Intoxication of Customers and Their Subsequent Injuries - Essay Example

Intoxication of customers and their subsequent injuries are held liable to the hosts; The establishment that serves a customer alcohol should be held liable when a customer goes to a restaurant or a hotel and gets intoxicated, it is expected for the server at that specific hotel or restaurant to be answerable for the damage or injury acquired after the customer has immediately left the premises so as to ensure the premises is convincingly safe for the people they serve that will be entering such premises. The common law in Australia known as the server liability law states that; it is important for the bar owners and servers to serve alcohol responsibly and comply with the Liquor Act. The bar owners and bartenders are expected to have undergone the responsible Service Training which was established by the Federal Government through setting a National alcohol strategy such as mandatory staff training meant to minimize harm of the customers. This training should help the server to know how much his/her customer has drunk before arriving at the bar and also help focus on the most convincing indications off drunkenness and communication improvement between the server and the customers. This established jurisdiction holds alcohol servers and owners legally liable for any harm drunken clients’ cause, by both verbal and non-verbal skills such as; expressing the and understanding the aggressors mood and thereafter use role appropriate language and responding indirectly to questions that are hostile and eventually avoiding sustainable eye contact with the aggressor and increase the distance between oneself and the aggressor so as to maintain calmness (The Liquor Act 1982), the control strategies that should be employed will involve establishing a clear the requirements that will be used as per the situation, depersonalize the encounter, Emphasize one’s role requirements, encourage the attacker’s decision-making, offer the provoker face-saving promises. The liquor law does not only exist to present remedies for seriously injured people where in the occurrence of an event presented are considered fair, reasonable in addition constant with legal principles but to set standards within the society. Under this law, individuals are required to act cautiously when dealing with a person or party who in law is considered a neighbor (Cole South Tweed Heads Rugby League Football Club 2004). Under the Australian common law, A owes B a duty care not harm if A reasonably foresees that B would be harmed by A’s acts or omission and if there is a legal factual proximity between A and B (Balkin, and Davis). Proximity in this context implies the physical closeness between A and B as presented by the circumstance. If it appears reasonable to A that in the event of his/her action that B will suffer and their relationship being that of sufficient proximity depending on the circumstance presented then it would be open that A has a duty of care towards B that A is not permitted to breach. Under the responsible service of alcohol as regards licensed or regulated buildings, no alcohol is to be sold to a person who is drunk or permit a drunken person to consuming alcohol in the event. If intoxication of the customers does happen to occur, the licensed hotel responsible through the staff employed with regard to the circumstance presented before them should be able to act appropriately by refusing to serve drunken clients alcohol. Arguably in most jurisdictions, liability has always been assigned to the hosts for serving guests a lot of alcohol that the excessive amounts served ended up intoxicating the customer eventually causing serious injuries to the customers as well violate the laws stipulated. According to John’s v Cosgrove case, some of the decisions made in the first instance courts in Queensland and Western Australia show the filing of innovative claims by having highlighted what could be seen to be a tendency in allocating liability for alcohol-related injuries to alcohol servers, liability has been assigned to alcohol servers for some time. Indeed, in some jurisdictions of Australia, social hosts have been found liable for serving bash visitors so much alcohol that they were incapable to properly be in charge of their vehicles on leaving, bumping with other road users thus leading to serious injuries. In section 103 of the Liquor Act 1982 (NSW) empowers a licensee that refuses to admit to the premises anyone who is intoxicated, and also authorizes a licensee to turn out of the grounds intoxicated persons. Section 12; prohibits a licensee from permitting intoxication on the premises and anyone who is not allowed to sell or supply alcohol on licensed property to an intoxicated client. The situation with regard to registered clubs is similar; the Liquor Administration Board has published various conducts to help licensees and their employees to distinguish signs of intoxication (Cosgrove, 1997). According to Rosser, Vintage Nominees case that took place in Australia in June 1988, it is agreed upon that the server should be liable in that it makes difficult a neat review of the current