Sarlott Ji
Research Memo
Macleary v. Hines
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit,
817 F.2d 1081(1987)
Facts
On April 20th of 1984, Dennis Hines, the defendant, drove an automobile with an intoxicated status and caused physical injury to Kevin Macleary, the plaintiff who was on the car Hines drove, when he ran the car into a tree. Before the accident took place, 17 years old Hines and 19 years old Macleary was attending a party hosted by Barbara Farrell, the other defendant, in her own residence. During the event, 19 year old Farrell purchased a keg of beers along with three other friends to serve the guests. The alcohol was freely available for the guests to serve themselves. Macleary was witnessed drinking from the keg Farrell purchased while Hines was not. Later that night Hines drove Macleary to a Pau Pac Pub to purchase more beers. The two went back to Farrell’s with the additional alcohol and left for the pub again after consuming most of them. By the time Hines and Macleary head back for…show more content… Court of Appeals vacated the direct verdict that was in favor of defendant Farrell. The court remanded the lower’s decision after reviewing and analyzing a similar preceding case, Fassett v. Delta Kappa Epsilon. Initially, The District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found in favor of defendant Farrell because there was no evidence of her direct distribution of alcohol to the minor; thus there was no direct evidence that she was the substantial cause of the minors’ alcoholic consumption. However, the appellate decision revolved around the issue whether Farrell should be liable for her negligence to intoxicated minor as the social host. The appellate pointed that the District Court gave the social host liability too narrow a definition and in this case the plaintiff had evident to support allegation. Therefore a direct verdict should not be given and the District Court decision was remanded for further