The receipt of a dining establishment shows that the client ordered several alcohol-based drinks. Within a couple of hours the same person is involved in a serious accident. An attorney examining potential Dram shop liability, the receipt is relevant. The receipt is not required to show that the restaurant served a clearly drunk client or that employees did not comply with the appropriate procedures. The more revealing evidence may involve what happened between those drinks ordered.
Understanding this sequence requires studying the alcohol service as a real hospitality process, not just recording the amount of alcohol consumed following an incident.
Receipts record a sale but not the state of a customer
Point-of-sale records can establish the dates when transactions took place, which beverages were bought, and how charges were assigned to a tab.
A receipt is not able to reveal the manner in which a customer behaved when they were served drinks. It may not be able to reveal the drinkers who consumed it even if the drinks were shared, and the manner in which the bartender viewed it.
An experienced Expert Witness can help attorneys interpret these records alongside surveillance footage, employee statements, and other available evidence. The aim is to reconstruct the service flow without thinking that every purchase tells the entire story.
What are the things employees can actually observe?
A key issue in many alcohol-related disputes is whether employees had reason to suspect that a customer was drunk. Some of the relevant observations could be impaired coordination, speech that is unusual, difficulty maintaining balance, or noticeable changes in behavior.
But these indicators require context. A single incident in surveillance footage might be unrelated to alcohol. Investigators must also think about camera angles, quality of recording employees’ positions, and if the behavior might be visible to the staff.
Preston Rideout has experience as a nightclub manager and bar manager, director of bar operations and bartender. His operational experience helps him connect recorded evidence to the obligations and limitations for employees who work in hectic hospitality settings.
Written Training Doesn’t Always Describe Real Practice
The majority of alcohol-related investigations revolve around inquiries about preparation of employees. Was there any training for the seller-servers? Did the establishment train employees to identify signs of intoxication? Did management explain to employees the procedure for refusing extra service?
The answers to these questions could be in the certificates of training, but they are not sufficient.
A business could have in-depth policies, but fail to consistently implement them. Conversely, employees may have followed recognized service practices even when the eventual outcome was tragic.
A review of operations takes into account information on training materials as well as employee testimony. It also takes into account supervision by management and the actions documented during the incident. Both defense and plaintiff attorneys can benefit from a clear distinction between the presence of an actual policy and its execution.
The Timeline often provides the key Questions
Consider a client who is served by multiple bartenders the same time on the course of a busy evening. It is possible that the initial employee observed a normal manner of conduct. Following a shift switch the bartender in question may serve a different drink. The manager could intervene later.
The decisions could appear to be unending service, in the event that the timeline is not reconstitued. Examining the personnel schedules, transaction records surveillance footage, incident reports together can help identify who was in charge and when. It’s better to find out if there are any missing files or videos, rather than speculating.
Legal Liability and the Practice of Industry are two different questions
Hospitality professionals can discuss accepted operational practices and determine if a venue’s conduct was consistent with them.
They do not take away the courts’ responsibility to determine legal liability. There are different laws in every state that govern the legal responsibility of retailers selling alcohol.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting assists plaintiff and defendant lawyers across the country through review of the case, analysis of operations, written opinions and depositions. Its services include alcohol-related decisions, staff training, managerial practices, and any other relevant hospitality operations.
The most powerful analysis explains why the evidence cannot show
Instances involving alcohol can have grave consequences, however their severity can’t be assessed by all the evidence.
Lawyers must be able to determine the legal documents available and their limitations and also how employees would have been expected to act in the specific circumstances.
An exhaustive analysis of hospitality practices will separate documented actions from the assumed behavior and identify where the venue’s practices are aligned or deviated from the norms. The courts are then able to assess the actual event instead of relying solely on what they learnt later.