The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that adults who intentionally serve alcohol to underage youth can be sued for damages, the Associated Press reported Feb. 5.

The ruling stated that hosts can be held liable if they know that they are serving alcohol to a minor, but not if the person served is over age 21 or if the server did not know that the drinker was underage. "While underage persons have full social and civil rights, we find the public policy of this State treats these individuals as lacking full adult capacity to make informed decisions concerning the ingestion of alcoholic beverages," the court ruled.

The court was ruling on a pair of cases: one in which a 19-year-old drank at a cookout and later died in a car crash with a blood-alcohol level of .291 percent, and another where a 19-year-old drank at a company Christmas party and crashed, killing himself and a passenger.