A receipt in the restaurant shows a patron who has ordered several drinks of alcohol. A few hours later the same customer has been injured in a fatal accident. The receipt is crucial to attorneys investigating potential dram shops liability. It’s not necessarily a proof of whether the establishment served someone who was clearly drunk, or whether employees were not following the rules. What transpired between the drink orders may be more telling.
Understanding that sequence requires examining the alcohol industry as a hospitality business, not just recording the amount of alcohol consumed following an incident.
Receipts are proof of a sale, not the condition of a buyer
Point-of-sale data can be used to determine when transactions occurred, which drinks were purchased, and how the charges were allocated to a tab.
The receipt does not provide information about the behavior of a person when served drinks. It’s often difficult to identify who consumed the drinks, if they were shared, or what the bartender noticed.
An expert witness can assist attorneys with the interpretation of these documents in conjunction with video surveillance and employee statements. The goal is to reconstruct the sequence of service without assuming that each purchase will tell the whole story.
What could employees actually observe?
The primary issue in all alcohol-service disputes concerns whether staff had reasonable grounds to believe that the patron was intoxicated. Some of the relevant indicators could be diminished coordination, atypical speaking, difficulty maintaining equilibrium, or observable behavioral changes.
But these indicators do require some context. The actions captured on video surveillance may not be a direct result of drinking. Investigators also need to consider the quality of the recording position of the employee and camera angles.
Preston Rideout brings experience as a bartender, bar manager, nightclub general manager, and director of bar operations to these evaluations. His experience in the operational field permits him to link recorded evidence with the duties of employees working in bustling hospitality settings.
Written Training Doesn’t Always Describe Real Practice
In all alcohol-related investigation there are questions posed about the employee’s training. Does the establishment offer server-seller training to its employees? Was the establishment able to educate its employees on how to recognize intoxication? Management was clear on the reasons for refusing to offer additional services?
These are the questions that form the basis of responsible alcohol services, however studying training certificates alone will not be able to answer these questions.
It is possible for a place to have detailed policies, however, they may not always follow them. Employees could have abided by accepted service standards even if the final result was disastrous.
A review of operations considers the training materials and testimony from employees. It also considers supervision by management and the actions documented during the incident. It is important for both attorneys representing the plaintiffs and defense to differentiate between the existence of the policy and the implementation of it.
Timeline often provides answers to important information
Imagine a customer who is served by multiple bartenders at the same time during a busy night. The first bartender may have noticed normal behavior. Following a shift change an employee from another shift could have served another drink. A manager later, could have intervened.
It is possible to make these decisions appear to be a single continuous action without reconstructing the time line. When reviewing transaction records and staffing plans, as well as incidents and surveillance footage it is helpful to identify the person who knew what and at what time. It’s better to know whether there’s any missing footage or records, instead of guessing.
Industry Practice and legal Liability are Different Questions
Hospitality experts can describe accepted operational practices and determine if the behavior of a particular venue was consistent to them.
They are not a substitute for the court’s responsibility to determine the legality of the liability. The laws for liquor shops differ between states, and also the conditions where alcohol suppliers could have to answer civil claims.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting assists plaintiff and defendant attorneys across the country through case review, analysis of operations, written opinions and depositions. The focus of its work is on alcohol-related choices and training for staff.
The strongest analyses can explain what the evidence does not demonstrate.
An incident involving alcohol could be devastating, but the severity of the incident cannot be established by establishing every prior fact.
Attorneys need to understand the available records, the limitations of those records, and the way employees were expected to operate under the circumstances.
An in-depth analysis of hospitality can separate established actions from beliefs and helps identify where the venue’s policies matched or differed from accepted standards. This distinction permits courts to assess what happened instead of being based on what was later discovered.