I have no sympathy for this scumbag

[billvon 3,074]

>It doesn't give him carte blanche to disregard the obvious and
>complete responsibility his son had for his own death.

Nope, he is in the wrong, and I hope he comes to his senses. And like I said before, if he was a friend of yours, you would be supporting him (and trying to talk him out of it) instead of calling him a scumbag.

[billvon 3,074]

>Do you think everyone would have been just as supportive if her
>husband jumped drunk and high, while foregoing all safety checks..
>basically an accident waiting to happen.. and she decided to sue everyone
>who might have had a chance to stop him?

Yes, most people would have been. Because we are human beings first and laywers/politicians second.

[BelskyBlueEyes 0]

I would not say "scumbag", because yes, the dad has suffered a devastating loss and is just reaching out. I do feel for his loss. However, I do not agree that he has any reason for a lawsuit because his son is totally to blame 100% for this tragedy. He had the ability to say no when they gave him drinks. He was the one that put the alcohol in his body, no one forced it down his throat. Offering someone a drink is not a crime! A bartender can not possibly keep track of everyone and what they drink, each person has a responsibility for themselves. He also had the ability to call a cab, or anything other then get in his car. He knew how much he drank, and whether he should drive or not. What would have happened if he killed the tow truck driver or motorist on side of the road?

This accident was not due to the car, the road, or anything or anyone else. It was bad judgement on part of the driver, period. It is not easy to deal with a death of your child, but trying to sue everyone is not going to make the pain go away.

I hope someone can talk sense into the dad. Or, if it does go to court, there should be no settlement. There is no just cause.

[1888 0]

What if he had killed the driver of the other car or the tow truck driver and the dad still sued. Would that then have made him a scumbag?

The real scumbag here is the lawyer who most likely talked him into the suit so he could get his fat fee.

[rehmwa 2]

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The real scumbag here is the

Nnow, now, there's plenty of scumbags to go around for each of us to label a different one.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Shotgun 1]

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the obnoxious modern phenomena is playing the legal blame game and trying to pin fault on people who are clearly innocent

The restaurant apparently continued to serve alcohol to a drunk person and then let him get in his car and drive. While getting drunk and driving was ultimately the drunk driver's fault, I don't see the restaurant as being "clearly innocent."

[Thanatos340 1]

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The real scumbag here is the lawyer who most likely talked him into the suit so he could get his fat fee.

Absolutely!!
It is pretty much standard procedure for the Lawyers to Name everyone they can think of in a lawsuit. Once the "Defendants " find out how much it will cost them to defend themselves, They realize it is MUCH cheaper to just settle whether they are guilty or not.

Right, Wrong, Guilty, Not Guilty really doesn’t have much relevance in our Civil System once the Liars I mean Lawyers get involved.

And the Lawyers usually are NOT working for a Flat Fee in these cases, They are getting 40% or more of any settlements or Judgements. So they make sure to name everyone they can think of in order to get more money out of the deal.

The Father may not have even known the Lawyer was going to also go after the Tow truck Driver and the owner of the car that was being towed.

[champu 1]

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>It doesn't give him carte blanche to disregard the obvious and
>complete responsibility his son had for his own death.

Nope, he is in the wrong, and I hope he comes to his senses. And like I said before, if he was a friend of yours, you would be supporting him (and trying to talk him out of it) instead of calling him a scumbag.

People respond to the death of loved ones in many different ways. In this case it appears to be by denying to himself that his son could be so wreckless, and searching for another reason his son might have died so that at the end of day he can say to himself, "Poor Josh... had everything going for him 'til he was snuffed out by that damn towtruck driver..."

Scumbag? I don't know about that... I think "Emotionally Unstable Lunatic" is more appropriate. If he ends up taking and keeping a single dollar from these people, however, I might see it Dorbie's way.

[AndyBoyd 0]

Just read the Complaint. Thanks for posting it. Just thought I'd offer a bit of insight, and a personal opinion or two.

Section 537.053 of the Missouri Statutes is what is known as a Dram Shop statute. The basic idea is that if a bar or other establishment sells a visibly intoxicated person alcohol, the bar can be civilly liable for injuries to the intoxicated person. Lots of states have these laws. The point is to discourage bars from providing booze to people who are already drunk. The father may have a valid case on this count.

As far as suing everyone else in sight for negligence, it's going to be very hard to win given the fact that the driver was so drunk. I'm a lawyer, and I completely understand everyone's frustration with this lawsuit. These kinds of lawsuits just cause people to hate lawyers more than they already do. My hope is that the judge will quickly dismiss everything but the Dram Shop count.

Calling the grieving father a "scumbag" is pretty harsh, though. It always amazes me how easy it is to sit behind a keyboard and anonymously insult people and call people names. This man just lost his son. Have some compassion. To those of you who are doing this, please grow up and knock off the name calling.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I don't. I think he's profiteering off of his son's death. I guess his cut of Josh's $430,000 salary wasn't enough to keep him in the good so he's trying to get what he can. He forfeits his right to my sympathy.

