MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - Summary judgment for a catering company accused of serving a man alcohol before he caused a fatal accident was affirmed in the Supreme Court of Alabama on April 24.
A 6-3 majority ruled in favor of Savoie Catering, LLC, which served as the catering company for a party at which the driver, Jason Bewley, allegedly got intoxicated before getting behind the wheel of a car, causing an accident, and killing three of the five passengers who were in the vehicle with him.
The Supreme Court also sided with Rucker Place, LLC, another catering company that was sued for its connection to Savoie.
Both were sued by Tamikia Everheart; Cardell Coachman, a deceased minor, by and through his mother and next friend Johnitia Coachman; Michael Coleman, as the administrator of the estate of Diane McGlown; and Mary W. Weatherspoon and Elizabeth W. McElroy, as administratrix of the estate of Jakobie E. Johnson. The plaintiffs’ joint appeal with the Supreme Court came after a lower court granted summary judgment for the defendants.
The plaintiffs speculated that Rucker Place and Savoie both catered the party in a joint venture and that Rucker Place is liable for Savoie’s actions in allegedly serving the driver alcohol after he was noticeably intoxicated. They also argued that the defendants violated the Alabama Beverage Control Board policy that says an ABC Board licensee can’t serve alcohol to anyone who is already intoxicated.
But the justices pointed out that Savoie doesn’t have an ABC license. And while Rucker Place is an ABC licensee, that company was only allowed to serve alcohol at its own Birmingham venue, so there’s no way it would have given Bewley alcohol.
They also disagreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that Savoie acted on behalf of Rucker Place and served Bewley alcohol, instead of the two being separate companies, especially because they share some of the same owners.
While the defendants say they presented proof that they acted as two different businesses, they said the Supreme Court doesn’t need to worry about that because even if there was evidence they acted together, that would be irrelevant “because the alcohol Savoie served was provided by the host of an off-site private party,” according to the opinion. The judges concurred. At the same time, they affirmed the ruling from the lower court because the plaintiffs didn’t prove that the ABC board’s regulation applied here.
Justice Will Sellers wrote the opinion while justices Michael F. Bolin, Alisa Kelli Wise, Brady E. Mendheim, Sarah Stewart and Jay Mitchell concurred.
Chief Justice Tom Parker and justices Greg Shaw, and Tommy Bryan dissented.
Justice Shaw wrote, “Our law governing the application of administrative regulations requires us to follow the plain meaning of the language of the regulation; therefore, I respectfully dissent.”
The dissenting judges disagreed with the definition of the ABC Board regulation. “Nothing in the plain language of subsection (4) indicates that its prohibition against serving alcohol to intoxicated persons is limited to alcohol served at the licensee’s physical location,” wrote Shaw.