Case information

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Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Torts - Negligence - Social host liability - Whether a duty of care is owed by social hosts to person injured by the negligence of an impaired driver who had consumed alcohol at hosts’ residence - Whether there are policy grounds to limit or negate such duty - Whether a social host duty of care and the resulting tort are novel - Whether the appellate court erred by substituting its findings of fact and mixed findings of fact and law for the findings of the trial judge absent a finding of palpable and overriding error.

In the early morning of January 1, 1999, the southbound vehicle in which 18 year old Zoe Childs was a passenger was hit head on by a vehicle coming northbound which had veered into the wrong lane. One of the occupants of the southbound vehicle was killed and the other three were seriously injured. Zoe Childs’ spine was severed and she is now a paraplegic. All three occupants of the northbound vehicle were also injured. The 39 year old driver, Respondent Desmond Desormeaux, had a blood alcohol concentration of 183 mg/100ml. He was charged with a number of offences arising out of the incident and received a ten year sentence.

Shortly before the accident, the Respondent Desormeaux had been at a bring your own alcohol party combined with a pot luck dinner hosted by the Respondents Julie Zimmerman and Dwight Courrier. Desormeaux and Courrier had known each other since they were teenagers and had worked together and shared accommodation for a time. Julie Zimmerman was Dwight Courrier’s partner and knew Desormeaux through that connection. Desormeaux drove to the party with his girlfriend and a friend in an uninsured vehicle. He, Ray Sauvé and Maureen O’Brien, brought a case of 24 beers, a bottle of Amaretto and wine to the party. There was evidence that Sauvé and O’Brien were already intoxicated upon arriving at the party. By his own assessment, the Respondent Desormeaux is an alcoholic and had been for 20 years preceding the accident. He was convicted in 1991 for impaired driving, in 1994 again for impaired driving, and in 1996 for driving while disqualified.

The Appellants brought an action in damages against the Respondents, raising the issue of whether the hosts of the social gathering should be found partially responsible for the injuries of the Appellant Zoe Childs. Counsel for the parties agreed that the issues of liability and damages would be bifurcated and that the issue of liability would be tried first. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice held Desormeaux liable for the injuries to Zoe Childs and the other plaintiffs. That aspect of the trial decision was not appealed. The Court went on to find that, if the social hosts were also liable, it would apportion liability between the defendants as 85% to Desormeaux and 15% to Courrier and Zimmerman. All parties agreed that as Desormeaux appeared to have no assets, the rules of joint and several liability would make the social hosts effectively assume the full burden of a damage award. The Ontario Superior Court went on to find that although the social hosts owed a duty of care in this case, there were public policy reasons to prevent a finding of liability by social hosts.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal, however it did so on the basis that the social hosts in this case owed no duty of care. It did not foreclose the possibility that social hosts might owe a duty of care in other circumstances, and indicated that in their view public policy reasons might not preclude a finding of liability in such cases.