## Facts

- Donald Bradshaw, an 18-year-old Delaware Valley College sophomore, attended an off-campus sophomore class picnic in April 1975.
- The picnic was planned by student officers; a faculty advisor assisted with planning and approved use of class funds to buy beer.
- Many attendees, including driver Bruce Rawlings, were under Pennsylvania’s legal drinking age; college rules and state law prohibited underage alcohol use, but beer was provided and consumed.
- Marjorie E. Moyer, doing business as Sunny Beverages, sold beer for the picnic.
- After the picnic, Rawlings drove Bradshaw toward campus while intoxicated; driving through the Borough of Doylestown on a street with drainage “dips,” Rawlings lost control.
- Bradshaw suffered a cervical fracture and became quadriplegic.
- Bradshaw (with his mother and stepfather) sued Rawlings, Delaware Valley College, Sunny Beverages, and the Borough of Doylestown for negligence.
- A jury returned a verdict of $1,108,067 against the college, the beer distributor, and the borough; all three appealed, and Bradshaw filed a conditional cross-appeal on damages issues.

## Issues

1. Whether a college owes a tort duty to protect an adult student from injuries caused by another student’s intoxication at an off-campus, student-organized class picnic.
2. Whether a beer distributor that illegally sells alcohol for use by minors may be held liable for injuries resulting from a minor’s intoxication and subsequent driving.
3. Whether a municipality may be held liable for injuries where an allegedly dangerous roadway condition contributed to the accident, and whether the intoxicated driver’s negligence is a superseding cause.

## Decision

- The court reversed the judgment against Delaware Valley College, holding the college owed no duty on these facts.
- The court affirmed the judgment against Sunny Beverages, holding the illegal sale of alcohol to minors could support liability and the evidence permitted a finding of causation.
- The court affirmed the judgment against the Borough of Doylestown, holding the roadway condition could be found unreasonably dangerous and the driver’s negligence was not a superseding cause as a matter of law.
- The court did not overturn the damages award on the challenged inflation/present-value rulings for the defendants whose liability was affirmed.

## Legal Principles

- Colleges generally do not stand in a custodial, in loco parentis relationship to adult students and therefore do not owe a broad duty to protect them from harms arising from other students’ voluntary conduct at off-campus social events.
- Limited institutional involvement (e.g., a faculty advisor’s planning assistance and approval of class expenditures) does not, without more, create a special relationship or a voluntary assumption of a duty to supervise alcohol use or transportation.
- Under Pennsylvania law, licensed alcohol sellers may incur civil liability when they illegally sell alcohol to minors and the unlawful sale is found to be a substantial factor in resulting intoxication and injury.
- In roadway-defect claims, a negligent driver’s conduct does not automatically relieve a municipality of liability; superseding cause is generally for the court only when the intervening act is so extraordinary and unforeseeable that it breaks causation as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit held that an adult student injured by an intoxicated peer after an off-campus class picnic could not recover from the college absent a special relationship or assumed supervisory duty, but could recover from an alcohol vendor for illegal sales to minors and from a municipality where a dangerous roadway condition foreseeably contributed to the accident.


Bradshaw v. Rawlings, 612 F.2d 135 (3d Cir. 1979)