bigsmooth, that's exactly what I thought!
Looks like the answer depends on the state. But it should be clear that in these times where knife manufacturers get sued because there is no warning label on the knife ("Caution: edges are sharp"
that it's likely that a party host might find him/herself dragged into court - especially if the plaintiff sees a big potential payoff.
This is from
the Insurance Information Institute...
A social host's responsibility for the actions of drunk guests was addressed in a 1984 New Jersey State Supreme Court ruling that a private host serving liquor could be held liable for a drunk guest's subsequent motor vehicle accident. That ruling was tempered by a 1988 law limiting social host liability and may be modified by a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that specifically applies to commercial servers. In at least 21 states, statutory language may be read to include noncommercial servers, sometimes on a limited basis according to the USDOT. In 10 other states, liability has been established by common law. However, courts in some states have ruled specifically that social hosts are not liable and that this is a matter of public policy which should be decided by the legislature. In at least three states -- Missouri, Washington and Colorado -- courts have decided that social hosts cannot be treated under the law the same way as people who sell drinks for a living.
Most of the liquor liability cases heard in state appeals courts in the 1990s limited social host liability. In Texas, the Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that the drinker, not the social host, is primarily responsible for the driver's behavior. Supreme courts in only four states have imposed liability on social hosts and in two of those states -- California and Iowa -- laws were later passed that abolished court-imposed social host liability. In Michigan, social hosts of a party where minors consumed alcohol are not liable for criminal acts of their guests other than alcohol-related automobile accidents. An earlier case held social hosts liable for the actions of minors, but an appellate court said that the earlier ruling was made in the context of alcohol-related automobile accidents.
More recently, in 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court rejected an appeal in a case that sought to make property owners liable for deaths or injuries resulting from unauthorized drinking on their property. The ruling stated that social host liability will not apply if the land owners are neither present nor furnish alcohol.
A Massachusetts Appeals Court decision in late 1995 expanded social host liability in that state. The court said that bar patrons who "pick up the tab" can be held liable if the person for whom they buy drinks injures others by negligently operating a motor vehicle. The case, the only expansion of the state's 1986 social host liability doctrine and the first appellate decision to uphold it, concerned an uncle who paid for his nephew's drinks at a bar and then allowed him to drive home.
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