Alan Kopit, Lawyers.com Legal Editor
Hosting a party at home involves more than planning a menu. A survey released today reveals that parties in homes and offices may result in trips to the courtroom for some.
Commissioned by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com and conducted by Harris Interactive®, the survey assessed U.S. adults' vulnerability to common legal pitfalls during the holiday season.
Nearly one in four (24%) adults do not know that a party host who serves alcohol to a clearly drunk guest may be legally responsible if that person goes on to hurt or kill someone in a car accident. Yet one in five (20%) adults will host or co-host a holiday party this year at which alcohol will be served.
"Most states have "social host" laws, which hold party hosts liable in certain situations if their guests who drink cause serious car crashes," said Alan Kopit, legal editor of lawyers.com.
"Such hosts may unwittingly put themselves in legal hot water by not carefully monitoring their guests' intoxication levels, particularly when they get in their cars. A few precautionary minutes when planning parties can save the time, money and the heartache of the legal ramifications of a guest's crash." Kopit added.
Check Your Coat, But Not Your Professionalism, at This Year's Office Party
Holiday office parties pose additional legal risks, the survey also uncovered. Twenty-nine percent of adults have experienced or observed sexual advances between people who work together at such gatherings, more than at any other work event during the rest of the year, including those that occur after-hours or on weekends or at the office during the work day.
"An office party can be the site of a sexual harassment situation just as much as the office," said Kopit. "Many people view an office holiday party as a fun, carefree gathering of colleagues, during which normal professional expectations are relaxed. In fact, from a legal perspective, just the opposite is true."
According to Kopit, the responsibility to ensure legal safety at holiday parties falls under the purview of business owners. According to the survey, however, many businesses regularly fail to take necessary precautions. Just 16 percent of Americans surveyed say that policy and behavior expectations, including those involving sexual overtures among colleagues, have ever been distributed prior to any holiday office party they attended.
Moreover, only 12 percent have been at a holiday office party at which car keys were collected and returned only to sober drivers. Less than one in three (30 percent) have gone to a holiday office party at which taxi or designated driver service was provided to any employee who needed it.
"There's no reason a business shouldn't celebrate with its employees at the end of the year," said Kopit. "But anyone responsible for such an event should make sure the business, and those attending, are legally safe. Letting everyone attending explicitly know what behavior is prohibited - including that which is flirtatious or sexual - can help remove sexual harassment problems."
"Keeping employees from driving after drinking at the party reduces potential liability of the business, and helps ensure guests stay safe and healthy to enjoy the New Year," Kopit added. "If a business owner is in doubt about the proper procedures to put in place at their office party, he or she should discuss their options with an attorney."
Alan Kopit is the legal editor of lawyers.com and partner at the Cleveland-based law firm Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP. He has contributed columns to lawyers.com, focusing on consumer and small business legal issues and his media appearances include MSNBC, CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg Television, WEWS-TV Cleveland (ABC), WKYC-TV Cleveland (NBC), WKBC-TV Houston (NBC), Bloomberg Radio, and legal contributor to NBC-TV's Today show. For more information about Alan Kopit, please see his biography.
Harris Interactive® conducted the telephone survey on behalf of LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com between November 19 and 22, 2004 among a nationally representative sample of 1,051 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, of whom 519 were men and 532 were women. Figures for age, gender, geographic region, and race were weighted where necessary to align with population proportions. In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results for the overall sample have a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and that the results for the individual samples of men and women have a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com is the leading lawyer directory on the Web, providing access to more than 440,000 attorneys and law firms nationwide. More than one million searches per month are conducted at lawyers.com by consumers and business people in search of the right lawyer for their needs.