Right, so here's one that's going to divide opinion at the bar.
A woman on a cruise holiday was, according to the court, served well beyond the point where any reasonable member of staff should've called time on her tab. We're not talking a cheeky extra glass of Pinot, the ruling made clear she was, by any measure, absolutely hammered on booze the ship's bar staff kept willingly handing over.
Then came the stairs.
She had a fall. A bad one. The kind that leaves you with what doctors described as a possible traumatic brain injury, headaches, memory issues, the whole grim package. Not a twisted ankle and a bruised ego. Genuinely serious stuff, and nobody's laughing at that bit.
She took the cruise company to court, argued they had a duty of care to stop serving her when it was obvious she'd had more than enough, and the judge agreed. Two hundred and twenty thousand pounds in damages, awarded and done.
Now look, the cruise line isn't some struggling local pub. It's a floating resort that prints money selling overpriced cocktails with little umbrellas in them. And there IS a real legal principle here: if you run a licensed venue, you're not supposed to keep pouring drinks into someone who's clearly gone well past their limit. That's been the law for ages.
Still, you can already hear the debates kicking off. Where does personal responsibility end and the venue's liability begin? If someone orders another round, is it really the barman's job to say no?
The court reckoned: yes, actually, it is.
Wild times. What do you reckon, fair result, or has this opened a very boozy can of worms?