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Sanders v. Crosstown Market3/16/1993
wingly got drunk, then drove and was injured. In both Brigance and Ohio Casualty the seller violated 37 O.S. 1985 Supp. § 537 . A.2, which prohibits any person from "knowingly furnish alcoholic beverages to an intoxicated person."
Section 537.A.1 prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors. Neither § 537.A.2 nor § 537.A.1 apply to this appeal. Under the Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, of which § 537.A.1 is a part, 3.2% beer of the sort Crosstown sold is not an alcoholic beverage. Nevertheless, 37 O.S. 1985 Supp. § 241 prohibits those with beer licenses from selling 3.2 beer to minors. We must, therefore, examine § 241's application to this case.
Negligence Per Se
The Sanderses urge us to declare that Crosstown's sale of beer to Scott was negligence per se. We decline to do so because we find the injury to Sanders so remote from the sale of the beer to Scott as to prevent her from being within the class § 241 was designed to protect. Sanders had no relationship with Crosstown. Her injuries arose from her own misconduct. Sanders was not within the class designed to be protected by § 241. Sanders's and Scott's minority is too tenuous a factor to serve as a basis for imposing liability per se upon Crosstown. We applied a similar rationale in Ohio Casualty, Id. 813 P.2d at 510. There we held that the tavern owner's violation of § 537.A.2 was not negligence per se because the inebriate was not within the class designed to be protected by the statute.
Whether liability should lie in circumstances where one minor unlawfully buys alcohol, and gives it to another minor who gets drunk and is injured, is an issue we have not previously addressed. The cases we consider on this issue, therefore, must come from other jurisdictions. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, the cases we have considered from other jurisdictions have not been especially helpful. Statutes vary, as do the rationales used to justify the results reached.
Analysis of Cases From Other Jurisdictions
We turn now to examine a few cases from other jurisdictions we find persuasive.
Parker v. Miller Brewing Co., 560 So.2d 1030 (Ala. 1990), is virtually identical on its facts to this case. In Parker, two minor boys bought beer from a grocery store for a party. Plaintiff's minor daughter got drunk at the party, drove, and was killed in the crash of the car she was driving. Alabama's Civil Damages Act gives parents or guardians of a minor to whom alcohol is unlawfully sold a cause of action against the minor's seller for injuries to the minor. The Alabama Supreme Court refused to extend the remedies of Alabama's Civil Damage Act to the deceased's parents. The court said,
The fact that the seller sold beer to a minor, assuming that the seller knew the purchaser was a minor, does not support the conclusion that the seller furnished beer to another minor. [Emphasis as in the original.]
Id., 560 So.2d at 1032.
The Florida Court of Appeals reached a similar result. In Bryant v. Jax Liquors, 352 So.2d 542 (Fla. 1st Dist.Ct.App. 1977) defendants sold liquor to two minors who bought it for a fraternity initiation party. The court held that the sellers were not liable to a third minor for injuries sustained at the party.
In Wiener v. Gamma Phi Chapter of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, 485 P.2d 18, 22 (Ore. 1971), a defendant, Kienow, had bought and delivered alcohol to the site of a fraternity party. At the party a minor got drunk, drove, and had an accident in which a passenger was killed. The Oregon Supreme Court refused to impose liability against Kienow for the death of the passenger. The court sa
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