A receipt from a restaurant shows that the patron ordered several alcoholic drinks. After a few hours, the customer is involved in a serious traffic collision. For an attorney investigating potential liability for dram shops the receipt will be relevant. It isn’t a guarantee that the restaurant served a person who was clearly drunk or whether employees were not following the rules. There’s a chance that the evidence will be more compelling when you consider the events that occurred between drinks orders.
Understanding the order of events requires an examination of the alcohol service as a hospitality business, not just taking note of the number of drinks consumed after an incident.
A receipt is a record of a sale, but not a condition of the buyer
Documents at the time of sale will reveal the date and time transactions occurred, what beverages have been purchased, and what charges were put on a bill.
The receipt may not reveal the manner in which the beverage was ordered. It’s not always possible to determine who consumed the drinks, if they were shared, or what the bartender noticed.
A qualified Expert Witness will assist attorneys in interpreting the documents, along with surveillance footage, employee testimony as well as any other evidence that is available. It is important to reconstruct the sequence of service without believing that each purchase will tell the whole story.
What is the perception of employees in real-life?
The primary issue in all alcohol-related disputes is whether the staff had plausible grounds to conclude that the patron was intoxicated. These could include impairment in coordination, speech that is unusual and balance problems, or a noticeable change in behavior.
However, these indicators require contextualization. A single act recorded in surveillance footage may be explained in a way that is not related to drinking alcohol. Investigators must also be aware of the camera’s angle, recording quality, employee position, and if a particular behavior was visible to staff.
Preston Rideout’s background as a seasoned bartender as well as manager of a bar and general manager of a nightclub, as well as director for bar operations is evident in these assessments. His background in operations allows him to connect 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 the questions revolve around the employee’s training. Did the establishment offer seller-server training? Did the establishment provide training to employees to identify signs of intoxication? Did management outline ways to deny additional service?
These questions are central to Responsible alcohol service service, but reviewing training certificates alone may not answer them.
A business could have in-depth guidelines but not always follow them. On the other hand, employees may follow established practices in service even though the final outcome was tragic.
A thorough review of operational aspects includes the training materials, testimonies of employees supervision by management and incidents that are documented. The difference between the existence of a policy and its actual implementation could be crucial for both defense and plaintiff counsel.
Timeline often provides answers to crucial questions
Imagine a customer who is served by multiple bartenders at the same time on an evening of high activity. It’s likely that the bartender who served the first patron observed a normal behavior. After a shift change, a second bartender may have served a different drink. A manager might have intervened afterward.
Without reconstructing the timeline that is the case, these decisions could seem to be one continuous act of service. When looking through transaction records such as staffing plans, video surveillance and incident reports it’s helpful to identify the person who knew what and the time. It is better to identify missing footage or incomplete documents than relying on speculative speculation.
The legal liability issues and industrial practice are two different issues.
Hospitality professionals are able to describe the accepted operating procedures of a place and assess whether its actions are in accordance with these standards.
They are not a substitute for the courts’ responsibility to determine the legality of the liability. There are laws that differ in every state that govern the legal liability of alcohol retailers.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting assists plaintiff and defendant lawyers across the country with reviews of cases, analyses of operations, writing opinions and depositions. The focus of its work is on alcohol-related decisions and staff training.
The most thorough analyses can help explain what the evidence does not demonstrate.
Alcohol-related incidents can have serious consequences, but the severity cannot be determined by all the facts.
Attorneys must understand the available records, the limitations of those records, and how employees were expected to operate under the circumstances.
A thorough analysis of hospitality separates established actions from beliefs and provides a clear explanation of where the hotel’s policies matched or differed from accepted standards. This distinction can help courts assess the events that actually occurred rather than solely relying on what was discovered later on.