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The case is about
whether or not the hosts of a BYOB party must take reasonable steps to
prevent their guests from driving drunk and injuring someone as a
result. It is tremendously significant for every Canadian who hosts a
party, insurance companies and homeowners, and perhaps most of all,
victims of drunk driving.
The trial judge and Court of Appeal both found that no legal duty of
reasonable care exists. The Supreme Court has affirmed those decisions
and held that social hosts cannot be liable for the harms inflicted on
victims of drunk driving by the hosts' intoxicated guests. Party hosts can
apparently ignore the fact that their guests may leave the party
driving drunk, without doing anything about it. The Court justified
this decision on the grounds of individual autonomy and responsibility,
saying that when an adult makes the choice to consume alcohol and drive
drunk, “there is no reason why others should be made to bear its
costs.” Of course, without sufficient insurance to cover all losses, the
practical result of this ruling is that Zoe Childs and other innocent
victims of drunk driving will bear these costs.
Importantly, the Court did note that this case concerned a BYOB party. The result might be different in a case where hosts serve alcohol to a
guest, are relied upon to monitor consumption and/or know or ought to
know that a guest is about to drive drunk. The fact that hosts know
about a guest’s history of alcohol abuse and drunk driving is
immaterial, according to the Court. The Court was also careful to
distinguish social hosts from commercial hosts. Commercial hosts serve
alcohol for profit, are able to control patrons’ consumption and are
required by regulations to do so.
In the social context, however, today’s ruling leaves drunk drivers as
the only ones legally responsible for the injuries of their victims. It
means governments may now have to consider alternative schemes, for example compensation funds for victims of drunk driving supported by levies on
alcohol retailers or consumers.
The decision is highly relevant to my recent research on intellectual
property ownership obligations and responsibilities in the
biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, although the link may not
be immediately apparent. First, the case makes a statement about how we
as a society view our moral and legal responsibilities for harms we
have at least partially contributed to. That is an issue that goes
beyond social hosts and drunk driving. Second, liabilities in these
other contexts will turn on the extent to which courts are willing to
draw analogies to already-established categories of duties or recognize
novel ones, such as was the case with social and commercial host
liability. Right now, the rules for analyzing these questions are
overwhelming ambiguous and complex. In Childs v. Desormeaux, the
Supreme Court had an opportunity to simplify the legal test for
deciding whether or not a duty of care exists. That opportunity was
missed and lower courts will likely continue to muddle through the
existing awkward framework.
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