The receipt of a restaurant shows that the customer ordered multiple alcoholic drinks. Within a couple of hours the same customer has been injured in a fatal accident. In the case of an attorney looking into potential liability of a dram shop the receipt will be relevant. The receipt does not necessarily demonstrate that the establishment served a clearly intoxicated customer or that the employees failed to adhere to the proper procedure. There’s a chance that the evidence will be more persuasive depending on the events that occurred between drinks orders.
Understanding this sequence requires studying the alcohol service as a real hospitality operation, not simply the counting of drinks after an incident.
What Staffing Schedules Can Reveal About a Dram Shop Incident
Receipts are proof of a sale but not the state of a client
The records at the point of sale can reveal when transactions took place, what drinks were bought, and what charges were applied to a bill.
The receipt does not provide information about the behavior of a person when served drinks. It may not establish who was drinking each drink as well as whether drinks were shared or not, or even what the bartender was watching.
An experienced Expert Witness can help attorneys interpret these records alongside surveillance footage, employee statements, and other available evidence. It is vital to retrace the entire sequence of services without thinking that every purchase will be the whole story.
What can employees observe in real-life?
The main issue in alcohol-service disputes concerns whether staff members had reasonable grounds to believe that the person was drunk. Some of the relevant indicators could be impaired coordination, strange speaking or speech patterns, difficulties maintaining equilibrium or noticeable behavioral changes.
But these indicators do require some context. A single action captured on surveillance footage could have a reason that isn’t related to drinking alcohol. Investigators should also look at the quality of the footage, employee positions and camera angles.
Preston Rideout has experience as manager of a nightclub, bar manager, director of bar operations, and bartender. His practical experience allows him to identify the duties and limitations of staff who work in hectic areas of hospitality.
Written Training Doesn’t Always Describe Real Practice
In the majority of investigations involving alcohol there are questions posed about the employee’s preparation. Did there exist any training programs for the servers-sellers? Did employees learn to spot possible intoxication? Did management outline how to refuse additional service?
Although these questions are crucial for the Responsible Alcohol Service, reviewing just training certificates might not suffice to answer these questions.
It is possible for a venue to have specific policies but not consistently implement the policies. Employees might have adhered to established service guidelines, even if the end result was disastrous.
An examination of the operational aspects of the policy includes documents for training, employee testimony supervision by management and actions documented during an incident. It is essential for plaintiffs’ and defense counsel to recognize the difference between the existence of policy and the implementation of it.
Timeline often answers crucial information
Imagine a customer who is served drinks by a variety of bartenders at a busy time. It’s likely that the bartender who served the first patron observed a normal behaviour. Another bartender could have served another beverage after a shift change. A manager might intervened following the shift change.
It is possible to make these decisions appear to be one continuous service, without having to reconstruct the timeline. By examining all the relevant information, including transaction records and staffing schedules as well as surveillance footage and incident reports together can reveal who was aware of what and when. The absence of footage or the inadequacy of records are also to be noted instead of being re-used with speculation.
The issues of liability under the law and practice in the industry are distinct.
Hospitality experts can describe accepted operating practices and evaluate whether the actions of a hotel were in accordance with these practices.
They do not take away the court’s responsibility to determine the legal responsibility. The laws that govern alcohol stores differ from state to and so do the terms under which they may be legally sued.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting assists plaintiff and defendant lawyers across the country with case review, analysis of operations, written opinions, and depositions. The company’s work focuses on alcohol-related decisions and staff training, as well as management methods, and other pertinent hospitality operations.
The strongest analyses can explain what the evidence does not show
Alcohol-related events can have serious consequences, however their severity is not determined by all the evidence.
Lawyers must discern the types of documents available and their limits in addition to how employees are required to act under the given circumstances.
An in-depth analysis of hospitality can separate evidence from an assumption and clarifies where the establishment’s practices aligned with or departed from accepted standards. This distinction allows courts to evaluate what transpired instead of using only the information later discovered.