SANTA ROSA -- Unlike most states, California for many years has prohibited civil suits against people who serve drunks who become killers on the road.
So, after Joseph Lynchard left his brother's bar and ran his pickup into Kathryn Lynn Black, 43, killing her, the Black family of Santa Rosa tried something different.
Black's husband and daughter are suing the people who, they say, facilitated Lynchard's drunken driving and conspired to put him behind the wheel: his brother Eddie, who bought the pickup, and his wife, Judith, who insured it and apparently tried to protect Joseph from financial liability.
The suit could open a new legal route around California's restrictive liability laws.
Legal experts think the Blacks stand a chance.
Because California doesn't permit lawsuits for providing alcohol in such cases, lawyers are "quite reasonably" asserting other grounds to bring their cases within conventional liability concepts, says Alan Brownstein, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. In essence, Brownstein says, the Blacks are contending that "there's another act of negligence that can be the basis of this lawsuit -- providing the vehicle."
The defense argued in Sonoma Superior Court that nothing the bar owners or wife allegedly did could be seen as an illegal act, even if all of it were proved in a trial.
But Judge Knoel Owen ruled in July that the case could proceed to the evidence-gathering stage, after which bare-bones factual allegations will be fleshed out or revised.
In separate criminal proceedings, Joseph Lynchard has been charged with second-degree murder in Kathryn Black's death. He's in jail awaiting a September trial on those charges.
According to the civil suit filed on behalf of Kathryn Black's husband, Hugh, and daughter Ashley, 7, Eddie Lynchard purchased a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup and transferred the title to Joseph, despite his brother's history of drunken driving. The police report shows Joseph Lynchard's blood alcohol was triple the legal limit after the fatal accident.
Judith Lynchard paid the truck insurance, the suit says. After her husband was convicted of driving under the influence in 2002 -- one of six prior DUI convictions -- she also put the couple's joint assets into her name. That made it possible, the suit alleges, for Joseph Lynchard to continue drinking and driving without jeopardizing their financial security.
Just why relatives purchased and insured the truck, and whether Joseph Lynchard wouldn't have been driving otherwise, are open questions.
According to defense attorney Mark Mittelman, Joseph Lynchard, then 72, had a valid driver's license at the time of the accident -- a factor that should weigh in the defendants' favor. Statements made on behalf of the defense also suggest a dispute over where Kathryn Black was standing when she stopped her bicycle on or near the side of the road on that rainy day in March 2005. The answer could affect apportionment of liability.
Owen's ruling means only that he considers the case theoretically plausible.
The suit makes novel use of traditional legal theories, such as civil conspiracy and "negligent entrustment" -- which commonly covers actions such as handing car keys to a person who's intoxicated or lending a loaded gun to someone who's deranged.
In about 40 states, serving alcohol to an obviously drunken driver makes the server civilly liable if the driver causes damage or injury. The California Legislature in 1978 eliminated such liability except for serving an obviously intoxicated minor. In all other cases, the Legislature declared, injuries inflicted by an intoxicated person are caused by drinking alcohol, not furnishing it.
"My client, although he is Mr. Lynchard's brother, is not his keeper," says Mittelman, who represents Eddie Lynchard. "Certainly my client can't be charged with making sure his brother walks a straight line. This man is an adult."
Hugh Black countered: "They all knew (Joseph Lynchard's) pattern. They all knew his history. They all knew he was getting in a vehicle drunk, and they just turned a blind eye. It's a sin."
The building contractor spoke movingly of the wife whose death he called ironic. "She had an alcohol issue herself," he said, but had been sober for a decade. She used to be a bartender, and she looked out after customers who drank too much, driving them home or calling a cab.
Whether the case will go to trial remains to be seen. The defense will have other chances to seek dismissal.
Julie Davies, who teaches tort and injury law at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, said that a moral duty to intervene isn't the same as a legal duty. The case may turn on whether the defendants are viewed as having created a risk, or whether they're seen as passive bystanders, she said.
