2025 legislation pending in the South Carolina legislature would make changes to dram shop laws in SC, but the proposed changes will not help drunk driving victims.

Instead, the legislature is considering passing several laws that would help the insurance industry, bars, and restaurants by:

  1. Limiting the damages available to drunk driving victims when a bar or restaurant serves alcohol to a visibly drunk patron who then injures or kills someone on the highway,
  2. Limiting the damages available to drunk driving victims when a business provides alcohol to a minor who then injures or kills someone on the highway,
  3. Changing the insurance requirements for restaurants, bars, and places that serve alcohol, and
  4. Changing South Carolina’s joint and several liability rules to make it easier for bars and restaurants to avoid paying verdicts against them.

Despite media headlines stating that a “new SC bill would hold businesses, individuals accountable for overserving alcohol,” the pending legislation appears to be intended to help businesses and individuals who overserve alcohol – and their insurance companies – at the expense of drunk driving victims.

Changes to Dram Shop Laws in SC – Bars are Already Liable to Drunk Driving Victims

To clear up the misleading headlines – the pending legislation does not make bars and restaurants liable for overserving alcohol. That is already the law in South Carolina.

Pending 2025 legislation in SC includes House Bill 184, which would provide a statutory dram shop cause of action, to be contained in SC Code § 15-73-710, that would make a “licensee” (a person or business licensed to sell alcohol) when they provide alcohol to someone who is at least 21 years old, civilly liable to a third party “for actual damages” arising from providing that person alcohol (i.e., a car crash with injuries or death) if:

(1) the licensee knew or should have known that the individual was visibly intoxicated at the time of the sale, service, or furnishing of the alcohol.

(2) at the time of the sale, service, or furnishing of the alcohol, the licensee knew or should have known that the individual would become intoxicated based on factors that would be obvious to a reasonable person including, but not limited to, the licensee’s knowledge of the number of alcoholic beverages served to the individual while on the licensee’s premises; and

(3) the individual’s intoxication or the sale, service, or furnishing of the alcohol was a proximate cause of bodily injury, death, or property damage to the third party.

SC common law already authorizes a cause of action for dram shop lawsuits, however. In Hartfield v. Getaway Lounge Grill, Inc., for example, the SC Supreme Court approved a verdict against a bar for dram shop liability when the bar served a visibly intoxicated patron alcohol just before he killed himself and put a passenger in a coma in a drunk driving crash.

The Court based liability on SC Code § 61-4-580, which states that no permit holder may “sell beer or wine to an intoxicated person.” When a server violates this statute, they are negligent per se and their employer is liable for the damage caused by the drunk driver.

Does this proposed law help drunk driving victims? No….

The proposed laws add nothing to the current SC dram shop law that would benefit drunk driving victims. The proposed laws would benefit the restaurant industry, insurance industry, and SC businesses, at the expense of drunk driving victims, by reducing bars’ accountability for drunk driving deaths and limiting their liability to “actual damages.”

Bars are Already Liable to Drunk Driving Victims of Underaged Drinker

Similarly, South Carolina already recognizes a cause of action when a licensee sells alcohol to a minor in violation of S.C. Code Ann. §61-4-580(1) (see, Jamison v. The Pantry, Inc.).

The proposed law would make a licensee “civilly liable to a third party for actual damages arising out of the sale, service, or furnishing of the alcohol to that individual if the individual’s intoxication or the sale, service, or furnishing of the alcohol was a proximate cause of bodily injury, death, or property damage to the third party,” limiting a drunk driving victim’s recovery to “actual damages.”

As with the proposed changes to SC law on dram shop liability, the proposed changes to liability when a licensee serves alcohol to a minor will benefit corporations and insurance companies while hurting drunk driving victims.

Changes to Insurance Requirements for Establishments that Serve Alcohol 

Why the push to protect insurance companies and corporations?

Committee Chair, Senator Michael Johnson, sponsored the bill. According to Sen. Johnson, he wants to help individuals and businesses.

“I want to lower insurance premiums for companies and businesses and individuals in South Carolina,” he said. “That is my goal and that should be everyone’s goal because I think we can all agree liquor liability and certain liability policies are out of control.”

The legislature is also considering a law making it easier for bars and restaurants to maintain the required amount of liability coverage and a law that would allow restaurants and bars to escape liability by blaming third parties including people who are not defendants “regardless of whether the person or entity was, or could have been, named as a party to the suit.”

Questions About Changes to Dram Shop Laws in SC?

If you or a family member has been hurt by a drunk driver, your dram shop liability attorney at the Boles Law Firm will do everything legally and ethically possible to help you recover full and fair compensation through settlement or trial from all potential sources of recovery including the bars or establishments that served the drunk driver.

Call us at 843-576-5775 to schedule an appointment for a free consultation at our North Charleston, Walterboro, Greenville, or Walhalla offices, or send us a message through our website.

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