Missouri's alcohol-liability law treats bars and convenience stores differently, but the state's Supreme Court will soon rule on whether the distinction passes constitutional muster, the Associated Press reported Oct. 3.

A St. Louis woman wants to be able to sue a convenience store that illegally sold her 20-year-old son a 12-pack of beer; the youth died the next night in an alcohol-related auto crash. The family contends that crash victim Terry Keown was never asked to show ID by the store clerk.

But a lower-court judge dismissed her case, saying the state's alcohol-liability law only applies to establishments that sell alcohol by the drink for onsite consumption.

James Parrot, the attorney for the mother of Keown, contends that it is unconstitutional to allow relatives of minors sold alcohol at bars to sue, but not relatives of minors sold alcohol in stores. "That distinction is irrational and arbitrary," Parrot told the Missouri Supreme Court.

Gary Wiseman, the lawyer for the convenience store that sold the beer to Keown, said that "dram shop" laws have historically applied only to bars, not to stores that have no control over how or when alcohol will be consumed.

The 2002 Missouri law bans liquor-liability lawsuits against businesses except when there is clear and convincing evidence that the seller knew or should have known that the buyer was underage or visibly intoxicated. That law was considered an improvement on a previous state law that required a criminal conviction for serving a minor or intoxicated person before a liability lawsuit could be filed; the state Supreme Court ruled that the previous law was unconstitutional.