Have you ever been to the drunk tank at the gas station?

The Tennessee Supreme Court has handed down a doozie of a decision. And, if it doesn't end up casting all of humanity as the guilty party in any further case from this point forward regardless of the details of the case, then the system of jurisprudence in Tennessee just isn't paying attention. It certainly is a tidy sort of final solution that should make every future case rather easy to adjudicate, I have to say. I mean, from this point forward, all any judge in Tennessee has to do is bang a gavel and say "Yer all guilty" and then retreat back to his chambers to watch the latest episode of "The People's Court."
The Details
Gary L. West and Michell B. Richardson suffered severe injuries in July 2000 when their vehicle was struck head-on by a car driven by Brian Lee Tarver who was subsequently determined to be driving drunk.Before he got into this accident, however, Mr. Tarver gassed up his vehicle at a nearby Exxon station. Subsequently, attorneys Gregory F. Coleman and Michael A. Myers filed a lawsuit in Knox County Circuit Court, claiming that Tarver's car would have run out of gas before the collision but for the $3 worth of gas he bought at the Exxon station.They also presented the testimony that the Exxon station employees knew that Tarver was drunk. Upon entering the station, Tarver was abusive to the employees and unmindful of the other customers. He also tried to buy beer which the Exxon employees refused to sell him. So, he put $3 of gas in the tank and left the station.A professor from the University of Tennessee determined that Tarver's vehicle would have run out of gas before reaching the site of the accident if the Exxon station had refused to sell him the gasoline.
The Decision
Tennessee Supreme Court Justice William M. Barker wrote in the decision that "A safer alternative was readily available and easily feasible — simply refusing to sell gasoline to an obviously intoxicated driver."Originally, the case against the Exxon station was thrown out by a lower court, a decision that prompted attorneys Coleman and Myers to appeal the case to the State Supreme Court. Granted, the Supreme Court decision did not directly state that the Exxon employees were to be held culpable, as it simply reverses the lower court's dismissal of the case. But this decision sure seems to place the onus on the gas station employees heads, its safe to say.
The Result
As with the empty logic of blaming gun manufactures for violence perpetrated with guns we now have a gas station liable for what people do with the gas it sells. Using that logic we can extend this sphere of "guilt" to include the car manufacture, the suppliers of the car manufacture, the trucking firms that transport the gasoline and the support companies that the trucking firms utilize in their every day efforts. We may as well indict anyone who has ever bought a car keeping the entire circle revolving. And since we are all associated with these business decisions and efforts we are, in the end, all "guilty" for Brian Lee Tarver's fateful car accident.The Supreme Court of Tennessee has basically said that we are all, the entire lot of us, guilty as sin.
Preventative

Measures?So, with this senseless decision we must consider what has to be done to avoid further liability. After all, decisions by a Supreme Court have consequences that ripple down to every last citizen.

The only solutions are as follows:

• Every gas station in Tennessee will have to give breathalyzer tests before allowing a customer to pump gasoline
  
• Every gas station employee will have to take odometer readings and calculate the amount of gas sold to every customer so a record of the distance traveled is recorded
  
• Every gas station employee will have to attend medical classes to determine "sobriety" and learn the medical results of alcohol consumption
  
• Every gas station attendant will have to regularly keep up on such training with local law enforcement agenciesThere. Now that we have made the logical moves to comply with our

Tennessee State Supreme Court's new ruling we can assume that the cost for a gallon of gasoline will cost the average Volunteer State citizen something like $20 per gallon since "compliance" will have to be funded somehow. It looks like "drunkenness" will replace "terrorism" as the chief cause for high gas prices in Tennessee, for sure. And you may thank the State Supreme Court.There is only one thing missing from the serving of justice in this case, though. When do we get to blaming the drunk driver for driving drunk? It makes one wonder if Justice Barker was imbibing a bit o' the moonshine his own exalted self because, like a drunken marksman, he shot at about every thing but the target.I guess, though, its easier to just blame everyone instead of taking the time to decide who is really at fault. It should make court proceedings go ever so much faster in Tennessee.

"Yer ALL guilty! Now leave my court. I have a show to catch."

Warner Todd HustonAugust 23, 2005http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/huston/050823