There's a Fine Line Between Merriment and Misery

It may be the season to be jolly, but if that merriment involves your staff consuming alcohol at a company party, you will have to be extra careful that they don't drink and drive. It's part of your legal duty to protect your workers, both on the job and at company functions.

A Canadian case from December 1994 shows the kind of trouble a company can find itself embroiled in when someone with a snoot full gets behind the wheel.

Linda Hunt, a Sutton Group real estate company secretary in Ontario, attended a company office party during working hours and consumed an unknown amount of alcohol from an unsupervised bar. Already significantly impaired by that alcohol, she accompanied several other workers to a local pub, where she consumed a couple more drinks and then started driving home in freezing rain.

Hunt lost control of her vehicle on a hill and it crossed the centerline and collided with a pick-up truck, causing her to suffer serious head and bone injuries.

What happened next could and should scare you. While Hunt freely acknowledged that she deserved most of the blame in the accident, she successfully sued her employer, claiming that by running an unsupervised bar at the party, the company had played a part in the accident!

The court agreed, with the trial judge saying that her employer should have insisted on having her keys so she could not drive home. The judge said the company could have called the woman's husband to drive her home or she could have taken a cab.

The result: The real estate company was ordered to pay Hunt $300,000 in damages.

Although the Ontario Court of Appeal reversed that decision in August 2002, it was mostly on the grounds that the judge wrongly had dismissed the jury. It stated that a new trial should be held to determine Sutton Group's responsibility in the crash.

According to the Supreme Court of Canada, employers who host parties where alcohol is served must:
• monitor guests' alcohol consumption,
• identify guests who might be intoxicated and,
• ensure intoxicated guests do not drive.

The last point can't be emphasized enough. Don't accept a person's argument that he or she is "fine" to drive. If that person insists, tell him that you are calling the police and that if he really believes he's not impaired, he should have nothing to fear from that threat.

If you are planning a staff party, keep these tips in mind:
• Never have an unsupervised bar where workers can help themselves to as much alcohol as they like.
• Instead, issue employees a limited number of non-transferable drink tickets. Serve a selection of non-alcoholic drinks too.
• Make food available, because alcohol consumed on an empty stomach hits a person far harder. However, don't serve salty foods because salt makes people drink more.
• Close the bar early and serve coffee and soft drinks before people leave.
• Watch workers for signs of impairment and insist that taxis be taken at company expense.
• Tell you workers in the days leading up to the party that there is zero tolerance toward drinking and driving.
• If all this seems like more trouble than it's worth there is a solution: don't serve alcohol at your staff function.