I know there are etiquette and common sense answers to these, but I’m asking about legal rules.
If you (a guest) spill a little wine on someone else, while everyone is milling around elbow to elbow, who shares responsibility? You, the spillee, the host, any other guests that might have been milling around? Would it matter if any of the above have liability insurance? What if the spillee’s duds cost a mint but nobody could have guessed that (e.g., it wasn’t just a nice dress, but one that brought a mint at the last Jackie O auction)?
And what about the odd spot of wine found by your seat after dinner, on the Jackie O area rug?
The question isn’t about drunken behavior. Al present are in control. Nobody is being wild and dangerous.
Let’s say for simplicity it’s non-alcoholic wine, or cocoa, or cheese nachos. Anything that won’t rinse out of silk.
In my opinion, accidents happen. When we go out into the world, we take the risk that we might get bumped or spilled on. If everyone at the party is behaving as reasonable people would – taking reasonable care – then everyone has to bear their own costs for damage.
From a legal perspective, I’m trying to think what the cause of action would be if someone spilled wine on me at a party. Someone else may have better ideas, but the only ones I came up with are negligence and battery. Negligence is, essentially, the failure to conduct yourself as a reasonable person would in the situation. (For the legal eagles: duty, breach, causation, damages.) You have a duty to behave as a reasonable person would, and you owe that duty to the world. If you do not behave reasonably, you’ve breached your duty, and if that breach caused damage to me, you are liable. Battery is, essentially, unwanted touching.
The problem with these theories is that it’s a party. I knew when I came to your party that there would be other people “milling about” and that a certain amount of social bumping would happen. (Minds out of the gutter, please.) It’s not assumption of the risk, but more that not every “injury” is compensable at law, and the law makes allowance for regular social-type interaction.
So unless you chase me down and throw your glass of wine at me, from a legal perspective, I don’t really have a claim against you.
And there are other possibilities… Perhaps the cheese puffs are overstuffed with cheese, resulting in an unforseeable (to the eater) dripping of cheese once bitten. So maybe the chef would be liable?
I think the answer to the OP is whoever the damaged party names in a lawsuit, supposing a sharp lawyer can convice a jury. For practical purposes, probably know one. And if there is damage to a particularly expensive thing, probably the homeowner’s insurance would cover it.
So you’re saying that there are no laws about this?
That it’s all just made up on the spot every time?
That there are no precedents?
People just get to make up the rules based on their own opinions every time?
I’m not a lawyer either (or I wouldn’t be asking), but that seems a bit too random to be believable.
Any lawyers post here?
There are bound to be real guidelines out there.
'm talking about well establidhed principles of liability. The questions facing a jury would be things like, “Did the spiller act negligently? Did someone else contribute the the spill? Was it forseeable?” Really what I’m saying is that accidents happen and there is no clear liability or negligence, or that in a crowded environment the responsible parties can’t be properly identified.
But it’s very easy fpr me to imagine that two different juries could come to two different conclusions based on the same set of facts, the difference being the persuasive skills of the attorneys on both sides.
The host owes a duty to warn the guests of and to take reasonable precautions against any hidden (latent) dangers, of which fellow guests with cups full of beverage are not, unless the host uses dribble glasses.
The fact that a party has insurance is by rule in most courts irrelevant and cannot be brought into evidence.
If the spillee’s duds cost a mint then the spiller’s liability would be decreased under the doctrine of comparitive or contributory negligence. A spillee who wears a Jackie O outfit to opening night at the opera probably can recover her cleaning bill, while a spillee who wears the same outfit to a kids party at Chuck-E-Cheese’s Pizza and Party Center cannot.
IAL. Depending on the jurisdiction, there may be specific laws about “party” behavior. Without knowing the specific jurisdiction or laws, we can still rely on the common law to provide us with answers. The common law is likely what you mean when you talk about precedent. If I were being paid to answer this question , I would start by researching the duty of a host to his party guests. If there were no cases with that factual scenario, then I would likely look at the rules applying to businesses (with the realization that I am likely to get my head handed to me on a platter for analogizing a party host to a business).
But without having done research, I would look at basic principles of the common law, which may not apply in any given jurisdiction but are nonetheless considered pretty basic. Because there is no contract at issue here, this would be a tort (any civil wrong outside contract).
Negligence is the most basic of all torts, and its elements are duty, breach, causation and damages. In the case posited by the OP, I don’t see a breach, and therefore negligence will not lie. The only way you could really plead negligence would be to allege some sort of special duty a party-holder owes his guests. But there, I think, you’re going to run into a problem.
The law divides people into three categories: trespassers (those without permission to enter the land); licensees (those with the owner’s permission to enter the land, but generally not for a business purpose); and invitees (those with the owner’s permission to enter the land for a business purpose). The highest duty is owed to invitees. As to trespassers and licensees, the owner owes no special duty – those people take the property as they find it. (This generally applies to nuisances on the land, rather than other people, but still.) So you could argue that party-goers are licensees, and as such, the host owes them no higher duty than to behave reasonably. So, again, I don’t think negligence will lie.
Another basic tort is battery, but again, battery provides a “pass” for the expected touching that occurs in public, as at a party.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress? The conduct isn’t outrageous, so no IIED.
There may be more exotic torts out there I’m not thinking of (tortious interference with dress?), but the bottom line is that Boyo Jim basically has it right. You may be able to get something from your homeowner’s insurance for the stain on the rug, but otherwise, caveat partier.
On Judge Judy this week they had a guy suing because a friend of his roommate’s had come over and spilled a little beer on the keyboard of his laptop computer sitting open on the coffee table. She offered to take it home to mom who claimed to have fixed it by cleaning it. They guy said he’d complained it didn’t work when he got it back. The girl lied that it must be a new problem because her mom had paid someone $100 to fix it. He said, Ok, tell me who it was and I’ll get him to fix it again. Her bluff called, she stopped taking his messages, so he sued.
So what happens? Judge Judy calls her a liar (she’d also changed her testimony slightly from her official response and what she said in court), and awarded the guy $2000.
So, was she really interpreting the law or just being emotional about people who lie. Based on the fact she never refers to the law on her show and always seems to just like one party over the other, I’m guessing that he actually had no claim at all. That it was his own risk leaving his laptop out in a place where he doesn’t control who’s around and where food is served. On the other hand, I know from etiquet books that if you spill wine on someone’s dress they will expect you to pay to have it cleaned. I don’t think you are expected to do more than that if it’s not cleanable.
, I would start by researching the duty of a host to his party guests. If there were no cases with that factual scenario, then I would likely look at the rules applying to businesses (with the realization that I am likely to get my head handed to me on a platter for analogizing a party host to a business).