A receipt at the restaurant shows a patron who has ordered several drinks of alcohol. After a few hours, the same customer is injured in a fatal accident. The receipt may be of value to an attorney investigating potential liability for an alleged Dramshop. The receipt doesn’t necessarily show that the restaurant served a clearly intoxicated customer or that employees did not adhere to the proper procedure. More revealing evidence might involve what happened between those drinks ordered.
To understand this sequence, it is essential to consider the function of alcohol in a hospitality process and not simply count beverages at the end of an event.
How Shift Changes Can Complicate Alcohol-Service Evidence
Receipts are proof of a sale and not the actual condition of a buyer
The records at the point of sale can reveal the dates when transactions took place, which beverages were bought, and what charges were assigned to a tab.
A receipt is not able to reveal the behavior of a person when they were served drinks. It may not establish who consumed each beverage as well as whether drinks were shared or not, or even what an employee of the bar observed.
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 sequence of service without presuming that every purchase tells the whole story.
What do employees see in the real world?
The primary issue in all disputes involving alcohol-related services is whether the staff members had sufficient evidence to conclude that the person was drunk. The relevant observations include speech impairment or impaired coordination troubles with balance or alteration in behavior.
These indicators require contextualization. A single incident in surveillance footage might have a reason that isn’t related to alcohol. Investigators should also consider the quality of the video position of the employee and camera angles.
Preston Rideout has experience as manager of a nightclub and bar manager, director of operations for bars, and bartender. His operational experience helps to connect recorded evidence with the responsibilities and constraints of employees working in busy environments.
Written Training Doesn’t Always Describe Real Practice
The majority of alcohol-related investigation are focused on preparation of employees. Does the establishment offer the seller-servers training for its employees? Did employees receive training on recognizing potential intoxication? Has management explained to employees the procedure to refuse additional service?
These are crucial to Responsible alcohol service, but looking at training certificates on their own may not provide the answers.
A business could have in-depth policies but never implement them consistently. In the reverse scenario employees may have followed service standards even if the incident was tragic.
A review of operations takes into account information on training materials as well as employee testimony. Also, it considers management oversight as well as the actions that were documented during the incident. Defense attorneys and plaintiffs will benefit from the distinction between the presence of a policy and its actual implementation.
Timeline can help answer important questions
Consider a patron who receives drinks from a variety of bartenders throughout the course of a busy evening. The bartender who was first on the scene may have observed a common behavior. Following a shift switch another bartender might serve a different drink. A manager might have intervened in the future.
If you don’t reconstruct the timeline, those decisions can seem to be one continuous act of service. Examining all the information including transaction records, schedules of staffing, as well surveillance footage and incident report together can reveal who was aware of what and when. It’s much better to discover any missing footage or uncomplete reports than relying on speculative speculation.
Lawful Liability and Practices in Industry are two different issues
Hospitality professionals can explain and assess whether a place adheres to the accepted operating procedures.
They are not a substitute for the courts’ responsibility to determine the legality of the liability. The laws for alcohol-related shops differ from state to state as do the rules under which they may be legally sued.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting assists plaintiff and defendant lawyers across the United States with case review, analysis of operations, writing opinions, and depositions. The work of the company includes alcohol-related management, decision making, training for staff managing practices, as well as any other relevant hospitality operations.
The most thorough analyses can help explain what the evidence does not reveal.
Instances involving alcohol can have grave consequences, but their severity is not determined by all the evidence.
Lawyers must be able to identify the documents that are available and their limits as well as the way employees are required to act under the particular circumstances.
A careful hospitality analysis separates the actions that are documented from assumptions and provides a clear explanation of where the hotel’s practices were in line with or diverged from the accepted norms. The courts then have the ability to evaluate the actual events instead of relying solely on what they learnt later.
