A receipt in a restaurant shows a customer who has ordered several drinks of alcohol. After a few hours, the customer was involved in a major traffic collision. For an attorney investigating potential Dram shop liability the receipt is crucial. It doesn’t necessarily establish if the restaurant served a customer who clearly drunk or whether employees were not following the rules. It’s possible that the evidence is more persuasive by looking at the actions that took place between drinks orders.
To understand the process, it is necessary to consider the alcohol service as part of a hospitality business. It is not possible to count drinks after an incident.
Receipts record a sale not a customer’s condition
Records at the point-of-sale can show the dates when transactions took place, which beverages were purchased, and what charges were assigned to the tab.
However, a receipt generally doesn’t show how a patron was behaving when drinking was offered. It is not able to determine the person who consumed each drink as well as whether drinks were shared or not, or even what the bartender saw.
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 entire service process without believing that every purchase tells the entire story.
What do employees see in real-life?
In a number of disputes concerning alcohol services, the main question is whether the staff had a reason to suspect that the customer was drinking. Some of the signs that could be relevant are speech impairment or impaired coordination problems, difficulty maintaining balance or modifications in behavior.
These indicators require contextualization. A single act recorded on surveillance footage might have explanations unrelated to drinking alcohol. Investigators should also take into consideration camera angles, recording quality employees’ positions, and whether a particular act would be visible to the staff.
Preston Rideout’s background as an experienced bartender, manager of a bar, general manager of a nightclub, and director of bar operations is evident in these assessments. His background in operation helps connect documentation with the obligations and constraints of employees working in fast-paced hospitality environments.
Written Training Doesn’t Always Describe Real Practice
In most alcohol-service investigation the questions revolve around the employee’s training. Does the establishment provide employee training in the area of seller-server? Did the establishment provide training to employees to identify signs of intoxication? Management explained the process for refusing to offer any additional services?
The answer to these questions can be found in the training certificates but they’re not enough.
The place may have guidelines implemented, but fail to enforce them consistently. Employees might have adhered to the accepted standards of service regardless of whether the final outcome was tragic.
A thorough operational audit will consider information on training, employee testimony, management oversight, and the actions that were recorded during the incident. It is essential for attorneys representing the plaintiffs and defense to recognize the difference between the existence of policy and its implementation.
The Timeline often reveals the most important questions
Take a look at a client served by several bartenders at the same time in an evening of high activity. The first bartender may have noticed normal behavior. A second bartender might serve another drink following an alteration in shift. Then, a manager could have intervened.
If you don’t reconstruct the timeline these decisions may appear to be a continuous act of service. When looking through transaction records such as staffing plans, surveillance footage, and incident reports It can be useful to know the person who knew what, and at what time. Incomplete or missing footage are also to be noted instead of being re-used with speculation.
The issues surrounding legal liability and industry practice are different.
Hospitality professionals can help explain and judge if a facility follows the established operating guidelines.
They do not take away the courts’ responsibility to determine the legality of the liability. There are laws that differ for each state on the legal responsibility of retailers selling alcohol.
Rideout Hospitality Consulting provides support to plaintiffs and defense attorneys throughout the United States via review of cases, operational analysis as well as written opinions, trial testimony, depositions and other types of evidence. Its services include alcohol-related decisions, staff training managing practices, as well as any other relevant hospitality operations.
The most thorough analysis clarifies what the evidence cannot show
The seriousness of an alcohol-related incident cannot be used to determine the validity of previous events.
The attorney must be aware of the records available along with their limitations, as well as the expectations for employees in the conditions.
An analysis of hospitality can be a thorough method to discern assumptions from actions documented and establish whether the host’s practices were in accordance with accepted standards or not. This permits courts to assess the circumstances rather than using only the information found after the fact.