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Greenwalt v. Ram Restaurant Corp. of Wyoming6/26/2003
reafter, being turned out into the night to endanger the public. With the experience and training that many vendor's employees have in recognizing intoxication, combined with the vendor's own internal guidelines and standards for detecting and dealing with obviously intoxicated patrons, such as existed in the Defendant's organization, vendors are in a better position than law enforcement, the general public or the victims of intoxication to prevent the tragedies which arise from the consumption of alcohol.
The Greenwalts conclude that § 301 actually defeats the legitimate legislative objectives of protecting the public, spreading the costs of liability, and curbing the profit motives of alcohol vendors.
As we noted earlier in this opinion, the defenders disagreed with the Greenwalts' analyses of the first two elements of the rational-basis test and set forth their own analyses with which, as previously explained, we were in agreement. It is not surprising, then, on this final element of the rational-basis test, that we find the defenders of § 301 in disagreement once more with the Greenwalts. The defenders correctly identified both the legislative classifications at issue and the legislative objectives. Proceeding from these correct premises, the defenders here maintain that the classifications of lawful and unlawful liquor providers and third parties injured by lawfully and unlawfully served intoxicated persons are rationally related to the achievement of the primary legitimate legislative objective of creating all the necessary elements of a statutory tort claim historically unknown in Wyoming's common law that harmonizes with the State's legitimate interest in regulating the sale, gift, and consumption of alcohol. They also maintain that these classifications are rationally related to the achievement of the several secondary legislative objectives that attend the creation of any tort claim, namely, deterrence, compensation, and regulating or cost-spreading. It is elementary that the traditional elements of a negligence tort claim are duty, breach of duty, proximate cause, and damages. The legislative classifications clearly revolve around these elements and the traditional policy considerations that drive them. As the defenders point out, the legislature has defined the duty/breach of duty elements in terms of the liquor providers' violations of the regulatory provisions of Title 12. As they contend, that mode of definition is, and always has been, perfectly acceptable in tort law. Indeed, in McClellan, this Court itself did just that, that is, it established the legal duty of the alcohol vendor as a function of compliance with two particular statutory provisions, one dealing with unlawfully providing alcohol to underage persons, the other dealing with unlawfully providing alcohol to an intoxicated person in a motor vehicle at the alcohol vendor's drive-in area. With respect to the tort claim element of "proximate cause," the legislature has, as the defenders note, and as the Greenwalts protest, legislated the rationale of the old common law rule recognized by this Court in Parsons as long as the liquor provider lawfully provided the liquor, the proximate cause of the injury was deemed to be the consumption of liquor and not its sale. The defenders advise us that other courts have recognized that it is not irrational for a legislature to adopt the public policy ronouncements expressed in the decisions of a common law court. See, e.g., Doering, 532 N.W.2d at 442. Because the legislature has tied the elements of duty/breach of duty and proximate cause with the extensive mandates of Title 12, the defenders reason, that tie well serves the legitimate interest of promoting compliance with those mand
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