Issue of legal liability raised by case of the Irish barmen

The question of the legal liability of the owners of bars and the servers of alcohol in cases where harm arises from the consumption of the alcohol provided to customers, came into sharp focus in Ireland when two barmen were charged with manslaughter following the death of a customer from acute alcoholic poisoning.

In the context of the alcohol trade, issues of civil liability can arise in terms of a duty of care but there is also the possibility of criminal responsibility when a licensee or member of their staff could be regarded as aiding or abetting the commission of a criminal offence such as drink driving.

In the Irish case, the two barmen were put on trial following the death of a British customer, Graham Parrish, who died of acute alcoholic poisoning after celebrating his 26th birthday at a hotel in Thurles, Ireland in 2008. Among the drinks he had consumed was one containing multiple ‘shots’ in one glass which he downed in one go. The two defendants told the trial jury that they would have declined to serve this particular drink had they understood it was not going to be shared between Mr Parrish and his friends.

The charge came under the common law heading of “involuntary manslaughter”, where the accused does not intend to harm the victim, but acted in such a negligent way it was foreseeable that harm would ensue.

The Irish Times reported that evidence was presented at the trial that Mr Parish had begun drinking at about 7pm with some friends and had drunk eight pints by 10pm when he and his friends began ‘to race their pints’. When he went to the toilet, his friends twice ordered vodkas to put in his pint.

Mr Parish drank both pints unaware they contained shots. Around 10.30pm, some of his friends ordered 10 shots in a pint glass and Mr Dalton, the barman on duty at the time, asked Mr Wright, his manager, if it was all right to put so much spirits in one glass. Wright told the Irish police that he agreed to serve the drink on the understanding that it would be shared and not downed in one go as it ultimately was, Mr Parrish being spurred on by his friends who bet on him to drink it.

Mr Parrish later fell off his stool and was left in an upstairs function room by his friends where he was checked on at about midnight and found to be snoring. But he was later discovered unconscious by a night porter at about 6am and pronounced dead at 7.15am. A postmortem revealed he had blood alcohol level of 375mgs per 100mls.

Legal liability and alcohol policy
Inspired by the success of tobacco litigation, many alcohol policy advocates have favoured making licensees or their servants legally liable for the harmful consequences to themselves or others of their customers’ alcohol consumption in circumstances where the licensees can be shown to have acted neglectfully or irresponsibly. Others, however, have opposed the idea as promoting a harmful ‘compensation culture’ and as undermining the personal responsibility of the drinkers themselves.

The authors of the text book of alcohol policy, ‘Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity’, state that holding servers legally liable for the consequences of providing more alcohol to persons who are already intoxicated or those underage has shown consistent benefits as a policy measure in the US. In particular, States that hold bar owners and staff legally liable for damage attributable to intoxication have lower rates of traffic fatalities and homicide.

However, in Europe, there appear to be greater legal obstacles in the way of bringing successful prosecutions against licensees. While there do not seem to have been many cases brought before the courts, most of those that have been brought seem to have been lost, including that of the Irish barmen.

In this case, the judge directed the jury to acquit the defendants. He found that, while there was enough evidence of ‘gross negligence’ by the men to be brought to the jury, the fact that Parish had taken the decision to consume the alcohol broke the ‘chain of causation’ linking the barmen’s actions to his death. The Irish Times, in an analysis of the case, comments that the barmen's case followed another Irish High Court judgment which also emphasised the personal responsibility of the consumer, rather than that of the providers of the alcohol, for any injury that followed.

In that High Court civil case which involved drink driving, Mr Justice Feeney reviewed the law in several common law jurisdictions about the responsibility of bar staff for the actions of those who consume alcohol on their premises.

He said there was a wide divergence between Australia and the UK on the one hand, and Canada and the US on the other, in their attitudes towards the responsibilities of alcohol providers. He pointed out that this reflected the different historical and cultural contexts. Both the US and Canada had had years of prohibition, and this was reflected in their continuing approach to alcohol.

The Canadian courts had found that providers owed a broad duty of care to those consuming their alcohol, and US laws in most states held retail establishments accountable for harm, death or other damages caused by an intoxicated customer. However, in Australia, the courts declined to impose alcohol-provider liability, and in the UK, while each case was fact-dependent, there was a clear reluctance to impose liability except in exceptional circumstances. He agreed with this approach, and found the bar staff in this instance did not owe a duty of care to the drink-driver. The Irish Times concluded that this judgment, combined with the acquittal of the barmen, means that, except in exceptional circumstances, criminal responsibility for death or injury arising from consuming large amounts of alcohol rests with the consumer, not the provider.