Musings from a Former President 1/13/2017

 

            So picture this:  You’re standing at your wine pouring station at the Rotary Wine Tasting Event.  You’re looking sharp. You’ve memorized the sheet of your red wines and you’re killing it dispensing information about varietals, breathing and debourbage (a white wine term but what the hell do you or they know?).  It’s getting a little later in the event, you’ve opened more bottles than you care to count right now and up walks:  1) a buddy of yours, 2) a good looking guy or woman who you would like to impress, or 3) a fellow Rotarian.  The conversation goes something like this.

 

            Hey, how’s it going?  Great, you Rotariaaans are greaaat! Thanks, we do like having a good time.  Yeah, don’t you guys sometimes wear those funny hats and drive little cars in parades? (with that question I am hoping it is not a fellow Rotarian unless they are really new). No, I think you’re thinking of Shiners but you were close.  What can I interest you in?  I have some great red wines including a merlot, a pinot noir and two Zinfandels you can try?  Would you like to know anything about any of them, I’m a bit of a wine tool.  Oh, I don’t care, but fill me up, will ya, I’m here for quantity not quality or whatever you winos call it.

 

            You think, clearly a little drunk, but hell so am I and so are most people here so she’s not going to care what I pour.  I’ll pour from the fullest bottle I have so I don’t have to waste it all at the end of the night.  She’s not going to taste it anyway.  Why don’t you try this merlot, I think you’ll like it.  Here, let me rinse your glass.  Wait, there’s a sip left in there, don’t dump it yet, that’s waste.  You know there are people in Africa who don’t get to drink wine very often.  She gulps the last few drops in the glass.  There now you can rinse it. 

 

            So you rinse the glass and pour a taste, a couple of ounces, and hand it back to her (please note you can substitute him for her here if you want).  She looks at you in a disgusted way with her head tilted slightly to the left, she throws back her hair (if it is a guy I am not sure he would throw back his hair) and says:  Dude, I asked you to fill it up.  It takes a lot for me to really taste a wine.  So hit me again please.  At that point you’re conflicted.  You really don’t want to stand there and take crap from this person and you certainly want to send her away happy, but on the other hand this is a wine tasting not an all you can drink buffet. The angel and devil go at it on your shoulders for exactly 3 seconds and you pour some more of the $10.00 merlot in her glass.  She says, Dude you’re the best, spins, stumbles a little, a bit of the wine sloshes out of the glass onto the floor and off she goes.  And you’re left wondering.

 

            OK, let me put on my lawyer hat and introduce you to the Maine Liquor Liability Act.  The Act is intended to prevent intoxication-related injuries, deaths and property damage.  Let’s assume (not a big stretch) that, by definition, the person you just served is an “intoxicated individual,” and, by definition, she is “visibly intoxicated” (yes, there is a state definition for that).   The Club is a “licensee” for the wine tasting event meaning we got a liquor license for the event.  You are a “server” under the law.

 

            Let’s spin the facts out a little.  You may think that anyone that drunk can’t be driving.  We all know better than that.  We may all know better, but she didn’t think she was that bad and she hops behind the wheel.  Hell, she only has to go a few miles and she is certainly of the opinion that she only had a few tastes.  On the way home she drops her cell phone and as she is fishing for it between the console and her seat she goes through a stop sign, t-bones another car and the passenger of that car is seriously injured.  She has the minimum amount of liability insurance and the passenger has serious injuries with huge medical bills and what will be a permanent impairment.  Dong!  Joe Bornstein is now involved and he is looking for other sources of money to cover the passenger’s damages and increase his contingency recovery.  That’s when they find out she had just left the Rotary wine tasting event.

 

            Under Maine’s Liquor Liability Act the passenger is an appropriate plaintiff (incidentally our drunk wine taster cannot sue us under that Act).  Guess who the appropriate defendants are.  The Biddeford-Saco Rotary Club and YOU personally!  You can be held personally liable if you negligently serve liquor to a visibly intoxicated individual and the intoxication proximately causes the damages.  In this case if the woman was not drunk she would not have dropped her phone, run the stop sign and crashed into the other car.  You can also be found to be reckless because the woman was visibly intoxicated, and you gave her more wine than you should have done, and you had no idea whether the woman was driving or not.

 

            So the Club gets sued and you get sued.  That is absolutely horrible.  I guess the good news is that the Rotary International insurance we purchase apparently includes liquor liability coverage, or so I am told.  Second, the damages under the Act are capped at $350,000.00.  Still a very large amount of money but not infinite dollars either. The bottom line is, however, that a person got seriously injured and you and the Club contributed to that.  The Club’s reputation and yours are trashed by this incredibly unfortunate event.  The other bottom line is such an accident might be avoided by not giving into the temptation to fill glasses during a tasting event and by making sure that people who have had too much to drink have a way to get home.

 

            Our beer and wine events are really fun, and I don’t mean to be a “buzz kill” (unfortunate saying here), but I was asked to share the law with you.  The good news is that we have insurance and we all know that if we pour properly everyone should be able to make it home safely.  Let’s try to avoid being defendants while having a great time.