## Facts

- Nineteen-year-old Russell Bowser invited several underage friends, including eighteen-year-old Lori Lynne Schooley, to a party at his house.
- The group pooled money to buy beer and drove to Pinch’s Deli Market.
- Bowser and two other minors entered the store; Schooley stayed in the car.
- Bowser purchased four cases of beer without being asked for identification.
- The minors consumed the beer at the party; Schooley drank multiple beers and later participated in a drinking game.
- Near the backyard swimming pool, Bowser and another boy picked Schooley up intending to throw her into the pool; after being set down, Schooley dove into the pool.
- The water where she dove was about two feet deep; she struck her head, suffered a spinal cord injury, and became quadriplegic.
- Schooley sued Pinch’s for negligence, alleging the illegal sale of alcohol to minors violated Washington statutes and proximately caused her injuries.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for Pinch’s; the Court of Appeals reversed; the Washington Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether a commercial alcohol vendor that unlawfully sells alcohol to a minor owes a duty of care to another minor who obtains and consumes the alcohol from the purchaser and is injured.
2. Whether, on summary judgment, the illegal sale can be found a proximate cause of the injured minor’s harm despite intervening conduct (drinking, horseplay, and diving into a shallow pool).

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals and reversed the trial court’s summary judgment for Pinch’s.
- The court held the vendor owed a duty of care to an underage person injured after obtaining alcohol from the underage purchaser, even if the injured minor was not the direct buyer.
- The court held proximate cause, including foreseeability and whether intervening acts were superseding causes, presented jury questions on this record.
- The case was remanded for trial.

## Legal Principles

- Statutes prohibiting the sale of alcohol to persons under twenty-one are designed to protect minors’ health and safety; minors injured as a result of an unlawful sale fall within the protected class.
- Violation of the statutory prohibition supplies evidence of negligence and supports recognition of a vendor’s duty extending beyond the immediate purchaser to other foreseeable minor consumers.
- It is foreseeable that a minor who unlawfully purchases a large quantity of alcohol may share it with other minors.
- In alcohol-to-minors cases, legal causation, foreseeability, and whether an intervening act breaks the causal chain are generally questions for the trier of fact and are not ordinarily resolved on summary judgment.
- A plaintiff minor’s alleged comparative fault or voluntary intoxication typically affects apportionment of fault rather than eliminating duty or causation as a matter of law at summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The court allowed an injured minor’s negligence claim to proceed against a vendor that illegally sold alcohol to another minor, holding the statutory purpose supports a duty to foreseeable minor consumers and that causation and superseding-cause disputes should be decided by a jury.


Schooley v. Pinch's Deli Mkt., Inc., 134 Wash. 2d 468, 951 P.2d 749 (Wash. 1998)