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The employer of a man who crashed into a motorcyclist with his car after getting drunk at a work outing cannot be held liable for the resulting injuries, even if the employee paid to attend the event, a Superior Court panel has ruled.
In a precedential Dec. 17 ruling, the three-judge panel agreed with the lower court ruling that, because alcohol made up only a part of the cost employees paid to their employer to cover fees for a company event, defendant Dairy Farmers of America Inc. could not be considered a licensee. Instead, the opinion said, DFA was acting as a social host and therefore could not be held liable for the damage caused by an intoxicated attendee.
DFA's attorney Brian Simmons, with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, said the case was consistent with prior case law, but plaintiff David Klar's attorney, James Manolis of Verterano & Manolis, said the decision "appears to be an antiquated approach in today's society."
In an earlier interview with The Legal, Manolis predicted that, regardless of the outcome of the Superior Court's decision, the losing side would seek an appeal, and the case would likely continue to the state Supreme Court. Indeed now he says his client is "seriously considering" filing the petition of appeal that would place the case before the justices.
Manolis said the law should account for the prevalence of drunk drivers. He said the state's approach to regulating alcohol "ought to be that we protect our citizens from injury at the hands of people who are intoxicated" and that the burden should fall on entities that serve alcohol to ensure that they are not overserving.
The intoxicated employee, Roger Williams, was also named as a defendant but reached a settlement in 2020.
Williams had attended a DFA-sponsored trip to a golf course in which employees contributed money to offset the cost of activities, food and alcohol. According to Klar's complaint, DFA served Williams alcohol and continued to do so after he became visibly intoxicated. The plaintiff also said that DFA either knew or should have known that Williams had been arrested for drunk driving in the past.
Klar said that by asking for monetary compensation, DFA illegally sold alcohol and in doing so took on the role of a licensee and assumed liability.
DFA said that it could not be considered a licensee under Pennsylvania's Liquor Code, and it successfully moved to dismiss the case in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas in 2017.
Klar appealed, but the Superior Court affirmed the dismissal. It agreed with the trial court that the cost of alcohol was "only an incidental aspect of the fee" and that "this type of collective fee does not qualify as remuneration and fails to place DFA in the position of being a licensee. Hence, DFA was a social host [and] … cannot be held liable for a claim of common law negligence."
Simmons worked with William Conroy and Katherine Wang of Campbell Conroy & O'Neil and John DeCaro of Cusick, DeCaro & Langer to represent Klar.
Manolis was joined in representing DFA by his son William Manolis, also of Verterano & Manolis, and Ohio attorney Norman Moses Jr.
The case is captioned Klar v. Dairy Farmers of America.
Aleeza Furman
Aleeza Furman is a Philadelphia-based litigation reporter with The Legal Intelligencer. Contact her at [email protected].