Understanding Missouri’s over-serving law after search for missing MU student in Nashville sparks concerns

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Under Missouri law, businesses, such as bars and restaurants are protected from being held liable for a person becoming overly-intoxicated after drinking at their establishment.

Managing Partner of Morgan and Morgan's St. Louis Christopher Hinckley said the law does not protect an individual from voluntarily drinking too much and injuring themselves.

"Generally, if a person goes and gets intoxicated voluntarily at an establishment... they go out and get hurt themselves, they generally cannot hold the establishment responsible," Hinckley said.

The law does allow for a business to potentially be held liable if the person injures themselves, if they are under 21.

The law also allows for a business to be held responsible if another person is injured as a result of a person being over served, according Hinckley and Charlie Sticklen. Those two instances include if a person is being served underage or if a person was visibly intoxicated, but still served.

Charlie Sticklen, a partner at Sticklen & Sticklen in Columbia said it would have to be proven without a doubt that the individual was intoxicated.

"We're talking about folks who are stumbling... clearly have lost their coordination," Sticklen said. "Not just over the legal limit but undeniably to the point where they cant, their motor skills are impaired."

According to Sticklen, the law only applies to establishments whose intended purpose is for alcohol to be consumed on its premises. Hinckley also noted the law does not state that the business is required to ensure the individual safely returns to their home, or where they're staying for the night.

Legally, Hinckley said the business is only required to stop serving them.

Riley Strain is a University of Missouri student who went missing in Nashville. Some concerns have risen about whether he was overserved at a Nashville bar, according to a report from CNN.

Haleigh Harrold is the Executive Director of the Safe Bar Network, a national non-profit that partners with bars and venues across the county to ensure safety. The organization worked with Columbia bars in 2022 to assist in training bartenders to spot safety.

Harrold said the organization also works to ensure bartenders know the signs a person has drank too much.

Harrold said it works to identify certain trends in each bar and venue and said it differs from place to place. However, the organization focuses on three distinct training methods intended for bartenders to know a person is intoxicated.

Those include training bartenders to test the individual's boundaries, looking for people blaming their behavior on "just trying to have a good time" and paying attention to whether or not a person can pick up on social cues.

"So, getting in someone's personal space or making sexual jokes or comments, grabbing people, touching people, getting too personal," Harrold said.

In the event that an individual has gone to multiple businesses in one night drinking, Hinckley said there is the possibility of a claim against multiple establishments. However, he said the liability would likely fall on the final business the person went to.

"I think in that scenario, generally you're going to have more luck against the establishment that served the last because obviously the other establishments cut that person off, or they were able to make it somewhere else without injury," Hinckley said.

Tennessee's law states that an individual must prove that the selling of alcohol was the proximate cause of the victim's injury or death, and that the person was a minor or visibly drunk in order for a business to be held responsible.

It also states that a business cannot be held liable if a customer was not directly served by staff at the business.