Tuesday, July 20, 2021

SELLING GAS TO DRUNK HAS POSSIBLE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES

by Bob Walsh

New Mexico has now joined Tennessee in making it illegal and potentially actionable to sell fuel to people who are drunk.

The case in New Mexico stems from a 2011 incident where some asshole who had a BAC of 0.176 gassed up and then killed a bunch of people in a head-on collision.  The drunk survived.

There is no specific law in New Mexico to prohibit the sale.  The State Supreme Court action rests in the doctrine of "negligent entrustment" which creates some level of responsibility on retailers to not sell dangerous products to people who are not competent to use them.

It is not clear how this would relate to self-service stations where the person buying gas does not customarily interact with a human during the purchase of gasoline.

1 comment:

Gary said...

It's only the fault of the drunk driver. We should stop making everyone and everything illegal and/or responsible for someone else's action.