Davies also said overriding public policy considerations could influence the courts in a case such as this: If providing a truck can create a risk, could companies be held liable for lending money to high-risk individuals to buy cars? Could parents be held liable for buying cars for their teenagers? Judges would be reluctant to open the door to a broad expansion of liability.
But other policy considerations could influence the outcome in the Blacks' favor, Davies said. For example, would holding Lynchard family members liable prevent future deaths and injuries?
Advocates such as Paula Birdsong, executive director of California Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say that giving victims a way to sue family members who assist drunken drivers could help lower a rising tide of DUI incidents. Mittelman said it would invite a potential deluge of legal claims based on everyday lawful behavior.
Legal documents filed on behalf of Judith Lynchard, whose lawyers refused to be interviewed, ask whether wives might be sued for preparing meals. Patrick Emery, the Blacks' lawyer, discounts such speculation. If the Blacks win, he said, copycat suits would be allowed only in similarly "rare cases," with "extreme facts."
Emery has argued in court papers that the defendants "could be certain" Joseph Lynchard would drive the vehicle while he was intoxicated "because they regularly supplied him with alcohol and then watched him drive away in the car that they gave him. In fact, (they) did so on the day Joseph Lynchard killed Kathryn Lynn Black."
In the closest California precedent, the state Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled in 1988 in favor of the defendants, a couple who gave a car as a wedding gift to their son-in-law, a habitual drunken driver who struck and killed a woman. But the court said the couple could have been held liable if the plaintiff had provided evidence that the driver had no other access to a vehicle.
Emery said Joseph Lynchard "typically" drove the pickup. Mittelman says that's not enough, and he expects to show that other vehicles were available.
A 1980 ruling from the same appellate court upheld a verdict against a father who entrusted his truck to his son, knowing the son had three prior accidents. He struck and killed a woman while pulling out of a driveway.
Alcohol was not an issue in the successful suit by the victim's children, however, and several California courts have shot down cases that they viewed as attempts to circumvent the state's no-liability law where alcohol is involved.
About the writer:
The Bee's Claire Cooper can be reached at (415) 551-7701 or [email protected].
So, after Joseph Lynchard left his brother's bar and ran his pickup into Kathryn Lynn Black, 43, killing her, the Black family of Santa Rosa tried something different.
Black's husband and daughter are suing the people who, they say, facilitated Lynchard's drunken driving and conspired to put him behind the wheel: his brother Eddie, who bought the pickup, and his wife, Judith, who insured it and apparently tried to protect Joseph from financial liability.
The suit could open a new legal route around California's restrictive liability laws.
Legal experts think the Blacks stand a chance.
Because California doesn't permit lawsuits for providing alcohol in such cases, lawyers are "quite reasonably" asserting other grounds to bring their cases within conventional liability concepts, says Alan Brownstein, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. In essence, Brownstein says, the Blacks are contending that "there's another act of negligence that can be the basis of this lawsuit -- providing the vehicle."
The defense argued in Sonoma Superior Court that nothing the bar owners or wife allegedly did could be seen as an illegal act, even if all of it were proved in a trial.
But Judge Knoel Owen ruled in July that the case could proceed to the evidence-gathering stage, after which bare-bones factual allegations will be fleshed out or revised.
In separate criminal proceedings, Joseph Lynchard has been charged with second-degree murder in Kathryn Black's death. He's in jail awaiting a September trial on those charges.
According to the civil suit filed on behalf of Kathryn Black's husband, Hugh, and daughter Ashley, 7, Eddie Lynchard purchased a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup and transferred the title to Joseph, despite his brother's history of drunken driving. The police report shows Joseph Lynchard's blood alcohol was triple the legal limit after the fatal accident.
Judith Lynchard paid the truck insurance, the suit says. After her husband was convicted of driving under the influence in 2002 -- one of six prior DUI convictions -- she also put the couple's joint assets into her name. That made it possible, the suit alleges, for Joseph Lynchard to continue drinking and driving without jeopardizing their financial security.
Just why relatives purchased and insured the truck, and whether Joseph Lynchard wouldn't have been driving otherwise, are open questions.