approach of the Australian courts to alcohol provider liability, the challenging evidence by the courts regards nature of the distinction between the duty and the defiant essentials of negligence is of little concern in the present circumstance. This leads to a wide conclusion to be drawn to people who provide alcohol in Australia to persons who often become intoxicated risk gaining liability in tort if such provision takes place in other states of affairs in which there is a anticipated risk that the intoxicated person will get himself or herself in a potentially harmful course of action. This case further suggests that it is only the risks associated with the roads and the road vehicles and passengers that would be considered projected enough in this respect so as to certainly make up one way in which the ethics of Liquor provider liability are self-limiting. He further notes that at this point, it is not only by the placing themselves in the position of the servers and bar or restaurant owners that the Australian citizens run the risk of being sued in respect to the alcohol related harm and injuries. Therefore there is a designated Australian tort law which is known as the alcohol liability that ends up boosting a number of the established categories. Other Alcohol liability establishment includes the alcohol-related occupier’s liability that is known as a liability which sponsors hazardous activities. Negligence is also shown in Parrington v Hotelcorp P/L (2003) case(New South West Court 21st August 2003) where the service of alcohol in a hotel to a customer results to a fatal accident caused by inebriation therefore holding the hotel liable of the clients injury that he confirmed in that accident. This case was rendered dismissed because the judge do not understand the defendants to continue persisting with the allegation that s 125 of the Liquor Act raised a statutory cause of action and if that submission was made, it has been set to rest by the customer whom in this case is the one suing the hotel server. Because the judge had concluded there was relevantly no duty of care breached by the defendants it was unnecessary for him to consider issues relating to causation and contributory negligence or to embark upon an assessment of damages. Therefore he stated judgment for the defendants and the plaintiff to pay the defendants’ costs. Although the case was contradicting, it is in alignments that were it for the server been keen on the amount of the customers’ intoxication the client would not have got the accident thus I comply with the server as a liability to such a case. In the case of (Desmond v Cullen 2001), show a different scenario in which blame was shifted from the defendant to the plaintiff. The plaintiff, 34 at the time of the accident, was seriously injured when the car she was driving collided with a tree and as a result the plaintiff lost her right arm. The so-called defendants, the licensee and the hotel managers, owed clients a general duty of care as well as guarantee their well being and safety. The defendants therefore failed in their capacity to abide by the industry’s guidelines relating to liable service of alcohol, failure to meet the terms of the Liquor act regarding responsible service of alcohol and providing adequate instructions to their staff regarding appropriate methods and principles of serving alcohol to their customers, these calls for the server to be held liable for the harm that might be caused to the drunker consumer. Generally, arguments drawn are due to the fact that the plaintiff got injured from the hotels’ positive actions, by serving alcohol to the plaintiff’s regardless of the plaintiff’s already intoxicated state. The defendant therefore owed the plaintiff a duty of care. The defendant’s role in lending the plaintiff with more money despite the plaintiff’s intoxicated state to some extent should be held responsible as stipulated in Australia’s common law (Balkan, and Davis). The judgment passed in this case was that the plaintiff pays damages to the defendant. The reason being that intoxication of the plaintiff was as a result of deliberate and voluntary decision on the plaintiff’s side to drink excess. The benefits therefore in this case go directly to the defendants. Regardless of any hazardous effects that will be infringed upon drunkard customers after getting intoxicated in the premises of the bar and restaurants, I agree and conclude that even if the citizens of Australia both at individually and the social community at large are to take responsibility of themselves by avoiding excess alcohol consumption and drinking responsibly, so as to minimize accidents and injuries that will be acquired from excessive consumption of liquor and thereafter careless driving, the server of the hotels and bars are still held liable for the harm that will occur on the customers after departing their premises by failing to adhere to the Liquor Act principles. Bibliography Balkin R and Davis (1996), Law of Torts, Butterworths, Sydney, chapters 7 and 8 Solomon M Roberts, The Liquor review; Heres to your Health; does health have a place in the review of the liquor licensing act? Read More