SJC to hear arguments over valets’ DUI liability
The Supreme Judicial Court is set to hear arguments over whether valets have a legal duty to refuse returning a drunk person their car, making them responsible in part for what havoc an alcoholimpaired driver unleashes on the roadways.
The high court, which last month plucked the case from the Appeals Court, requested amicus briefs from interested parties in the case that could make Massachusetts the first state to extend liability for drunken drivers to valets in the way bars and party hosts are currently on the hook.
Behind the case is a tangle of litigation stemming from a 2008 crash on the Mass Pike that injured state trooper Christopher J. Martin. Minutes before the crash, Timothy Barletta had been at a private dinner at the venerable Back Bay steakhouse Grill 23 & Bar — where he downed a martini and three glasses of wine.
Barletta’s insurance companies settled with the injured trooper, then sued Grill 23 to get repaid for the settlement. Grill 23 then sued its valet company, Ultimate Parking, claiming it had a duty to keep the driver off the road.
Superior Court Judge Brian A. Davis ruled the valet company was not responsible for Barletta, saying that making valets responsible for inebriated drivers would require them to “choose, on a moment’s notice, between the legal exposure that could result from allowing a departing patron to drive away drunk and the legal exposure that could result from refusing to return rightful possession of a motor vehicle to the vehicle’s owner, or perhaps from mistakenly interpreting a patron’s physical disability for intoxication.”
In their appeal, Grill 23 and parent company Himmel Hospitality Group argue the valet company had a policy of alerting restaurant management if they observed a drunk customer looking to drive off and cited that practice as evidence the valet assumed the very duty it now rejects.
That point could weigh heavily against the survey of states — California, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Illinois, Virginia and New Jersey — with cases also siding with valet firms, according to attorney Robert A. Pierce.
“While generally, valets do not have a duty to monitor for patron intoxication, in this case it seems that the valet took on the responsibility of monitoring its customers for drunkenness,” said Pierce, who is not involved in the case.
“When you assume a duty that you are not required to, you must undertake that duty in a non-negligent fashion.”
Ultimate Parking in its brief said the restaurant is hoping only to minimize its liability for over-serving the driver and in doing so uses a “a novel duty” to “vastly expand the scope of potential liquor liability.”