According to defense attorney Mark Mittelman, Joseph Lynchard, then 72, had a valid driver's license at the time of the accident -- a factor that should weigh in the defendants' favor. Statements made on behalf of the defense also suggest a dispute over where Kathryn Black was standing when she stopped her bicycle on or near the side of the road on that rainy day in March 2005. The answer could affect apportionment of liability.
Owen's ruling means only that he considers the case theoretically plausible.
The suit makes novel use of traditional legal theories, such as civil conspiracy and "negligent entrustment" -- which commonly covers actions such as handing car keys to a person who's intoxicated or lending a loaded gun to someone who's deranged.
In about 40 states, serving alcohol to an obviously drunken driver makes the server civilly liable if the driver causes damage or injury. The California Legislature in 1978 eliminated such liability except for serving an obviously intoxicated minor. In all other cases, the Legislature declared, injuries inflicted by an intoxicated person are caused by drinking alcohol, not furnishing it.
"My client, although he is Mr. Lynchard's brother, is not his keeper," says Mittelman, who represents Eddie Lynchard. "Certainly my client can't be charged with making sure his brother walks a straight line. This man is an adult."
Hugh Black countered: "They all knew (Joseph Lynchard's) pattern. They all knew his history. They all knew he was getting in a vehicle drunk, and they just turned a blind eye. It's a sin."
The building contractor spoke movingly of the wife whose death he called ironic. "She had an alcohol issue herself," he said, but had been sober for a decade. She used to be a bartender, and she looked out after customers who drank too much, driving them home or calling a cab.
Whether the case will go to trial remains to be seen. The defense will have other chances to seek dismissal.
Julie Davies, who teaches tort and injury law at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, said that a moral duty to intervene isn't the same as a legal duty. The case may turn on whether the defendants are viewed as having created a risk, or whether they're seen as passive bystanders, she said.
Davies also said overriding public policy considerations could influence the courts in a case such as this: If providing a truck can create a risk, could companies be held liable for lending money to high-risk individuals to buy cars? Could parents be held liable for buying cars for their teenagers? Judges would be reluctant to open the door to a broad expansion of liability.
But other policy considerations could influence the outcome in the Blacks' favor, Davies said. For example, would holding Lynchard family members liable prevent future deaths and injuries?
Advocates such as Paula Birdsong, executive director of California Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say that giving victims a way to sue family members who assist drunken drivers could help lower a rising tide of DUI incidents. Mittelman said it would invite a potential deluge of legal claims based on everyday lawful behavior.
Legal documents filed on behalf of Judith Lynchard, whose lawyers refused to be interviewed, ask whether wives might be sued for preparing meals. Patrick Emery, the Blacks' lawyer, discounts such speculation. If the Blacks win, he said, copycat suits would be allowed only in similarly "rare cases," with "extreme facts."
Emery has argued in court papers that the defendants "could be certain" Joseph Lynchard would drive the vehicle while he was intoxicated "because they regularly supplied him with alcohol and then watched him drive away in the car that they gave him. In fact, (they) did so on the day Joseph Lynchard killed Kathryn Lynn Black."
In the closest California precedent, the state Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled in 1988 in favor of the defendants, a couple who gave a car as a wedding gift to their son-in-law, a habitual drunken driver who struck and killed a woman. But the court said the couple could have been held liable if the plaintiff had provided evidence that the driver had no other access to a vehicle.
Emery said Joseph Lynchard "typically" drove the pickup. Mittelman says that's not enough, and he expects to show that other vehicles were available.
A 1980 ruling from the same appellate court upheld a verdict against a father who entrusted his truck to his son, knowing the son had three prior accidents. He struck and killed a woman while pulling out of a driveway.
Alcohol was not an issue in the successful suit by the victim's children, however, and several California courts have shot down cases that they viewed as attempts to circumvent the state's no-liability law where alcohol is involved.
About the writer:
The Bee's Claire Cooper can be reached at (415) 551-7701 or [email protected].
