Intoxication Leads to Severe and Significant Brain Injury
The Dram Shop Act makes the entity that sells or furnishes alcoholic beverages and who knowingly serves a person habitually addicted to the use of any or all alcoholic beverages liable for injury or damage caused by or resulting from the intoxication of such person.
The evidence in this case clearly shows that the establishment, by and through its bartender, knowingly served a person habitually addicted to alcohol in that it:
1) Knew that he was patronizing the establishment on virtually a daily basis;
2) Knew that he consumed multiple drinks or excessive amounts of alcohol;
3) Knew that he regularly became intoxicated while patronizing the establishment;
4) Knowledge was expressed by employees of the establishment regarding the Plaintiff being a drunk.
As on many prior days, when the victim in this case arrived at the bar located in a local hotel, he had consumed 12 to 15 beers before he got there. On this particular date, he arrived on a waverunner with his friend sitting on the back. The testimony from witnesses is that on that day, the victim was drinking Bloody Marys and consumed a minimum of five drinks in a very short time span (no more than one and one half hours). The witnesses testified that he was intoxicated as he was very loud, boisterous, argumentative, and that he and his friend were coming out of the bar very slowly and “almost leaning on one another”.
In spite of this, the bartender at the establishment not only continued to serve this gentleman, but rather offered him a drink “to go” in a plastic cup as he was leaving. This was witnessed by numerous patrons in the bar. The victim left the bar with his “to go” drink and after having consumed that as well as numerous other alcoholic beverages in the course of the short time period he was there, and coming under the influence of alcohol and being intoxicated, got on to his waverunner with a passenger on the back, and proceeded to drive through the canal paralleling Southern Boulevard near the airport and crashed his waverunner into an anchored pontoon boat located in the canal. He sustained a very serious head injury and the passenger on his waverunner was also injured.
As a result of this accident, the victim sustained a severe and significant brain injury. He was unconscious following this incident and was rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital by Trauma Hawk. He was assessed in the trauma unit and emergency surgery was performed by a local neurosurgeon. The operative procedures performed were a left frontotemporal parietal occipital craniotomy, elevation and debridement of opened depressed skull fractures, and complex reconstruction of depressed skull fractures with titanium plating system. Seven plates and twenty-eight screws were used in the reconstruction of the depressed skull fracture.
The victim remained unresponsive and in a deep coma for approximately three days following the accident. Upon regaining consciousness, he could not speak at all or communicate in any way. In addition to speech problems, he was unable to perform fine motor movements normally in the right arm and experienced cognitive problems as a result of the injury.
The victim in this case was 34 years old, married with two young children. Because his speech is impaired, it is now difficult for him to communicate with his children, which is very frustrating and embarrassing for him. His physical limitations have prevented him from playing with his children as he had before his injury and he frequently loses his temper and screams at his children as a result of his anger arising from his frustration and depression that are components of his brain injury. At times, his children are frightened of him and his behavior, and this has had a devastating affect on him, his wife, and his family.
The victim’s wife contacted Attorney Richard D. Schuler for a consultation regarding this matter. After a thorough investigation, Mr. Schuler obtained testimony from numerous independent witnesses in this case, stating that the victim frequented this establishment four to five nights a week for a minimum of six months to one and one half years prior to the date of the accident. The witnesses stated that the victim began riding his waverunner to the establishment for Happy Hour and the victim and his companions would pull their waverunners up to the dock behind the bar, where they had specially made portages so individuals could secure their waverunners while they went into the bar.
The witnesses stated that the victim always went there during Happy Hour because the bartender treated them “right” by making the Bloody Marys they drank particularly strong and giving them “free drinks” on the side, in addition to the two for one. The witnesses also testified that the victim would consume anywhere from eight to fifteen drinks within a short time period. Many times, the bartender would pour them “floaters’ with an extra shot on top, give them a shot on the side, or simply give them extra drinks.
With all of this damaging testimony against the establishment involved, Mr. Schuler was successful in settling this case with the defendant without the necessity of a trial.
