The receipt of a restaurant shows that the customer ordered a number of alcoholic drinks. A few hours later the same patron is involved with a serious accident. If an attorney is investigating possible dram shop liability the receipt can be used as evidence. However, it isn’t a guarantee whether the establishment served a person who was clearly intoxicated or if the employees failed to follow appropriate procedures. More revealing evidence might depend on what transpired between those drinks ordered.
In order to understand the flow of events, look at the alcohol service as a part of a genuine hospitality operation. It is not possible to record drinks following an incident.
A receipt is a record of a sale, but not a condition of the customer
Point-of-sale data can be used to determine when transactions occurred, which drinks were purchased, and how charges were assigned to a tab.
But, receipts generally doesn’t show how a patron was behaving when a drink was served. The receipt might not show who consumed each drink even if the drinks were shared, and what the bartender saw.
An experienced Expert Witness can help lawyers interpret these records alongside surveillance footage, employee testimony as well as other evidence. It is important to reconstruct the sequence of service without thinking that every purchase will be the whole story.
What do employees see in real-life?
The primary issue in all disputes involving alcohol-related services is whether the staff members had the basis to conclude that the customer was intoxicated. Observations that are relevant include speech impairment or impaired coordination problems, difficulty maintaining balance or modifications in behavior.
However, these indicators need contextualization. The actions filmed on video surveillance may not be related to alcohol. Investigators should take into account the camera angle, quality of the recording employees’ position and the extent to which a particular behaviour was observed by staff.
Preston Rideout brings experience as a bartender, bar manager, nightclub general manager, and director of bar operations to these evaluations. His background in operations allows him to connect recorded evidence with the duties of staff members in hectic hospitality settings.
Written Training Doesn’t Always Describe Real Practice
The majority of investigations into alcohol-related service focus on the preparation of employees. Did there exist any training programs for the seller-servers? Were employees taught to recognize potential intoxication? Management explained the procedure for refusing to offer any additional services?
While these questions are important to the Responsible Alcohol Service, reviewing only the training certificates may not suffice to answer these questions.
It is possible for an establishment to have comprehensive policies but not necessarily implement the policies. In the reverse scenario employees may have complied with the rules of service even if it was not a good thing.
An operational review considers training materials, employee testimony, management oversight, and the actions that were documented during the incident. The difference between the existence of a policy and its actual implementation can be important to both the defense and plaintiff lawyers.
Timeline can provide answers to important information that can answer important
Take a look at a client served by multiple bartenders at the same time during the course of a busy evening. It’s likely that the bartender who served the first patron was observing a typical manner of conduct. After a change of shift an employee from another shift could have served a drink. A manager could have intervened afterward.
It’s possible to make these decisions appear to be a single continuous service, without having to reconstruct the timeline. Examining all the information, including transaction records and staffing schedules as well as surveillance footage and the incident report together, will reveal who was in charge and when. It’s much better to discover missing footage or incomplete reports than relying on speculative speculation.
The legal liability issues and industrial practice are two different issues.
Hospitality experts can explain recognized operating guidelines and judge if the conduct of a place was in line with them.
They don’t replace the responsibility of the court to decide the legality of the liability. The laws regarding alcohol shops differ from state-to-state as do the rules that they can be sued.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting assists plaintiff and defendant lawyers across the country through case review, analysis of operations, written opinions and depositions. The work of the company focuses on alcohol-related decision-making and staff training, as well as management practices, and other pertinent hospitality operations.
The strongest analysis accounts for what the Evidence cannot show
The seriousness of an alcohol-related incident cannot be a conclusive indicator of the previous circumstances.
Attorneys should be aware of available records, the limits of those records, and how employees were expected to perform under the circumstances.
A thorough hospitality analysis can distinguish established actions from beliefs and helps identify where the venue’s practices matched up with or diverged from established standards. The courts can then evaluate the actual event rather than relying solely on the lessons they have learned.