Opinion: Navajo Nation gaming deal puts burden on victims

The proposed Navajo Nation gaming compact pending in the New Mexico Legislature raises a significant concern for all New Mexicans, native and non-native alike. Language in the proposed compact would relieve the tribal casino of responsibility in New Mexico state courts if a casino patron is over-served with alcohol and then, while intoxicated, injures someone else after leaving a casino.

New Mexicans, unfortunately, are all too familiar with this common scenario: A person gets in his or her car after being over-served at a bar, or at a restaurant, or in a plane and drives on the wrong side of the road, or loses control of the car and smashes into another car, seriously injuring or killing its occupants.

Bars, restaurants, even homeowners, can be responsible for injuries caused by serving someone too much alcohol, if it was apparent, or should have been apparent, that a person was over-served.

The Navajo Nation’s proposed compact language would limit its responsibility solely to “visitors” to its facilities, those people who actually come to the casinos, and would foreclose New Mexico state court claims by non-visitors, those innocent third parties who have been injured by an intoxicated visitor after he or she leaves the casino.