Employer Hosting Golf Outing Not Liable for Drunk Driver, Pennsylvania High Court Says

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to extend the state’s liquor liability law to social hosts. The high court cited a half-century of precedent in upholding lower courts in a case where an employer hosting a golf outing for employees was found not responsible for the actions of an intoxicated employee who injured someone in a car accident.

The plaintiff injured in the accident, David Klar, argued that the employer, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), should be subject to the dram shop liability provisions of the liquor code in part because DFA collected funds from employees to help offset the cost of the event.

DFA argued that it could not be held liable for Klar’s injuries because it was not a “licensee” for purposes of the liquor code and dram shop act, that it did not take on “licensee status” by virtue of the funds it collected to pay for the golf outing, and that it was instead merely a “social host” that was not responsible for the actions of its guest.

The Supreme Court and lower courts agreed with DFA. The high court affirmed that the dram shop act applies to licensees and not to ordinary citizens sharing the cost of an event or alcohol.

The court also rejected Klar’s common law negligence argument, citing precedent that “in the case of an ordinary able-bodied man it is the consumption of the alcohol, rather than the furnishing of the alcohol, which is the proximate cause of any subsequent occurrence.”

The court added that there may be some merit in holding non-licensees liable. However, “a decision of this monumental nature is best left to the legislature,” the court concluded.