I doubt the intent is profiteering. I expect he is trying to punish anyone that might be responsible (besides the son who died).

[lawrocket 3]

Some attorneys do that. I'm defending a guy in a suit right now whose truck was stolen by an employee. While the employee was sleeping, his roommate took the truck, got chased by the cops, ran a red light and broadsided a pickup truck - which was spun into a couple of pedestrians.

The plaintiffs are the pedestrians. They're suing not only the driver but my client. Oh yeah, they are ALSO suing the guy the driver broadsided.

Some people just do that. I just don't buy their reasoning.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[BelskyBlueEyes 0]

I read through the complaint. What do they mean he became drunk "involuntary"? Someone opened his mouth and forced him to drink?

Even if he was visibily affected from alcohol, how did they know he would drive? It is not a crime to serve alcohol, nor drink it. It is not a crime to get drunk. It is a crime to get drunk and drive. It is not their fault he got plastered and still decided to drive. I still say it was his responsibility to do the right thing. If you went to a liquor store, went home and got drunk by yourself, got in your car and had an accident- is it the fault of the liquor store for providing you alcohol? I think not.

[Richards 0]

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Even if he was visibily affected from alcohol, how did they know he would drive? It is not a crime to serve alcohol, nor drink it. It is not a crime to get drunk. It is a crime to get drunk and drive. It is not their fault he got plastered and still decided to drive. I still say it was his responsibility to do the right thing. If you went to a liquor store, went home and got drunk by yourself, got in your car and had an accident- is it the fault of the liquor store for providing you alcohol? I think not.

[billvon 3,074]

>It makes no sense that a bar owner should be responsible for a drunk driver.

To a certain degree it does.

To take one extreme, if a guy walked into a sporting goods store weeping, carrying a handgun, and saying "my wife just left me for another man! Gimme a box of .45 rounds! I gotta end this!" the guy behind the desk has a certain obligation to understand that this guy may not be in his right mind, and that selling him ammunition may very well lead to his death (and to additional danger for the people around him.)

To take the opposite extreme, if a man with a peanut allergy orders the peanut special at a diner, the waitress can't reasonably know that he has a peanut allergy. It is not apparent that giving him peanuts is dangerous, and she bears no responsibility towards him. (Of course, if he says "I'm allergic to peanuts" that's a different story.)

Selling drinks to someone who is clearly very drunk lies between those two extremes. The issues are that:

1) a drunk is (by definition) impaired and cannot make rational judgments
2) drinking enough alcohol will kill you

Combine those two and you have a situation where the server is the only incapacitated person, and that confers on him/her some responsibility for the decision whether to give the guy more alcohol or not - since the decision may result in injury or death.

This is also true to a lesser extent for driving while drunk. I think everyone would agree that helping a drunk get the key into the ignition (because he's too drunk to do it on his own) is irresponsible, while selling a driver two beers is not - even if that puts him over the legal limit. In between those two extremes are cases where the server bears _some_ responsibility towards the customer.

Now, the drunk certainly bears the responsibility for getting himself into that state, and also bears responsibility for what he does in that state (since he put himself there.) But IMO servers have some responsibility when it comes to not making a bad situation even worse.

[Shotgun 1]

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I have never understood the rational of legal obligation to "save him from himself".

It's not so much about saving him from himself, but saving other people from him.

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It makes no sense that a bar owner should be responsible for a drunk driver.

I tend to agree that a bar owner (or server) should have no legal responsibility for a drunk driver, but they do have somewhat of a moral responsibility. Continuing to serve drinks to someone who is obviously drunk, just so that you can put more $$ in your pocket, is aiding in whatever the drunk person may end up doing. Alcohol is a pretty strong mind-altering drug, so after a certain point a person starts having less and less control over what they are doing. Yes, the person who is drinking should know better than to ever get to that point. But the server who continues to offer and bring more and more drinks is aiding in or even encouraging this behavior.

[Richards 0]

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To take one extreme, if a guy walked into a sporting goods store weeping, carrying a handgun, and saying "my wife just left me for another man! Gimme a box of .45 rounds! I gotta end this!" the guy behind the desk has a certain obligation to understand that this guy may not be in his right mind, and that selling him ammunition may very well lead to his death (and to additional danger for the people around him.)

OK. If someone who is falling over drunk walks into a bar and states "I intend to drive drunk tonight but I am still sober enough where I might not cause an accident, so keep serving up tequila shooters until we know for a fact that I am going to kill someone", and the bartender follows those orders knowing the mans intent then fine. Most bartenders are not aware of the intentions of a patron nor are they aware of whether or not they are even driving. Walk into any bar and at least half of the patrons are over the limit. Most nightclubs have their patrons leaving in a state of complete inebriation. That's a lot of lawsuits.

