## Facts

- Seventeen-year-old Michael John Mihailuk allegedly used an altered driver’s license to buy alcohol from William James Kain, a liquor licensee operating the Copa Nite Club.
- After leaving the club, Mihailuk drove across the center line and collided head-on with another vehicle, injuring Lisa Lord and killing himself.
- Lord sued Mihailuk’s estate and his parents; they filed dramshop cross-claims against Kain based on the alleged illegal sale of alcohol to a minor.
- Lord settled with the estate and family and relinquished any claim against the licensee; the trial court realigned the estate and family as plaintiffs and Kain as defendant.
- The trial court dismissed the dramshop claims, concluding the 1986 statutory amendments did not permit recovery by the intoxicated minor’s estate or family.
- The Court of Appeals reversed, reasoning the 1986 amendments eliminated the prior “non-innocent party” limitation.
- The Michigan Supreme Court granted review, consolidated this case with a companion case raising the same statutory question, and issued one opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1986 amendments to Michigan’s dramshop statute permit an intoxicated minor’s estate to recover from a liquor licensee for injuries and death allegedly resulting from the illegal service of alcohol to that minor.
2. Whether the 1986 amendments permit the intoxicated minor’s family members to recover under the dramshop statute on claims arising from the minor’s intoxication and resulting harm.
3. Whether, if the dramshop statute bars those claims, they can proceed under common-law negligence theories against the licensee.

## Decision

- The Michigan Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the trial court’s dismissal.
- The Court held the 1986 amendments bar recovery by both the intoxicated minor’s estate and the minor’s family under the dramshop statute.
- Because the dramshop statute is the exclusive remedy for money damages against a licensee arising from the furnishing of alcohol, barred claimants cannot reframe the action as common-law negligence.

## Legal Principles

- Michigan’s dramshop statute, including the 1986 amendments, protects innocent third parties injured by a minor or visibly intoxicated person and certain specified relatives of that injured third party.
- The phrase protecting an “individual who suffers damage or is personally injured by” an intoxicated person, and specified relatives of “that individual,” refers to the third-party victim, not the intoxicated person.
- A major change to long-standing limits on dramshop standing (such as authorizing suits by the intoxicated person or the intoxicated person’s estate) requires clear legislative expression.
- The dramshop statute provides the exclusive damages remedy against a liquor licensee for injuries arising out of selling, giving, or furnishing alcoholic liquor; where the statute bars recovery, alternative common-law theories are not available.

## Conclusion

The Michigan Supreme Court held that the dramshop statute, as amended in 1986, does not allow an intoxicated minor’s estate or family to recover from a liquor licensee for harm arising from the minor’s intoxication, and it reinstated dismissal of those claims because the statutory remedy is exclusive and limited to specified injured third parties and their enumerated relatives.


LaGuire v. Kain, 487 N.W.2d 389 (Mich. 1992)