If you paid any attention to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, you know that, in theory at least, legislatures make laws and courts interpret them.

However, this is easier said than done. That’s because language is inherently ambiguous, legislatures aren’t always precise in its use and situations often develop that legislatures didn’t think of when writing a law. A case recently decided by the Colorado Supreme Court illustrates that point.

In June 2011, four friends who shared a house in Boulder decided to have a party. They hired a DJ, bought two kegs of beer and invited friends. Those friends invited other friends. At the invitation of a friend of a friend, Hank Sieck attended the party. Sieck was 20 at the time. He got drunk and, after leaving the party, had a catastrophic one-car accident. In that accident, another party guest, Jared Przekurat, 21, suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him in need of round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. Przekurat’s father, on behalf of his son, sued the hosts of the party in Boulder County District Court.

As for the law, three decades ago, the Colorado General Assembly enacted a statute protecting social hosts from alcohol-related liability. This statute comes from the philosophical premise that “the consumption of alcohol beverages rather than the sale, service, or provision thereof is the proximate cause of injuries or damages inflicted upon another by an intoxicated person … .” In other words, fault lies with the person who drinks the alcohol more than the person who provides it.

Under the social hosts statute as originally written, liability existed only if alcohol was “knowingly served” to someone under 21 years old. However, in 2005, the statute was amended by adding a provision creating liability if someone “knowingly provided the person under the age of 21 a place to consume an alcoholic beverage … .”

This amendment was in response to an earlier Colorado Court of Appeals decision involving a mother who allowed her 18-year-old daughter to use a vacant home for a party. Underage drinking occurred at the party and one of the guests was severely injured when another guest became intoxicated and had an accident leaving the party.

In that case, the Court of Appeals ruled the mother had no liability because “providing a home at which alcohol is consumed by minors, without more, does not create liability under the statute.” When the social hosts statute was amended in 2005, the General Assembly decided it didn’t like the Court of Appeals’ decision and changed the law.

In the Przekurat case, the trial court and the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that, for someone to recover under the “knowingly provided … a place” part of the statute, there had to be proof a social host knew that the person who got drunk and caused an injury was under 21 years old.

Here, none of the hosts knew Sieck, had not invited him to the party and did not know, and had no reason to know, his age. Przekurat’s father’s argument was that the statute, when using the word “knowingly,” intended to create liability if a social host providing a place merely knew it was likely underage drinking would occur.

But, like the lower courts, the Supreme Court didn’t buy that argument. After several pages in its opinion devoted to the proposition that the General Assembly actually knows what it’s doing when passing a statute, the Court ruled “the plain language of the … statute cannot hold the meaning Przekurat ascribes to it.” “We conclude … ‘knowingly’ requires actual knowledge of the age of the underage drinker.”

So, the playing field once more shifts to the Legislature. If the General Assembly doesn’t like the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Przekurat case, it can again amend the statute.

Jim Flynn is with the Colorado Springs firm of Flynn & Wright LLC. Email him at moneylaw@jtflynn.com. “Best of Jim Flynn’s Money & the Law” is now available at amazon.com — paperback or e-book.