SANTA ROSA -- Unlike most states, California for many years has prohibited civil suits against people who serve drunks who become killers on the road.
So, after Joseph Lynchard left his brother's bar and ran his pickup into Kathryn Lynn Black, 43, killing her, the Black family of Santa Rosa tried something different.
Black's husband and daughter are suing the people who, they say, facilitated Lynchard's drunken driving and conspired to put him behind the wheel: his brother Eddie, who bought the pickup, and his wife, Judith, who insured it and apparently tried to protect Joseph from financial liability.
The suit could open a new legal route around California's restrictive liability laws.
Legal experts think the Blacks stand a chance.
Because California doesn't permit lawsuits for providing alcohol in such cases, lawyers are "quite reasonably" asserting other grounds to bring their cases within conventional liability concepts, says Alan Brownstein, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. In essence, Brownstein says, the Blacks are contending that "there's another act of negligence that can be the basis of this lawsuit -- providing the vehicle."
The defense argued in Sonoma Superior Court that nothing the bar owners or wife allegedly did could be seen as an illegal act, even if all of it were proved in a trial.
But Judge Knoel Owen ruled in July that the case could proceed to the evidence-gathering stage, after which bare-bones factual allegations will be fleshed out or revised.
In separate criminal proceedings, Joseph Lynchard has been charged with second-degree murder in Kathryn Black's death. He's in jail awaiting a September trial on those charges.
According to the civil suit filed on behalf of Kathryn Black's husband, Hugh, and daughter Ashley, 7, Eddie Lynchard purchased a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup and transferred the title to Joseph, despite his brother's history of drunken driving. The police report shows Joseph Lynchard's blood alcohol was triple the legal limit after the fatal accident.
Judith Lynchard paid the truck insurance, the suit says. After her husband was convicted of driving under the influence in 2002 -- one of six prior DUI convictions -- she also put the couple's joint assets into her name. That made it possible, the suit alleges, for Joseph Lynchard to continue drinking and driving without jeopardizing their financial security.
Just why relatives purchased and insured the truck, and whether Joseph Lynchard wouldn't have been driving otherwise, are open questions.
According to defense attorney Mark Mittelman, Joseph Lynchard, then 72, had a valid driver's license at the time of the accident -- a factor that should weigh in the defendants' favor. Statements made on behalf of the defense also suggest a dispute over where Kathryn Black was standing when she stopped her bicycle on or near the side of the road on that rainy day in March 2005. The answer could affect apportionment of liability.
Owen's ruling means only that he considers the case theoretically plausible.
The suit makes novel use of traditional legal theories, such as civil conspiracy and "negligent entrustment" -- which commonly covers actions such as handing car keys to a person who's intoxicated or lending a loaded gun to someone who's deranged.
In about 40 states, serving alcohol to an obviously drunken driver makes the server civilly liable if the driver causes damage or injury. The California Legislature in 1978 eliminated such liability except for serving an obviously intoxicated minor. In all other cases, the Legislature declared, injuries inflicted by an intoxicated person are caused by drinking alcohol, not furnishing it.
"My client, although he is Mr. Lynchard's brother, is not his keeper," says Mittelman, who represents Eddie Lynchard. "Certainly my client can't be charged with making sure his brother walks a straight line. This man is an adult."
Hugh Black countered: "They all knew (Joseph Lynchard's) pattern. They all knew his history. They all knew he was getting in a vehicle drunk, and they just turned a blind eye. It's a sin."
The building contractor spoke movingly of the wife whose death he called ironic. "She had an alcohol issue herself," he said, but had been sober for a decade. She used to be a bartender, and she looked out after customers who drank too much, driving them home or calling a cab.
Whether the case will go to trial remains to be seen. The defense will have other chances to seek dismissal.
Julie Davies, who teaches tort and injury law at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, said that a moral duty to intervene isn't the same as a legal duty. The case may turn on whether the defendants are viewed as having created a risk, or whether they're seen as passive bystanders, she said.
