In a situation like this, what are WalMart employees legally empowered to do? Can a cashier take her keys away? Detain her? Can a WalMart security guard do either of those things? If they call the cops, how likely is that a cop will be there before she gets in her car?
So how does this work in detail? Are they supposed to somehow prevent all possible interaction between her car and people (or other cars) until she’s out of the parking lot? Issue a loud “Warning! Suspected drunk person spotted!” announcement (as per simster)?
And what happens when they err on the “safe” side and enter drunk customer response mode when the person is not in fact drunk?
The practicality of this seems dubious.
California has, or at least had, a specific “deep pockets” law that was over and above joint liability.
Assuming the facts are as alleged, either way, she would not have stood behind a car if she knew a drunk woman was at the wheel.
I am not sure following the drunk woman out of the store and keeping people away from her is all that crazy.
As mentioned, the responsibility is to protect others, not stop her. Furthermore, if she did this regularly, they could have, at some point in the past, called the cops. If she got a DUI everytime she left Walmart, this wouldn’t have happened.
It sounds like in this case there was no issue of erring on the safe side: everyone agreed that she was stinking, stumbling, visibly drunk. Saying “Well, that wouldn’t work if the situation were different” isn’t relevant. If she had been a little-bit-maybe-hard-to-say drunk, there wouldn’t be a lawsuit.
Your faith in the good-heartedness of your fellow humans is touching. Naive, but touching. 
You do realize that there are other medical conditions that can cause a person to appear/act drunk and in fact not be drunk, right?
*not saying that is or is not the case here - or that a person in such state is or is not a danger to him/herself or others - but, when left to employee discretion to determine who is/is not drunk based on appearances alone, well - if I can’t get a walmart employee to even stock stuff correctly, I’m dubious at their ability to …
And one last time for clarity - the injured woman was not standing behind the car in question - she was at her car in another parking spot - had she been warned - she may or may not have been able to determine that she was in harms way. The actions of the ‘backer outer’ in this case (aka, the drunk) are similar to other pissed off people that accelorated at an unsafe speed due to their pissedoffedness - and plowed into another vehicle.
Would it then become Walmart’s responsibility to judge the mood of its shoppers as they leave the store? monitor cell phone calls and texts in case someone got disturbing news?
All of this is to point out that walmart minions have limited control (aka “none” ) over what happens as a customer leaves the property.
My point is just that there is a plausible, arguable case here. I think there could be a case where letting a customer walk out of your store right behind a drunk woman and not warning the customer is negligent. I don’t know if this is that case, but it’s not preposterous on its face.
She was apparently acting in such a way that they considered it irresponsible to fill her prescriptions. Whatever she was doing, it seems not unreasonable to think “Wow, this woman is going to be a danger in the parking lot”. I mean, this isn’t hypothetical. This isn’t “How were they supposed to know her judgement was impaired?” They had already decided her judgment was impaired.
Again, I don’t think we have enough details to actually know what the right thing here is. I just think it’s possible that a person could be so drunk, so incoherent, so clearly dangerous, that knowing that and letting others follow them out into the parking lot was wrong.
What responsibility do other customers have for their own situational awareness?
If the drunk customer was obvious to the employees - they would have been obvious to other customers as well.
In this case - per the OP - the ‘other customer’ was already at her car putting stuff in the trunk.
Per the OP - bolding mine -
From the link in the OP -
Where are you getting “so drunk, so incoherent” and “so clearly dangerous” ? Or even that her “judgement was impaired” ?
Why else would they not have filled her prescriptions? There was something about how she acted that was clearly off. The point is that people are saying “The store can’t take extreme steps with everyone that might be drunk or acting strange” and my point is that they had ALREADY taken an extreme step by refusing to fill her prescriptions. One can’t argue “The store can’t be expected to make judgments about customers” when the store already had.
And I don’t know if she was “so drunk, so clearly dangerous”, and I apologize if I haven’t made that clear. All I am saying is that she could have been, and if she was, they did have a responsibility, and given that, I think it’s appropriate to let the suit go forward.
