Many were surprised in January 2005 when a Bergen County jury returned a $135 million verdict in a lawsuit filed by the Plaintiffs, Antonia Verni and her mother, Fazia Baksh Verni, as a result of severe injuries allegedly sustained when their vehicle was struck by a vehicle operated by Daniel R. Lanzaro, whom the Plaintiffs contended was intoxicated. Antonia Verni, who was two years old at the time, was paralyzed.
The jury awarded over $109 million in compensatory and punitive damages against various Aramark Corporation-related entities, including Aramark Services Management, Inc., which employed the servers from whom Lanzaro allegedly purchased beer while attending a football game at Giants Stadium, finding that Aramark had served Lanzaro while he was visibly intoxicated.
Many were again surprised when, on August 3, 2006, the New Jersey Appellate Division overturned the verdict in its decision of Verni v. Harry M. Stevens, Inc. et al. It is interesting to note that the Appellate Division did not overturn the verdict on the grounds that the amount of the award was excessive, as some had predicted it might, but based upon its finding that the trial court had erred when it permitted the Plaintiffs to present evidence of the “culture of intoxication” to the jury, such as testimony from a number of witnesses who stated that they often saw visibly intoxicated people at football games and that there was rowdy behavior at the stadium, as well as evidence of violations of regulations and internal policies regarding the service of alcohol.
The New Jersey Beverage Server Act (N.J.S.A. 2A:22A-1, et seq.) provides the exclusive remedy for “dram shop” or liquor liability causes of action. A person injured as a result of the negligent service of alcoholic beverages by a licensed alcoholic beverage server may seek damages from the beverage server only if the server was “negligent”, which is defined by the Beverage Server Act as “when the server served a visibly intoxicated person, or served a minor, under circumstances where the server knew, or reasonably should have known, that the person served was a minor.” N.J.S.A. 2A:22A-5(b) [emphasis added].
However, in practice, it is not uncommon for a plaintiff to simply rely upon the fact that a person was served alcohol to the point where that person was intoxicated in order to demonstrate liability against a defendant bar, restaurant or other alcoholic beverage server, without demonstrating that the person was served while visibly intoxicated. A plaintiff may also attempt to demonstrate liability by offering “character evidence” that the beverage server allowed or encouraged patrons to become intoxicated.
As the Appellate Division pointed out in Verni, however, the Beverage Server Act “is not only the exclusive remedy for a civil dram shop claim . . . it also narrowly defines negligence as the service of alcohol to a visibly intoxicated patron”. Therefore, the Verni court found, “negligence is not definable by reference to regulations or standards governing dispensers of alcoholic beverages or holders of liquor licenses”, and the “character of the place of dispensation is also inadmissible because it is irrelevant to the central issue.”
Accordingly, evidence as to a “culture of intoxication” and of violations of regulations and Aramark internal policies as to the service of alcohol was not relevant to the critical analysis at hand: whether Aramark served alcohol to Lanzaro while he was visibly intoxicated. Instead, the Court found, such evidence only served to improperly prejudice the jury, and did nothing to demonstrate that Aramark was liable under the New Jersey Beverage Server Act. Therefore, the Appellate Division remanded the entire case for new trial.
The anticipated appeal to the New Jersey Supreme Court, and any subsequent re-trial will be watched with great interest by the hospitality industry, their insurance carriers and attorneys on both sides. It is hoped that, with this decision, the Appellate Division has refocused the analysis of dram-shop liability so that courts will determine such liability upon the critical act of serving alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person.
For more information, or to discuss this or any other legal issue, please contact the attorneys at Golden, Rothschild, Spagnola, Lundell, Levitt & Boylan, P.C. at 908-722-6300.
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