liability

It’s true: friends don’t let friends drive drunk. When loaning out the car, we don’t usually think about fender benders and insurance claims either.

It happens more than it should. Someone (here we will call her Ms. H.) invites some friends, maybe a lot of friends and maybe their friends as well, to a social gathering, where food and drink, lots of drink, is provided. Something bad happens, either to one of the guests at the party, or maybe…

Last week a group of Toyota supporters and anti-attorney advocates celebrated when the Wall Street Journal reported that early findings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that many of the unintended acceleration claims against the Japanese auto giant were the fault of driver error, not vehicle electronics.

Many ethical issues related to alcohol consumption are notoriously shaded in gray. Ideally, it would be up to the consumer to set his or her own limits to avoid drinking dangerously. But since so many in our culture are destructive drinkers, some need an extra line of defense in the form of a bartender or party host refusing that last drink to a patron or a driver. That’s why California lawmakers are pushing to close a state loophole that lets bartenders and hosts off the hook for alcohol-related injuries or wrongful death claims.