Disclosure – the author has been a member of PCA for many years.
The Porsche Club of America (
PCA) has been found liable for the drunken actions of two of its members four years ago. An owner of a
Porsche 908 was gracious enough to display his uber-rare race car at a club technical event in Huntsville, Al. The car’s owner had an agent who was responsible for transporting the car and the agent was unable to pick the car up the following week as planned; the agent finally arranged pick-up of the car six weeks later. The week of the delayed pick-up two PCA members had access to the car, one was an officer of the local region and the other was the owner of the garage that was storing the car. The two members decided to drive the race car on the street after drinking wine at breakfast. Apparently that foray passed without incident because more wine was consumed at lunch and the car was subsequently wrecked during some more drunken street driving. The cost to repair the vehicle was approximately $250,000.
The car’s owner filed suit and the Federal District Court in the Northern District of Alabama heard the case last year and handed down the opinion last June. The President of the PCA, Tom Bobbitt wrote in the August issue of the club magazine
Panorama (the August issue is not yet online) that “the two drivers were acting outside the scope of any club authorization and not in connection with any club event, the Court nevertheless found that PCA had an ongoing obligation to care for the car indefinitely because it had been used in a PCA event and PCA benefited from the arrangement.” Neither Mr. Bobbitt nor I are attorneys but he described the liability as a “bailment for which PCA as the bailee is liable.” Mr. Bobbitt also wrote that the club intends to strip the two members of their memberships and that the club will attempt to recover damages from the two.
Club President Bobbitt wrote about three lessons from the experience; two of them have to do with the casual nature of many club events and the need for more contractual agreements. The third lesson has to do with the personal responsibility of club volunteers, a very diplomatic way of saying that one should not act like a jerk. Flying Debris would like to add two more lessons to that list; one is the stunningly obvious - don’t drive race cars drunk. The other is that if you’re going to drink alcohol at breakfast you may as well not kid yourself, drink liquor. Frankly a few pops in the morning should be followed with a comfortable couch and a few football games on the tube rather than driving a purpose built race car around the neighborhood.