Davies also said overriding public policy considerations could influence the courts in a case such as this: If providing a truck can create a risk, could companies be held liable for lending money to high-risk individuals to buy cars? Could parents be held liable for buying cars for their teenagers? Judges would be reluctant to open the door to a broad expansion of liability.
But other policy considerations could influence the outcome in the Blacks' favor, Davies said. For example, would holding Lynchard family members liable prevent future deaths and injuries?
Advocates such as Paula Birdsong, executive director of California Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say that giving victims a way to sue family members who assist drunken drivers could help lower a rising tide of DUI incidents. Mittelman said it would invite a potential deluge of legal claims based on everyday lawful behavior.
Legal documents filed on behalf of Judith Lynchard, whose lawyers refused to be interviewed, ask whether wives might be sued for preparing meals. Patrick Emery, the Blacks' lawyer, discounts such speculation. If the Blacks win, he said, copycat suits would be allowed only in similarly "rare cases," with "extreme facts."
Emery has argued in court papers that the defendants "could be certain" Joseph Lynchard would drive the vehicle while he was intoxicated "because they regularly supplied him with alcohol and then watched him drive away in the car that they gave him. In fact, (they) did so on the day Joseph Lynchard killed Kathryn Lynn Black."
In the closest California precedent, the state Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled in 1988 in favor of the defendants, a couple who gave a car as a wedding gift to their son-in-law, a habitual drunken driver who struck and killed a woman. But the court said the couple could have been held liable if the plaintiff had provided evidence that the driver had no other access to a vehicle.
Emery said Joseph Lynchard "typically" drove the pickup. Mittelman says that's not enough, and he expects to show that other vehicles were available.
A 1980 ruling from the same appellate court upheld a verdict against a father who entrusted his truck to his son, knowing the son had three prior accidents. He struck and killed a woman while pulling out of a driveway.
Alcohol was not an issue in the successful suit by the victim's children, however, and several California courts have shot down cases that they viewed as attempts to circumvent the state's no-liability law where alcohol is involved.
About the writer:
The Bee's Claire Cooper can be reached at (415) 551-7701 or [email protected].
So, after Joseph Lynchard left his brother's bar and ran his pickup into Kathryn Lynn Black, 43, killing her, the Black family of Santa Rosa tried something different.
Black's husband and daughter are suing the people who, they say, facilitated Lynchard's drunken driving and conspired to put him behind the wheel: his brother Eddie, who bought the pickup, and his wife, Judith, who insured it and apparently tried to protect Joseph from financial liability.
The suit could open a new legal route around California's restrictive liability laws.
Legal experts think the Blacks stand a chance.
Because California doesn't permit lawsuits for providing alcohol in such cases, lawyers are "quite reasonably" asserting other grounds to bring their cases within conventional liability concepts, says Alan Brownstein, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. In essence, Brownstein says, the Blacks are contending that "there's another act of negligence that can be the basis of this lawsuit -- providing the vehicle."
The defense argued in Sonoma Superior Court that nothing the bar owners or wife allegedly did could be seen as an illegal act, even if all of it were proved in a trial.
But Judge Knoel Owen ruled in July that the case could proceed to the evidence-gathering stage, after which bare-bones factual allegations will be fleshed out or revised.
In separate criminal proceedings, Joseph Lynchard has been charged with second-degree murder in Kathryn Black's death. He's in jail awaiting a September trial on those charges.
According to the civil suit filed on behalf of Kathryn Black's husband, Hugh, and daughter Ashley, 7, Eddie Lynchard purchased a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup and transferred the title to Joseph, despite his brother's history of drunken driving. The police report shows Joseph Lynchard's blood alcohol was triple the legal limit after the fatal accident.
Judith Lynchard paid the truck insurance, the suit says. After her husband was convicted of driving under the influence in 2002 -- one of six prior DUI convictions -- she also put the couple's joint assets into her name. That made it possible, the suit alleges, for Joseph Lynchard to continue drinking and driving without jeopardizing their financial security.
Just why relatives purchased and insured the truck, and whether Joseph Lynchard wouldn't have been driving otherwise, are open questions.
