MANAL KIRIAKOS v. BRANDON PHILLIPS
NANCY DANKOS, ET AL. v. LINDA STAPF
Court of Appeals, Adkins, July 5, 2016,
Civil Liability for Criminal Act – Adult Allowing Underage Drinking – CR 10-117 provides basis for duty/breach elements of negligence and allows proximate cause finding where adult knowingly/willfully allows unrelated individual under 21 to consume alcohol at residence

The Court uses CR 10-117 to allow civil liability, which sounds good until you consider that CR 10-117 only criminalizes providing/allowing alcohol use by someone else’s kids. So if you let your kid get drunk and they kill someone as a result, CR 10-117 will not help. But if you let someone else’s kid get drunk, then it’s ok. Given this focus, the court’s claim that CR 10-117 “clearly was enacted to protect underage people from the seductive call of alcohol and its effects” loses a bit of its persuasiveness.

Social Host – contributory negligence is not a defense in an action by a protected class member against a social host defendant.

Social Host – Upon a finding that the social host defendant knowingly and willfully allowed a member of the protected class to consume alcohol on the host’s premises in violation of the statute, in an action against the social host brought by or on behalf of the minor or an injured third party, such conduct-if it substantially contributed to a diminution of the underaged person’s ability to act in a reasonable manner, and thereby caused injury-can be found to be a substantial factor in bringing about the harm to the underage person himself or to a third party.

Contributory Negligence – Negligent actions of an underage person in getting intoxicated cannot be the basis of a contributory negligence defense in an action against the person violating CR § 10-117(b)