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DEFENDANT RESTAURANT-BAR DEMONSTRATED ITS EMPLOYEE DID NOT KNOW THE DRIVER WAS UNDER 21, RESTAURANT-BAR ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS DRAM SHOP ACT ACTION (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department determined the restaurant/bar’s (Hacienda’s) motion for summary judgment in this Dram Shop Act action was properly granted. Plaintiff, a passenger in a car driven by Behler, was injured when the driver struck a guardrail. The driver, who was under 21, had been served alcohol at Hacienda. General Obligations Law (GOL) 11-101 (the Dram Shop Act) prohibits serving alcohol to persons under 21. The Second Department held there is a knowledge element of GOL 11-101 and Hacienda demonstrated it’s employee did not know the driver was under 21:

In 1983, the Legislature supplemented the Dram Shop Act by adding General Obligation Law § 11-100, which applies to any provider unlawfully furnishing alcoholic beverages to or unlawfully assisting in procuring alcoholic beverages for minors. Pursuant to Alcoholic Beverage Control Law § 65(1), it is unlawful to furnish an alcoholic beverage to any “person, actually or apparently, under the age of twenty-one years” … . “[L]iability under General Obligations Law § 11-100 may be imposed only on a person who knowingly causes intoxication by furnishing alcohol to (or assisting in the procurement of alcohol for) persons known or reasonably believed to be underage. While [General Obligations Law § ] 11-101 does not explicitly refer to knowledge, that same requirement must be inferred because the legislative history makes plain that section 11-100 was intended to parallel the Dram Shop Act” … . …

Hacienda established through the submission of the deposition testimony of its bartender that it did not have knowledge or reason to believe that the driver was under 21 years of age when it served alcoholic beverages to him. Ferber v Olde Erie Brew Pub & Grill, LLC, 2018 NY Slip Op 03827, Second Dept 5-30-18

​NEGLIGENCE (DRAM SHOP ACT, DEFENDANT RESTAURANT-BAR DEMONSTRATED ITS EMPLOYEE DID NOT KNOW THE DRIVER WAS UNDER 21, RESTAURANT-BAR ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS DRAM SHOP ACT ACTION (SECOND DEPT))/DRAM SHOP ACT (DEFENDANT RESTAURANT-BAR DEMONSTRATED ITS EMPLOYEE DID NOT KNOW THE DRIVER WAS UNDER 21, RESTAURANT-BAR ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS DRAM SHOP ACT ACTION (SECOND DEPT))/TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS (DRAM SHOP ACT, DEFENDANT RESTAURANT-BAR DEMONSTRATED ITS EMPLOYEE DID NOT KNOW THE DRIVER WAS UNDER 21, RESTAURANT-BAR ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS DRAM SHOP ACT ACTION (SECOND DEPT))

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