Albany, New York (NewYorkInjuryNews.com) — All too often, attorneys hear stories about kids partying and drinking and then getting into a car with predictable tragic results. But what about if you thought you could control the situation by allowing them to drink at your house where you could supervise them.
The bottom line is that you are exposing yourself to all sorts of liabilities if you do. You can’t control everything and as we all know with teenagers things can get out of control real fast. With phones, text messaging, blackberries and e-mail, in this age of information technology kids can spread word about a party faster than wildfire.
The first thing you should know is that there are criminal penalties attached for serving alcohol to underage teenagers. Depending on where you live, aside from the embarrassment and humiliation of having your picture on the front page of the newspaper, you could end up in jail.
Under New York State law if you serve alcohol to teenagers you could be civilly liable if they hurt themselves or someone else. That means you could be sued for money damages and therefore whatever you have managed to save or accumulate could be sold or collected to satisfy a judgment. It is important to make sure you either have a homeowners insurance policy, of if you are renting, a tenant’s policy with sufficient policy limits so that you are protected not just for alcohol related injuries but also in the event of any mishap on your property. It is no defense to these cases that you did not think the teenager was drunk. You are on the hook. About your only defense to these kinds of cases is that it happened while you were not home and without your knowledge.
In any event, it is better to just not be involved in these cases by never letting it happen and by making sure your kids understand the life long effect on themselves or someone else because of a lapse in judgment.
Matters of law can be confusing to the average person–especially when it comes to figuring out liability. If you would like a question about New York premises liability, fill out the form below and a member of our panel comprising of leading New York premises liability lawyers can offer legal answers.
Contributor: Vito Cannavo – Trial Lawyer handling premises and municipal liability and related litigation Leading New York City Personal Injury lawyer.