Expecting the bartender to stop him after he has passed the .08 blood alcohol limit (about 2 drinks?) on the presumption that he will go out and drive, would be like a gun store owner looking at a man trying to buy 45 caliber rounds in the same apparent mental state and under the same conditions as at least 50% of all other customers, and going " Gosh, maybe this guys wife just slept around, and he is enraged and going to go shoot her and the boyfreind so I better not sell him any ammo" and then refusing the sale.

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Selling drinks to someone who is clearly very drunk lies between those two extremes. The issues are that:

1) a drunk is (by definition) impaired and cannot make rational judgments
2) drinking enough alcohol will kill you

Combine those two and you have a situation where the server is the only incapacitated person, and that confers on him/her some responsibility for the decision whether to give the guy more alcohol or not - since the decision may result in injury or death.

Again though, most patrons in a bar are not in any position to drive (you may feel OK but you are probably over the limit if you have had even a few drinks). The bartender cannot do his/her job and simultaneously keep tabs on the transportation intentions of his/her patrons. As for inebriation, I have never in my life felt that alcohol impaired my ability to differentiate between right and wrong. It impaired my level of inhibition, my reaction time and my ability to interpret my surroundings but I have never in my life been too drunk to realize that I was in no state to drive.

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Now, the drunk certainly bears the responsibility for getting himself into that state, and also bears responsibility for what he does in that state (since he put himself there.) But IMO servers have some responsibility when it comes to not making a bad situation even worse.

[Richards 0]

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I have never understood the rational of legal obligation to "save him from himself".

It's not so much about saving him from himself, but saving other people from him.

But where does that stop? Do you have to stop serving everyone who is over the limit regardless of whether or not you know they are driving? You would have to stop everyone who has drunk enough to be over .08 (about 2-3 drinks), since they might be driving.

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It makes no sense that a bar owner should be responsible for a drunk driver.

I tend to agree that a bar owner (or server) should have no legal responsibility for a drunk driver, but they do have somewhat of a moral responsibility. Continuing to serve drinks to someone who is obviously drunk, just so that you can put more $$ in your pocket, is aiding in whatever the drunk person may end up doing. Alcohol is a pretty strong mind-altering drug, so after a certain point a person starts having less and less control over what they are doing. Yes, the person who is drinking should know better than to ever get to that point. But the server who continues to offer and bring more and more drinks is aiding in or even encouraging this behavior.

Yes and no. Again if the person is so severely intoxicated where you clearly think that this person does not even have a clue who or where he is, then yes a moral responsibility does exist, but legal responsibility is questionable. Again the guy who is severely drunk may be walking home or taking a cab. If I was cut off every time I was drunk I would never waste the effort of going to bars.

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[billvon 3,074]

>OK. If someone who is falling over drunk . . .

Yes, that's one extreme.

>Expecting the bartender to stop him after he has passed the .08
>blood alcohol limit (about 2 drinks?) on the presumption that he will go
>out and drive . . .

That's the other extreme. If a guy orders two beers, appears to be coherent and coordinated, and says nothing about driving (or flying, or operating heavy machinery etc) then I would agree the bartender does not have any responsibility to 'cut him off.'

>While the patron is drunk you do not know he intends to drive.

Well, to be fair, if you are the bartender at a TGI Friday's in a typical US mall, there is no other way to get there other than driving. So if you see a guy there alone who can barely walk to the bathroom stagger back to the table and order another Jack and Coke, it would not be out of line to ask him how he's getting home or tell him he's had enough.

If at that point he says "screw you" and leaves, the bartender loses a tip but is not responsible for the guy's actions. If, on the other hand, he says "I'm OK to drive! Now get me another Jack and Coke" and the bartender serves him another one (perhaps several more) then he may be a bit negligent.

One of the reasons that (at least in the US) there are few beer vending machines is that a bartender/server is considered an important part of making sure alcohol is used responsibly. Preventing underage kids from drinking, not serving obviously intoxicated people and calling cabs for people who can't walk (much less drive) is part of that responsibility - and is one reason bartenders are paid.

[likearock 2]

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>It doesn't give him carte blanche to disregard the obvious and
>complete responsibility his son had for his own death.

Nope, he is in the wrong, and I hope he comes to his senses. And like I said before, if he was a friend of yours, you would be supporting him (and trying to talk him out of it) instead of calling him a scumbag.

You're right, if he was my friend, I probably wouldn't call him a scumbag, but he still would be one. It's unconscionable to condone that kind of irresponsible behavior. And make no mistake, by shifting the blame the way the father's doing, he's indirectly absolving what the son did. As I said, anyone could have been killed and it's sheer luck it was only the drunk driver.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Well, to be fair, if you are the bartender at a TGI Friday's in a typical US mall, there is no other way to get there other than driving. So if you see a guy there alone who can barely walk to the bathroom stagger back to the table and order another Jack and Coke, it would not be out of line to ask him how he's getting home or tell him he's had enough.

Someone has to drive the drunk home from TGIF, but it's not necessarily the drunk himself.

I've frequently seen bartenders cut off people who were very drunk. But twice the limit is probably well short of the point of obvious to the bartender. I've never been falling down drunk and incapable of walking, but many rounds past 2.