LaGuire v. Kain

As originally enacted in 1875, Michigan’s dram-shop statute protected wives whose husbands were jailed on intoxication-related tort charges and who lost their husbands’ financial support as a result. The statute permitted a wife to collect damages from whomever sold or provided the husband’s intoxicating drink. Courts interpreted the statute as precluding recovery by the non-innocent husband himself. The statute was subsequently broadened to include other close family members of a non-innocent intoxicated tortfeasor, as well as any “other person” injured due to the tortfeasor’s intoxication. The 1986 legislature amended the statute to redefine a protected person as “an individual who suffers damage or is personally injured by a minor or visibly intoxicated person … or the spouse, child, parent, or guardian of that individual.” A bar owner named Kain (defendant) unlawfully sold alcohol to Michael Mihailuk, the minor son of Betty LaGuire (plaintiff). Mihailuk got drunk and drove his car into another driver’s vehicle, injuring that driver and killing himself. Laguire sued Kain for damages, in her capacity as administrator of Mihailuk’s estate rather than in her own right as Mihailuk’s mother. The trial court ruled that the dram-shop statute precluded recovery and dismissed the case. The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the statute’s 1986 amendment eliminated the statute’s non-innocent-party exclusion. Kain appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.