I have no problem with the suit going forward - that is where the ‘facts’ of the case will come out - but as has been pointed out - nowhere does it say anything other than “appears intoxicated” and “became beligerant” -
With those two facts (and only those two facts) - exactly WHAT was the employees supposed to do?
We do not know enough about the prescription or why it was refused to be filled (could have been pain meds too early, etc) - so asserting that the refusal had anything to do with the ‘apparent intoxication’ is assuming facts that we simply do not have in this case.
That the refusal (possibly warranted, possibly required) of the meds led to the beligerance is likely - but again, if you have to warn folks about pissed off customers - you’re going to need a bigger staff. Might as well just assume when going to walmart that there will be pissed off customers…
As the court said:
*"Wal-Mart also contends that it has no legal right to detain an intoxicated person. A Connecticut court expressed concern over this very issue, writing: For instance, what would be the result if a business identifies an intoxicated person, but that person wishes to leave the store premises? Is the store owner to detain that person against his or her will? Should the store owner be required to use force if the intoxicated person refuses to be assisted? Although public policy arguments favor the deterrence of drunk driving, they also favor the deterrence of detention and the use of force. Welton v. Ferrara, No. CV075014334S, 2009 WL 1312569, at *1, *8 (Conn. Super. Ct. April 9, 2009).
These are appropriate concerns, but our holding does not require store employees to restrain belligerent, intoxicated patrons by physical force. Nor does our holding require business owners to conduct security checks on all customers entering their stores. We are only holding that the facts alleged in the complaint and taken as true establish that Wal-Mart had a duty to protect Ms. Cullum from the reasonably foreseeable risk of harm posed by a belligerent, visibly intoxicated patron operating a motor vehicle."*
The Court went on: “But, we emphasize the limited nature of our holding, which turns in large part on its procedural posture. There has been no discovery, no trial and no decision by a factfinder. We are only reviewing the sufficiency of the allegations in the Cullums’ complaint, which we must accept as true.”
I thought the debate was over whether or not this case should even be allowed to go to trial–which is what the article is about. So all that matters is if it is possible that they are negligent here. I think it is, if certain things are true. You say you agree . As far as the particulars–who can say? There’s too much we don’t know. I am just stating that it’s possible for a customer to behave in such a way that the store should take steps to protect others.
Exactly what are those behaviours?
Exactly what are those steps?
Are the steps that you are suggesting ‘legal’ for a store/employee to take?
How far do we take it?
I’m simply stating that in this case - we (the audience- nor even the court) have enough of the particulars to answer for any of it in this case - they are simply saying that “if the allegations are true, then a case can be brought - and we assume the allegations are true for this procedure”…
The wording in your posts make it a ‘well duh’ moment - that the persons behaviour was so ‘over the top obvious’ that steps were likely possible - I’m saying we don’t know that - and even if we did know that - exactly what steps were legal for the store to take - could they have ‘reasonably prevented’ the accident itself?
Exactly. I’m pretty sure they’re not allowed to do any of those things without her consent other than call the police.
With things like this…the way to get Police involved is stall. Goes to get RX filled, and say, this will be ready in 20 minutes. Enough time for police to arrive but not long enough that she is going to bother leaving yet. Once she heads for her car RX in hand, police can easily manage her from there.
Yes, that’s something they could do, but I’m not buying that they are obligated to do that. I realize you’re just answering the question I asked, so let me say that I’m amending my question to ask: What are they legally required to do?
I’m guessing nothing. I don’t think that I’m legally obligated worry about anyone that appears in my store already intoxicated. My store (like Walmart) isn’t a bar, we didn’t get the person drunk, we didn’t serve them, our cashiers aren’t trained in how to handle drunks.
While we’re at it, maybe she should sue the person she hit for not moving out of the way.
Something else that I just thought of. If she had smacked her car into a concrete stanchion or light pole and done no damage (to Wal-Mart property), this wouldn’t have even been a story. If she had walked out of the WalMart and slipped on the ice and tried to sue them, she probably would have lost the case because she was drunk (or it would have at least been much harder to win). The only reason this is even news is because there’s an innocent bystander involved.