2d 1081, 1085 (R.I.2002)). "The party opposing summary judgment bears the burden of proving, by competent evidence, the existence of facts in dispute." The Providence Journal Co. v. Convention Center Authority, 774 A.2d 40, 46 (R.I.2001) (citing Accent Store Design, Inc. v. Marathon House, Inc., 674 A.2d 1223, 1225 (R.I.1996)). This burden of proof requires the opposing party to set forth specific facts demonstrating that a genuine issue of material fact exists. Id. (citing Bourg v. Bristol Boat Co., 705 A.2d 969, 971 (R.I.1998)).

Analysis

Before this Court, plaintiff's overarching argument is that the trial justice erred when she refused to recognize social-host liability in the context of this case. The plaintiff looks to the Court to create a new cause of action—one that imposes a duty on a social host to protect a person from injury resulting from alcohol consumption by either a guest or a drunk driver who leaves the party and is involved in an accident that causes injury or death. Although plaintiff acknowledges that this Court never has recognized social-host liability, she implores us to look to the Restatement (Second) of Torts and what she characterizes as sound public policy to "creat[e] a new frontier that will better today's society and provide a remedy for a victim" in circumstances in which the social host's hospitality leads to "an atmosphere of reckless drinking and driving." Although we are sympathetic to plaintiff and to some of the public-policy issues that she addresses, we decline the invitation to overturn our well-settled precedent.⁷ Whether an injured party should be able to maintain a cause of action arising from social-host liability rests with the Legislature, not the Court.

To properly set forth "a claim for negligence, `a plaintiff must establish a legally cognizable duty owed by a defendant to a plaintiff, a breach of that duty, proximate causation between the conduct and the resulting injury, and the actual loss or damage.'" Mills v. State Sales, Inc., 824 A.2d 461, 467 (R.I.2003) (quoting Jenard v. Halpin, 567 A.2d 368, 370 (R.I. 1989)). Whether a defendant is under a legal duty in a given case is a question of law. Martin v. Marciano, 871 A.2d 911 915 (R.I.2005) (citing Volpe v. Gallagher, 821 A.2d 699, 705 (R.I.2003)). "If no such duty exists, then plaintiff's claim must fail as a matter of law." Selwyn v. Ward, 879 A.2d 882, 886 (R.I.2005). Because there is no set formula for finding legal duty, such a determination must be made on a case-by-case basis. Martin, 871 A.2d at 915 (citing Volpe, 821 A.2d at 705). As part of this analysis, we look to "all relevant factors, including the relationship between the parties, the scope and burden of the obligation to be imposed upon the defendant, public policy considerations, and notions of fairness." Volpe, 821 A.2d at 699 (quoting Hennessey v. Pyne, 694 A.2d 691, 697 (R.I.1997)). In granting summary judgment, the trial justice stated that "plaintiff hasn't come forward with duty triggering facts that I, as a lower court judge, can recognize and impose liability thereon." We agree with this ruling.

We consistently have refused to adopt the principle that a social host owes a duty to a third party for injuries suffered by an intoxicated guest who was imbibing at his or her home, and we have only imposed such a duty where a special relationship exists. Ferreira, 652 A.2d at 968; see Marty v. Garcia, 667 A.2d 282, 283 (R.I. 1995) (affirming trial justice's decision dismissing case because the claim rested on social-host liability, a concept that the Court declined to adopt). Although we have recognized social-host liability in limited circumstances, we have done so when alcohol was illegally provided to minors and injuries resulted. Such a special relationship is not present in the case on appeal.

This Court recently set forth the elements defining a special relationship in Martin, 871 A.2d at 914, in which the plaintiff was a guest at a high school graduation party at which alcoholic beverages, including keg-beer, were readily available to numerous underage partygoers. An altercation arose, fueled by alcohol, during which the plaintiff was struck in the head by a party-crasher wielding a baseball bat. Id. We held that a party host who makes alcohol available to an underage guest owes a duty of reasonable care to protect the guest from harm, including a criminal assault. Id. at 915-16. Such a duty exists as a matter of law between the host and her underage guests because allowing underage...