According to defense attorney Mark Mittelman, Joseph Lynchard, then 72, had a valid driver's license at the time of the accident -- a factor that should weigh in the defendants' favor. Statements made on behalf of the defense also suggest a dispute over where Kathryn Black was standing when she stopped her bicycle on or near the side of the road on that rainy day in March 2005. The answer could affect apportionment of liability.
Owen's ruling means only that he considers the case theoretically plausible.
The suit makes novel use of traditional legal theories, such as civil conspiracy and "negligent entrustment" -- which commonly covers actions such as handing car keys to a person who's intoxicated or lending a loaded gun to someone who's deranged.
In about 40 states, serving alcohol to an obviously drunken driver makes the server civilly liable if the driver causes damage or injury. The California Legislature in 1978 eliminated such liability except for serving an obviously intoxicated minor. In all other cases, the Legislature declared, injuries inflicted by an intoxicated person are caused by drinking alcohol, not furnishing it.
"My client, although he is Mr. Lynchard's brother, is not his keeper," says Mittelman, who represents Eddie Lynchard. "Certainly my client can't be charged with making sure his brother walks a straight line. This man is an adult."
Hugh Black countered: "They all knew (Joseph Lynchard's) pattern. They all knew his history. They all knew he was getting in a vehicle drunk, and they just turned a blind eye. It's a sin."
The building contractor spoke movingly of the wife whose death he called ironic. "She had an alcohol issue herself," he said, but had been sober for a decade. She used to be a bartender, and she looked out after customers who drank too much, driving them home or calling a cab.
Whether the case will go to trial remains to be seen. The defense will have other chances to seek dismissal.
Julie Davies, who teaches tort and injury law at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, said that a moral duty to intervene isn't the same as a legal duty. The case may turn on whether the defendants are viewed as having created a risk, or whether they're seen as passive bystanders, she said.
Davies also said overriding public policy considerations could influence the courts in a case such as this: If providing a truck can create a risk, could companies be held liable for lending money to high-risk individuals to buy cars? Could parents be held liable for buying cars for their teenagers? Judges would be reluctant to open the door to a broad expansion of liability.
But other policy considerations could influence the outcome in the Blacks' favor, Davies said. For example, would holding Lynchard family members liable prevent future deaths and injuries?
Advocates such as Paula Birdsong, executive director of California Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say that giving victims a way to sue family members who assist drunken drivers could help lower a rising tide of DUI incidents. Mittelman said it would invite a potential deluge of legal claims based on everyday lawful behavior.
Legal documents filed on behalf of Judith Lynchard, whose lawyers refused to be interviewed, ask whether wives might be sued for preparing meals. Patrick Emery, the Blacks' lawyer, discounts such speculation. If the Blacks win, he said, copycat suits would be allowed only in similarly "rare cases," with "extreme facts."
Emery has argued in court papers that the defendants "could be certain" Joseph Lynchard would drive the vehicle while he was intoxicated "because they regularly supplied him with alcohol and then watched him drive away in the car that they gave him. In fact, (they) did so on the day Joseph Lynchard killed Kathryn Lynn Black."
In the closest California precedent, the state Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled in 1988 in favor of the defendants, a couple who gave a car as a wedding gift to their son-in-law, a habitual drunken driver who struck and killed a woman. But the court said the couple could have been held liable if the plaintiff had provided evidence that the driver had no other access to a vehicle.
Emery said Joseph Lynchard "typically" drove the pickup. Mittelman says that's not enough, and he expects to show that other vehicles were available.
A 1980 ruling from the same appellate court upheld a verdict against a father who entrusted his truck to his son, knowing the son had three prior accidents. He struck and killed a woman while pulling out of a driveway.
Alcohol was not an issue in the successful suit by the victim's children, however, and several California courts have shot down cases that they viewed as attempts to circumvent the state's no-liability law where alcohol is involved.
About the writer:
The Bee's Claire Cooper can be reached at (415) 551-7701 or [email protected].
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