In Nevada, alcohol vendors (“dram shops”) are not civilly liable for any injuries or damages if a customer they serve gets into an intoxication-induced accident, such as a DUI. It does not matter if the customer is under 21 or whether the merchant was a bar, restaurant, package store, or casino.1
Nevada laws are stricter for “social hosts,” who are ordinary people who serve alcohol to friends or other guests. If they knowingly give alcohol to a person under 21 – or let a person under 21 drink alcohol on their property – then they are liable for any injuries that an underage person causes while intoxicated.2
Therefore, if you are injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver in Nevada, you have no grounds to sue whoever served them alcohol with one exception: If the driver was under 21, and they were knowingly given alcohol by a “social host” and not a bar or similar establishment, you can sue the social host.
Still, Nevada tries to deter underage drinking by making it a misdemeanor for alcohol vendors or social hosts to knowingly supply alcohol to people under 21. Furnishing alcohol to an under-21 person is a crime whether they get into an accident or not. Misdemeanors carry up to six months in jail and/or $1,000.3
Nevada Dram Shop Laws
Many of the DUI crashes and other alcohol-fueled accidents I see involve people who recently drank at a bar or restaurant. However, Nevada does not have dram shop laws to hold these establishments responsible.
This means any victims injured in these accidents cannot recover money from the alcohol vendor(s) that served the alcohol. It does not matter:
- the age of the customer who caused the accident, even if they were under 21; or
- how much time elapsed between the customer being at the alcohol vendor and getting into the accident.4
Example: Tom uses a fake ID to get into a Las Vegas bar, where he downs six beers. Then in the bar’s parking lot, he drunkenly backs into a pedestrian. The pedestrian can sue Tom for personal injury but not the bar because Nevada’s lack of a dram shop law immunizes it from civil liability. It makes no difference that Tom was underage or that the crash occurred right outside the bar.
Considering Nevada is home to Las Vegas (“Sin City”) where drinking is encouraged, it is no surprise the state has no dram shop laws. If there were, merchants would be deterred from serving alcohol out of fear of being sued if their customers cause an accident.
Other States
Nevada is one of only eight states without dram shop laws. It is also not a surprise that one of those eight states is Louisiana, home of New Orleans’s booze-fueled Bourbon Street.
Therefore, alcohol vendors in the other 42 states can be held civilly liable to some extent if their customers cause any injuries due to being inebriated. Texas’s dram shop law, for example, makes merchants vulnerable to lawsuits for providing alcohol to underage people “obviously intoxicated to the extent that [they] presented a clear danger” who then cause an accident.
One purpose of dram shop laws is to keep bartenders and waiters from “over-serving” customers who clearly had too much to drink. This way, hopefully fewer DUIs will occur.
According to NHTSA (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), someone dies every 39 minutes from drunk driving. Predictably, most of these accidents happen at night since that is when most drinkers are leaving bars and restaurants.5
Nevada Social Host Laws
I also see a lot of DUI crashes and alcohol-fueled accidents that involve people who just left a house party where alcohol was served. “Social hosts” who serve alcohol are civilly liable for any resulting injuries only if:
- the accident was caused by an underage person (under 21 years old), and
- the social host knowingly provided that underage person alcohol or let them drink alcohol on their property.
Therefore, if the person the social host served alcohol to was an adult 21 or older, the social host has the same protections as alcohol vendors. This means they would not bear any civil liability for any resulting accidents.6
Example: Max throws a party and serves alcohol to a 25-year-old friend and their underage friend who claims they are 25 and appears at least 21. After the party, the 25-year-old and the underage friend get into separate DUI crashes. Even though Max provided them alcohol, Max is not liable for injuries caused by either crash because the 25-year-old was an adult, and Max did know that the underage person was underage.
Note that Nevada’s “social host” laws apply to any kind of gathering, whether it is a large party at a venue or an informal meetup at home.
Suing a Social Host
In Nevada, you have grounds to bring a personal injury lawsuit against a social host if:
- you were injured by a person under 21 years old, and
- the underage person’s intoxication caused the accident, and
- the social host knowingly gave them the alcohol or let them drink on their property.
You can recover such compensatory damages as:
- medical expenses from your injuries,
- car/property repairs,
- lost wages from being too injured to work,
- loss of future earnings if you are too injured to work in the future,
- pain and suffering, and
- attorney’s fees and costs.
