Is a Homeowner Liable for a Drunk Driving Accident When the Driver Supplies the Liquor?
An auto accident victim filed a complaint for damages against a property owner, III, alleging negligence and a violation of the Georgia Dram Shop Act, O.C.G.A. § 51-1-40. They sought to recover for injuries sustained in a single-vehicle collision caused by an underage, intoxicated driver, whom the plaintiffs alleged consumed alcohol on the property owner’s property.
Graduation party for high schoolers
The property owner of a farm in Terrell County, Georgia allowed his niece to host a graduation party at the farm attended by high school students. An underage individual became intoxicated at the party. According to the plaintiff, underage teens brought alcohol onto the property owner’s property. But the plaintiff didn’t allege, and conceded that the property owner didn’t sell, furnish, or provide alcohol at the party to the underage teens. And after becoming intoxicated, a teen drove a vehicle a half-mile off the property owner’s property with the plaintiff in the passenger seat, where the car collided with a tree, causing the plaintiff to be ejected. The driver was killed in the collision, and the plaintiff was left seriously injured.
Dram Shop Act provides a cause of action where a third party “sells, furnishes, or serves” alcohol to either an underage or noticeably intoxicated individual
Judge J. Wade Padgett wrote in his opinion for the Court of Appeals that the Dram Shop Act provides the “exclusive remedy” for a plaintiff seeking to impose liability on a third person for damages arising out of the acts of an intoxicated driver.
The Dram Shop Act categorically “declares that the consumption of alcoholic beverages, rather than the sale or furnishing or serving of such beverages, is the proximate cause of any injury … inflicted by an intoxicated person … upon another person, except as otherwise provided in subsection (b) of this Code section.” As relevant here, subsection (b) strictly limits liability for injury, death, and property damage to situations in which a third person
willfully, knowingly, and unlawfully sells, furnishes, or serves alcoholic beverages to a person who is not of lawful drinking age, knowing that such person will soon be driving a motor vehicle, or … knowingly sells, furnishes, or serves alcoholic beverages to a person who is in a state of noticeable intoxication, knowing that such person will soon be driving a motor vehicle.
Thus, by its own terms, the Dram Shop Act provides a cause of action only where a third party “sells, furnishes, or serves” alcohol to either an underage or noticeably intoxicated individual, knowing that the individual will soon be driving a motor vehicle.
Acknowledging that they didn’t allege that the property owner himself sold, furnished, or served alcohol to the underage motorist, the plaintiff argued that O.C.G.A. § 51-1-40(d) “should be expanded to apply to the facts of this case,” thereby allowing a cause of action under the Dram Shop Act against the owner of a premises where the owner “knowingly allowed underage high school students, who drove to the premises… to consume alcohol on [the] premises without taking any reasonable steps to prevent the consumption or stop them from driving away.”
Notably, Judge Padgett wrote that the plaintiff didn’t cite to legal authority in support of their argument that O.C.G.A. § 51-1-40(b) provides or should provide a cause of action under the facts alleged here.
As such, the Court of Appeals was without authority to do so and therefore declined the plaintiff’s invitation to expand the reach of O.C.G.A. § 51-1-40(b) beyond its plain language.
When the General Assembly enacted the Dram Shop Act in 1988, it abrogated the common law rule that there was no right of recovery against one who sold or furnished alcohol to an intoxicated person. Because the Act is in derogation of the common law, the court must adhere to the rule of construction that the statute “must be limited strictly to the meaning of the language employed, and not extended beyond its plain and explicit terms.”
In interpreting and applying those plain and explicit terms, this Court repeatedly has held that subsection (b) establishes a right of action only against a defendant who furnishes alcohol and not against one who merely furnishes the premises upon which alcohol is consumed.
Because the plaintiff didn’t allege that the property owner knowingly sold, furnished, or served alcohol to the underage motorist, as is required to state a claim under the Dram Shop Act, their claims were barred by O.C.G.A. § 51-1-40(a) and (b), and the trial court didn’t err in dismissing their complaint.
The judgment was affirmed. Patel v. Brim, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 396 *; 2026 LX 308643; 2026 WL 2148838 (Ga. App. July 27, 2026).
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