## Facts

- A restaurant and its agents allegedly served alcoholic beverages to a group of minors, including the group’s driver.
- The restaurant allegedly knew the driver had driven the group to the premises and later assisted him to his car when the group left.
- The plaintiffs alleged the service caused or increased the driver’s intoxication.
- The intoxicated driver allegedly caused a one-car accident that injured a minor passenger.
- The injured minor and his father sued the restaurant, its president/owner, and an employee for common-law negligence based on serving a noticeably intoxicated driver.
- The trial court dismissed for failure to state a claim, applying the traditional rule that a vendor is not civilly liable for injuries caused by an intoxicated patron.
- The plaintiffs appealed from the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether Oklahoma common law recognizes a negligence action by an injured third party against a commercial vendor for on-premises consumption that serves alcohol to a person the vendor knew or should have known was noticeably intoxicated.
2. Whether the vendor’s service of alcohol may be treated as a proximate cause of third-party injuries, or whether causation is categorically cut off by the patron’s later consumption and driving.

## Decision

- The Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- The court held that a commercial vendor for on-premises consumption has a duty to exercise reasonable care not to sell alcohol to a noticeably intoxicated person.
- The court rejected the prior common-law nonliability rule that treated consumption, not sale, as the sole proximate cause of injury.
- The court held that proximate cause and foreseeability in this setting are generally fact questions and not barred as a matter of law at the pleading stage.
- The court limited the holding to commercial vendors for on-premises consumption and did not decide liability rules for noncommercial providers.

## Legal Principles

- A commercial vendor selling alcohol for on-premises consumption owes a duty of reasonable care not to serve a noticeably intoxicated person when injury to others is foreseeable.
- Vendor liability, if proven, rests on ordinary negligence elements: duty, breach, causation (including proximate cause), and damages; the rule does not impose strict liability.
- The fact that the patron later consumes alcohol and drives does not, as a categorical matter, eliminate the vendor’s potential responsibility; a jury may find the sale a proximate cause where consequences were reasonably foreseeable.
- Common law tort duties may be modified by the judiciary in response to public policy and contemporary conditions, even absent a specific statute creating a cause of action.

## Conclusion

The court recognized a common-law negligence cause of action against on-premises commercial alcohol vendors for serving noticeably intoxicated patrons and permitted the plaintiffs to proceed to prove breach, foreseeability, and causation based on the alleged service to an intoxicated driver who then injured a third-party passenger.


Brigance v. Velvet Dove Rest., Inc., 725 P.2d 300 (Okla. 1986)