No Dram Shop in Maryland: Kiriakos Five Years On — When Social Hosts Can Be Sued
A drunk driver rarely acts alone. Behind many of the worst crashes is a bar that kept serving a visibly intoxicated patron, or an adult who looked the other way — or worse, played host — while teenagers drank in their basement. Whether the law reaches those enablers varies enormously state to state. In Maryland, the answer is unusually stark: bars are effectively immune, but adults who permit underage drinking are not.
Five years ago this summer, the Court of Appeals of Maryland decided the case that drew that line. It is worth revisiting, because it remains the only meaningful route to "furnisher" liability in the state.
First, the rule everyone should know: no dram shop
Most states have some form of dram shop liability — civil responsibility for bars and restaurants that overserve patrons who then hurt someone. Maryland does not. In Warr v. JMGM Group, LLC (2013), the Court of Appeals declined to recognize dram shop liability, leaving Maryland among the small minority of states where a tavern that pours drink after drink for a stumbling customer faces no civil accountability to that customer's victims. Only the drunk driver answers — and the drunk driver's insurance is often nowhere near the harm.
The exception: Kiriakos and underage drinking
Then came Kiriakos v. Phillips, 448 Md. 440 (2016), decided together with a companion case, Dankos v. Stapf. The facts of the two cases were wrenching: in one, a minor who had been drinking at an adult's home crashed and gravely injured a pedestrian; in the other, a teenager died after riding in the bed of a pickup truck following a night of drinking an adult permitted at his house.
The Court of Appeals held that adults who violate Maryland's criminal statute against allowing underage drinking — Md. Code, Criminal Law § 10-117(b) — owe a civil duty that can support a lawsuit. The Court grounded the duty in the statute itself: the General Assembly made it a crime for adults to knowingly and willfully allow minors to consume alcohol at their homes because minors are uniquely vulnerable to alcohol, and that public policy supports civil accountability when the risk the statute targets comes to pass.
What the duty covers — and what it doesn't
Five years of experience with Kiriakos has confirmed both its power and its limits:
| Situation | Civil liability? |
|---|---|
| Bar overserves a visibly drunk adult who injures someone | No — Maryland has no dram shop liability (Warr) |
| Adult knowingly allows minors to drink at their home; a minor then injures or is injured | Yes — Kiriakos duty may apply |
| Adult furnishes alcohol to another adult guest who drives drunk | No recognized social-host duty |
| Parents away; teens drink at the house without any adult's knowledge | Difficult — the duty turns on knowing and willful conduct |
The key limits: the duty runs from adults, in connection with underage drinking, and it is built on the criminal statute's "knowing and willful" standard. An oblivious parent is not a defendant; a parent who supplied the keg, or who saw the party and let it continue, may well be.
Why this matters for families
The drunk drivers in these cases are often teenagers with minimal insurance. Kiriakos gives seriously injured victims — and grieving families — a path to the adult whose home and whose choices made the drinking possible, and to that adult's homeowners insurance. In catastrophic cases, that can be the difference between a symbolic judgment and real provision for a lifetime of loss.
It also matters as deterrence. The "they'll drink anyway, better under my roof" rationalization has real legal consequences in Maryland now, and has for five years. Adults hosting teen gatherings should understand: allowing underage drinking is not just a criminal misdemeanor — it is an open door to civil liability for everything that foreseeably follows.
What this means for injured people in Maryland
- If an underage drinker injured you or a loved one, the investigation should always ask: where did the alcohol come from, and which adults knew? Social media, phone records, and witness interviews usually answer that question.
- Homeowners insurance is typically the source of recovery in social-host cases — a claim worth professional evaluation even when the driver's own policy is small.
- The bar that overserved an adult driver is, under current Maryland law, not a viable defendant. Any case built on furnisher liability must fit the Kiriakos framework.
- These cases are time-sensitive: party evidence scatters fast, and Maryland's three-year limitations period runs while it does.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.