Skip to main content

BC Court of Appeal Finds Pub 20% At Fault for Overserving Patron Who Caused a Vehicle Collision

Written by admin on . Posted in ICBC Liability (fault) Cases, Uncategorized.

Adding this site’s archived cases addressing commercial host liability, reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Court of Appeal addressing the blameworthiness of a pub who overserved a patron who then drove drunk and caused a catastrophic collision.
In this week’s case (Hansen v. Sulyma) the Plaintiff was a passenger in a vehicle that ran out of gas and was parked off the side of the road.  At the same time the Defendant, who had been drinking excessively at a nearby pub, “approached from behind, swung wide and hit their car.”  The crash had catastrophic results rendering the Plaintiff quadriplegic.
The motorist was found largely responsible for the crash but the BC Court of Appeal also allocated 20% of the blame to the pub.  In addressing their blameworthiness for over serving a patron the Court provided the following reasons:
[1]             …Mr. Leprieur had spent the evening drinking at a nearby pub and was highly intoxicated.  Employees at the pub had not made any effort to cut off his liquor or to see that he did not get into a motor-vehicle when he left the pub…
[10]         The vehicle that struck the Hansen car was a Ford Explorer being driven by Mr. Leprieur.  He had taken the ferry to Texada Island on the afternoon of November 29 to “hang out” and play some pool at the pub.  After the ferry docked at 4:00 p.m., he went to the pub, arriving between 4:30 and 5:00, and stayed until about 9:45.  There, he ran up a tab in excess of $100 (including some drinks purchased for others).  The trial judge found that he had likely consumed at least six rye whiskeys mixed with water, each consisting of not less than two ounces of alcohol.  The drinks were first served by Ms. Ricki James, the sole bartender on duty when Mr. Leprieur arrived.  She went off duty at 7:00 p.m., when the defendant Ms. Morris took over, again as the sole bartender and server.  Both are employed by the defendant numbered company of which the defendant Mr. de Vita is president and an employee.  He was not present on November 29.
[11]         When Ms. James went off duty, she did not tell Ms. Morris how long Mr. Leprieur had been drinking and Ms. Morris did not ask.  She did note there were three or four double ryes on Mr. Leprieur’s tab.  Ms. James observed that Mr. Leprieur was “fine” when she went off shift, but also said he was “catching a little buzz on”.  Ms. Morris served Mr. Leprieur three more ryes, throwing out the remnants of the third after he left the pub at about 9:45 p.m.  The trial judge continued:
The pub was busy and Ms. Morris did not pay much attention to Mr. Leprieur, but she did not observe him showing signs of being “an extremely drunk person, such as falling down or slurring his words”.  However, a patron in the pub offered to pay for a room at the Texada Island Inn for Mr. Leprieur, from which I infer that others were able to observe signs of impairment.
Mr. Leprieur got into his Ford Explorer and headed north on Blubber Bay Road intending to catch the last ferry.  When interviewed by Constable Rogers, he seemed vague about the departure time for that ferry, but I am satisfied that Mr. Leprieur probably knew that he had left himself very little time to get to the ferry terminal, and that he was likely driving in excess of the posted speed limit.
Ms. Hansen’s testimony about the sounds made by Mr. Leprieur’s vehicle as it approached and the extent of the damage to the two vehicles indicates that Mr. Leprieur’s vehicle was travelling at a high rate of speed when the impact occurred.  The right front of by Mr. Leprieur’s Ford Explorer struck the rear left side of the Accord.  The damage to the front of the Explorer indicates more than half of the front of that vehicle came into contact with the Accord, and although the damage to the rear of the Accord is worse on the left side than the right, the entire back of that vehicle is destroyed. [At paras. 51-3.]
[12]         The RCMP officer who attended the accident recorded that Mr. Leprieur had glassy eyes, was unsteady and smelled of alcohol.  Mr. Leprieur provided a breath sample at 1:26 a.m. which indicated a blood alcohol level of .12.  According to the blood alcohol consultant that level would have been between .147 and .167 at the time of the collision.
[36]         The law is clear, of course, that this court may not interfere with a trial judge’s apportionment of liability under the Negligence Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 333, unless there are “very strong and cogent reasons” for doing so: see Moses v. Kim 2009 BCCA 82 at para. 33.  Even given this stringent standard, however, I am persuaded that the allocation of minimal responsibility to the pub defendants was grossly disproportionate to their comparative blameworthiness, including their disregard of their statutory obligations.  We were referred to various cases involving host liability to injured third parties, including Menow v. Honsberger [1974] S.C.R. 239 (S.C.C.) and Laface v. McWilliams 2005 BCSC 291. In Laface, Kirkpatrick J. (as she then was) in turn quoted at para. 187 a passage from a judgment of Mackenzie J. in Lum (Guardian ad litem of) v. McLintock (1997) 45 B.C.L.R. (3d) 303 (B.C.S.C.), where she stated:
In pragmatic terms, responsibility placed on commercial hosts is likely to be most effective as a deterrent in keeping intoxicated drivers off the roads. The cost of damage awards should modify rational conduct of commercial hosts directed to maximizing economic advantage … [At para. 27.]
In all the cases of commercial host liability to which Ms. Wright referred us, liability of between 78% and 28.5% was apportioned to defendants in the position of the pub defendants in this instance.
[37]         Notably, counsel for Mr. Sulyma made no submission at trial as to what portion of blameworthiness should be allocated to these defendants.  The plaintiff submitted that the figure should be 5% and the trial judge simply adopted that submission, apparently without considering the precedents in this province that augur in favour of a considerably higher apportionment.  Moreover, the trial judge’s suggestion that she would have allocated 75% of the liability to Mr. Leprieur if only two parties had been involved, and her effectively “crediting” him with the 5% seems illogical, with all due respect.   The proper course was for the trial judge to consider the relative fault of all three parties (assuming, as counsel agreed, that the pub defendants could be treated as one for the purposes of this determination) and to determine the relative blameworthiness of each in comparison to the others.
[38]         I would allow the appeal on this point and re-apportion 20% of the liability to the pub defendants, 70% to Mr. Leprieur, and 10% to Mr. Sulyma.

bc injury law, Commercial Host Liability, Hansen v. Sulyma

Comments (54)

Comments are closed.