When a driver crosses the center line and causes a serious collision after leaving a bar, the investigation often focuses on the driver’s alcohol consumption. A blood test showing a high alcohol concentration may also prompt questions about whether the bar continued serving someone who showed visible signs of intoxication.
Rhode Island law allows those injured to pursue claims against alcohol vendors in certain circumstances. Establishing liability requires evidence of negligent or reckless service and a connection between the alcohol consumed and the injuries. Showing that the driver drank at the bar is only the starting point.
When Can a Bar Be Held Liable?
Under the Rhode Island Liquor Liability Act, an establishment can be liable for negligently serving alcohol to a minor or visibly intoxicated person when that person’s consumption proximately causes the injuries.
Visible intoxication involves observable behavior showing apparent signs of intoxication. Slurred speech, poor balance, difficulty handling money, or repeatedly spilling drinks could support that finding.
The question is how the driver appeared when served. A high blood alcohol concentration after the collision can support the investigation, but does not alone establish that intoxication was visible earlier. Witness accounts and footage can help connect the test result with the customer’s behavior inside the bar.
What Makes Service Negligent?
Under § 3-14-6, service is negligent when the vendor knew, or a reasonable and prudent person in similar circumstances would have known, that the customer was a minor or visibly intoxicated.
Suppose a customer struggles to stand and repeatedly drops a credit card, yet the bartender serves two more drinks. Those observations could become important evidence if the customer then causes a collision, even if some drinking occurred elsewhere. A bar is not automatically charged with knowing about that earlier consumption, but the customer’s appearance, behavior, or other facts known to the server can put a reasonable person on notice.
Serving someone under 21 without requesting identification creates a rebuttable presumption of negligence. Visible intoxication is not required for a minor-service claim, but negligent service and its connection to the injuries still must be established.
When Does Service Become Reckless?
Reckless service involves intentionally serving someone known to be a minor or visibly intoxicated while consciously disregarding an obvious and substantial risk of physical harm. The conduct must grossly depart from what a reasonable and prudent person would do under the circumstances.
Statutory examples include encouraging intoxicated customers to consume substantial amounts of alcohol or serving so continuously and excessively that it creates a substantial risk of death from alcohol poisoning. Punitive damages are potentially available for reckless service, but not negligent service alone.
How Can You Prove What Happened?
Evidence can disappear quickly as surveillance footage is overwritten and witnesses become harder to locate. Useful records include:
- Bar tabs, receipts, and credit-card records
- Surveillance footage and witness accounts
- Blood alcohol results and the drinking timeline
- Police reports, body-camera footage, and photographs
A receipt may show when drinks were purchased, while a witness remembers the customer stumbling between the table and restroom. Considered together, those details can help establish whether service continued after visible signs appeared.
Save information you already have, including witness names and messages identifying where the driver drank. A Rhode Island personal injury lawyer can send preservation notices and, after litigation begins, use formal discovery to seek records and testimony.
Investigate Before Evidence Disappears
Depending on the evidence, both the driver and the bar may be responsible for your injuries. Rhode Island generally allows three years after a personal injury claim accrues to file suit, but records showing what happened at the bar can disappear much sooner.
Corrao Robles can investigate whether the bar’s alcohol service contributed to the crash. Contact Corrao Robles to discuss your options.
