{"id":62,"date":"2005-03-15T14:09:52","date_gmt":"2005-03-15T19:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cavanaghwilliams.com\/blawg\/?p=62"},"modified":"2005-03-15T14:09:52","modified_gmt":"2005-03-15T19:09:52","slug":"bc-tavern-liability-case-notable-for-facts-not-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/?p=62","title":{"rendered":"B.C. Tavern Liability Case Notable for Facts, Not Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

By now, you have probably heard of last week\u2019s decision of the B.C. Supreme Court in Laface v. McWilliams et al<\/a>.<\/em> This was a case in which a drunk driver drove into a group of pedestrians, causing some serious injuries. The driver had been drinking at the Steveston Hotel. The case has attracted a lot of media attention because the trial judge, Madam Justice P.A. Kirkpatrick, imposed 50% liability on the\u00a0hotel. No Canadian court has ever found such a high degree of liability on a commercial host.<\/font>But when the actual reasons for judgment of Justice Kirkpatrick are studied, it is clear that the case breaks no new legal ground. Rather, the judge\u2019s findings stem from the application of well-established legal principles to a set of facts so extreme that we are unlikely to see anything like them again.<\/font>The decision also suggests that the trial strategy of the\u00a0hotel failed spectacularly. In her reasons, Justice Kirkpatrick spoke of the \u201cdespicable\u201d nature of one submission made on behalf of the Steveston Hotel. Other arguments advanced by Steveston were described as \u201cstartling\u201d, \u201castonishing\u201d and\u00a0\u201coutrageous\u201d. Speaking of the hotel\u2019s witnesses, the judge said she had \u201cno confidence\u201d in their credibility. She went further and said that she \u201ccannot rule out the possibility that they simply have chosen to lie and conceal their actual observations\u201d.<\/font>The driver, McWilliams, had a blood alcohol reading of more than twice the legal limit. When he emerged from the hotel after drinking there that night, he was staggering. What sealed the fate of the Steveston Hotel is what happened when one witness observed McWilliams lurching about in the hotel\u2019s parking lot.\u00a0<\/font><\/font>A 17 year old girl named Robyn Strang encountered McWilliams, whom she knew. She said that McWilliams \u201ckept stumbling over to me until he actually had to put his hands on my shoulder and be that far away to know who I was\u201d. By \u201cthat far away\u201d, she said, she meant \u201cface to face. Like, right in front of me.\u201d<\/font>Asked what she had noticed about McWilliams, she said: \u201cthat he was really, really, really drunk\u201d.<\/font>This is where it got really, really, really bad for the Steveston Hotel.<\/font>Williamson was trying to get into his car to drive away. Ms.Strang tried to prevent him from doing so. She attempted to take his keys away from him, but was unsuccessful. She then took the initiative of steering him back into the hotel. Initially, the doorman refused to let the two of them back in, because the establishment was closing, but when she said that McWilliams was drunk and that she was looking for someone to drive him, the doorman relented.<\/font>Once inside the bar, Ms. Strang first tried to get one of Williamson\u2019s friends to drive him. Again, she was unsuccessful. What followed was undoubtedly the key piece of evidence against the hotel:<\/font>She said she yelled \u201cat the top of her lungs\u201d: \u201cIs anyone going to help me find someone to drive his car for him?\u201d She said that people looked at her and then looked away. No one offered to help her. She walked out of the pub.<\/font>McWilliams got into his car and drove off. The accident happened within a few blocks.<\/font>In finding liability against the hotel, the trial judge relied heavily on Ms. Strang\u2019s evidence:<\/font>However, the most compelling piece of evidence is the hotel\u2019s actual, specific notice that there was an impaired patron on the premises who intended to drive. Ms.\u00a0Strang was only 17\u00a0years old at the time, but she did everything that could reasonably be expected of her in notifying the pub of Mr.\u00a0McWilliams\u2019 state of inebriation. She specifically told the doorman that Mr.\u00a0McWilliams was drunk and needed to find someone to drive his car for him. She shouted \u201cat the top of her lungs\u201d asking for assistance with the person who she knew was incapable of driving.<\/font>There was other evidence that indicated that the hotel was \u201ca good place to go if you wanted to get drunk\u201d. As well, the credibility of the hotel\u2019s witnesses was impeached over and over again, in ways that we won’t go into here. But it was the evidence of Robyn Strang that was key to finding the hotel 50% at fault.<\/font>If a licensed establishment should ever again be unlucky enough to be faced with such extreme facts against it, a similar finding of liability should be expected.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By now, you have probably heard of last week\u2019s decision of the B.C. Supreme Court in Laface v. McWilliams et al. This was a case in which a drunk driver drove into a group of pedestrians, causing some serious injuries. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-commercial-host-liability","category-tort-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavanagh.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}