A Baltimore restaurant is not liable for injuries suffered by guests when an old-fashioned Ukrainian wedding reception turned into an old-fashioned brawl, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals has ruled.

Edward Veytsman and his wife, who were dining at the New York Palace with another couple, were assaulted in August 2001 by patrons attending the wedding reception. The restaurant had provided alcohol for the reception and some guests had brought their own vodka with them.

The brawl began after one of the Veytsmans' party, Svetlana Barmak, had an altercation in the women's restroom with the bride's sister. Things escalated from there, with Edward Veytsman suffering such a severe injury to one of his eyes that it had to be surgically removed.

In the typical “dram shop” case, intoxicated persons injure an innocent third party or themselves outside the place where they got drunk. The Veytsmans, however, sued the New York Palace for failing to protect them from other patrons on the premises.

“We have not found a Maryland case that is factually analogous to this one, in which a patron of a restaurant or tavern sued the establishment for negligence after he was injured by the violence of another patron inside the establishment,” the appeals court observed.

A trial judge granted the New York Palace's motion for judgment as a matter of law. And the appeals court affirmed, finding the assault was not foreseeable to the restaurant owners.

“[T]here is no evidence allowing a reasonable inference that the New York Palace was made aware of the potential for, to use the Veytsmans’ term, 'a volatile situation' until the actual assault began,” the opinion said.

Allowing guests to bring their own booze was a violation of Maryland liquor law. But Court of Special Appeals Judge Sally D. Adkins found no evidence that the restaurant's permissiveness “by itself, created an unreasonable risk of physical harm to the Veytsmans.”

By Matthew Heller
9/12/06