Since the social host knowingly gave underage people alcohol, the court may also agree to award you punitive damages to punish the social host for their behavior. Punitive damages are often much greater than compensatory damages.7
The statute of limitations to bring a personal injury lawsuit in Nevada is two years after your injury, which is less time than it sounds since it takes a while to craft a winning case.8
Under NRS 41.1305, social hosts are held to a stricter standard than alcohol vendors regarding underage drinkers.
The Crime of Providing Alcohol to Underage People
Nevada makes it a misdemeanor under NRS 202.055 to provide alcohol to people under 21 knowingly. The punishment is:
- up to 6 months in jail and/or
- up to $1,000 in fines.
This law applies to alcohol vendors and social hosts: The only people who can lawfully give underage people alcohol are their:
- parents,
- guardians, or
- physician.
Note that merchants caught merely letting people under 21 loiter on the premises face a $500 criminal fine.9 The same penalties also apply to merchants with no policy of preventing underage customers from buying alcohol online.10 In addition to fines, violators face the loss of their business and liquor licenses.
In my experience, the best defense to a NRS 202.055 charge is to claim you did not know the person was underage. If a reasonable person in your position also would have thought they were at least 21, then criminal charges should not stand.11
What about the laws for marijuana?
In the same way, Nevada has no dram shop laws for bars, the state also has no “gram shop laws” for marijuana dispensaries. Therefore, people injured from a marijuana-induced mishap cannot sue the vendor for damages.
However, Nevada does have a social host law for marijuana as it does for alcohol: Anyone who knowingly furnishes cannabis products to people under 21 can be held civilly liable for damages from any accidents that ensue. This law applies not only to social hosts in private residences but also to licensed consumption lounges.12
Note that cannabis establishments face severe civil penalties for”[f]ailing to verify the age of, or selling or otherwise providing cannabis or cannabis paraphernalia to, a person who is less than 21 years of age.” Consequences grow harsher with each violation, and it does not matter if no one ever gets hurt:
| Cannabis Establishment Furnishing Cannabis to Underage People | Category II Civil Penalties |
| First violation |
|
| Second violation |
|
| Third violation |
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Note that as of 2017, adults 21 and over in Nevada may lawfully possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana in a residence or a licensed consumption lounge. However, marijuana remains illegal under federal law.13
Additional Resources
For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- Social host liability for minors and underage drunk-driving accidents – Journal of Health Economics.
- The Dram Shop: Closing Pandora’s Box – Indiana Law Review.
- Preventing Alcohol-Related Injuries: Dram Shop Liability in a Public Health Perspective – Washington State University Law Review.
- Reefer Madness: How Non-Legalizing States Can Revamp Dram Shop Laws to Protect Themselves from Marijuana Spillover From Their Legalizing Neighbors – Boston College Law Review.
- Dram Shop Liability–A Judicial Response – California Law Review.
Legal References
- NRS 41.1305. (Alcohol vendors used to go by the term “dram shops” since a “dram” is a unit of alcohol – 1/8th of an ounce.)
- Same.
- NRS 202.055. See also: Bell v. Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, Eta Epsilon Chapter (1982) 98 Nev. 109; Garcia v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court (2001) 117 Nev. 697; Yoscovitch v. Wasson (1982) 98 Nev. 250; Raggio v. Bryan (1960) 76 Nev. 1. See also: Hamm v. Carson City Nugget, Inc., (Nev. 1969) 450 P.2d 358; Snyder v. Viani (Nev. 1994) 885 P.2d 610; Hinegardner v. Marcor Resorts (Nev. 1992) L.P.V., 844 P.2d 800 (If and how dram shops law operate “is the function of the legislative, not the judicial, branch of government.”).
- See notes 1 and 3.
- Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code Sec. 2.02. Drunk Driving Overview, NHTSA. The Most Dangerous Time to Drive, National Safety Council.
- See notes 1 and 3. See also Nevada Assembly Committee Minutes, 5/3/2007.
- See notes 1 and 3.
- NRS 11.190.
- NRS 202.030.
- See note 3.
- Same.
- NRS 41.1307. (Like “drams” are the smallest quantity by which alcohol can be sold, grams are the smallest quantity by which marijuana can be sold.).
- Nevada Cannabis Compliance Regulations (NCCR) 4.040. Assembly Bill 341 (signed in 2021 by Governor Sisolak) established licenses for “cannabis consumption lounges regulated by the Cannabis Compliance Board (“CCB”). NRS 453.336. NRS 678D.310. Federal Implications, Cannabis Compliance Board.
