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Leong v. San Francisco Parking Inc.9/30/1991
urnish, sell or give alcoholic beverages to patrons to consume in or about their vehicles in the parking lot." The Leongs further contend that the absence of an allegation in their claim against the City that it furnished Mauricio with alcohol renders it subject to suit for negligence notwithstanding section 25602. We disagree.
(See fn. 5.) The Leongs cannot hold any of the respondents liable for simply permitting Mauricio to consume alcoholic beverages on respondents' premises. The Supreme Court definitively answered this question in Coulter v. Superior Court (1978) 21 Cal. 3d 144 [145 Cal. Rptr. 534, 577 P.2d 669]. Plaintiffs in Coulter, one of whom was injured in a car accident involving a drunk driver, claimed that one defendant had "'permitted' [the driver] to be served alcoholic beverages on premises" and that another defendant "had 'aided, abetted, participated and encouraged' [the driver] to drink to excess." (Id., at p. 148.) The court affirmed the sustaining of a demurrer to this claim, holding that " ince neither of these allegations asserted that defendants or their agents actually furnished liquor to [the driver], no liability is imposed . . . . [Citations.]" (Id., at p. 155.) Thus, even without the furnishing allegations, the Leongs' claim that respondents failed to prevent or to prohibit patrons from drinking and actually encouraged the use of the parking lot premises for drinking fails as a matter of law to state a cause of action.
Moreover, we reject the Leongs' overly technical reading of section 25602. The Supreme Court has twice rejected similar attempts strictly to construe section 25602. In Strang v. Cabrol, supra, 37 Cal. 3d at page 725, the Supreme Court held that section 25602's coverage is not limited only to those who provide alcohol to obviously intoxicated persons, despite the section's reference to "any obviously intoxicated person" and to cases involving the provision of alcohol to such persons: "Were the reference interpreted as limiting, then [section 25602] . . . would bar suit only against a person supplying alcoholic beverages to an obviously intoxicated consumer, yet permit tort recovery against one who supplies to a sober individual who later becomes intoxicated. Obviously, the supplier in the former situation is better able to foresee the risk of harm to others and thus engages in the more culpable conduct. [Citation.] We do not believe the Legislature intended such a whimsical anomaly."
Similarly, in Cory v. Shierloh (1981) 29 Cal. 3d 430, 437 [174 Cal. Rptr. 500, 629 P.2d 8], despite the language of section 25602, subdivision (c), establishing consumption as the proximate cause of injuries inflicted "upon another by an intoxicated person . . . ," the Supreme Court rejected a strict construction of the statute that would bar the action only of injured third parties while allowing intoxicated persons themselves to recover for their own injuries. It reasoned that, " lthough the 1978 amendments are hardly models of draftsmanship, we must conclude that section 25602, subdivision (b), reasonably construed, bars a suit by the intoxicated consumer as well as by third persons injured by him. Any other construction would produce a singularly anomalous result, permitting a tort recovery against the provider by the intoxicated consumer, while barring recovery against the same provider by an innocent third person who was injured by the same consumer." (Ibid.)
The result of the Leongs' reading of section 25602 would be no less anomalous, for it would bar recovery against a supplier of alcohol w
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