Goddammitt!!! This is what’s wrong with America. Dramshop laws are bad enough, but when someone is hurt by a drunk driver, I can understand them bringing a suit against the bar where he got drunk. I don’t agree with it, and I think such suits should thrown out of court, but I understand.
But when you’re the asshole who who ponied up to the bar and ordered the booze, and you’re suing that bar for doing what you asked them do is beyond…well, its just beyond
So, Mr.Tony Postler, 41, you go to hell! You go to hell and you die!
I hate to say it, but maybe we’d all be better off if you hadn’t survived.
Your problems are entirely of your own making. A direct result of actions you took. It was right to drink. It was your resposibility to do so in sane manner. You whiny-ass little maggott!
I know. I probably shouldn’t care about shit like this. After all, it doesn’t really affect me personally. But I think it’s a miscarriage of justice that dramshop laws are on the books, and that morons can sue somebody else for their own stupidity.
[sub]I don’t wish for Postler’s death. I just wish he’d be a man[/sub]
Sure. Just like Wal Mart shares liability when you buy a kitchen knife and stab some one.
Just like Ford shares liability when a 17-year-old drives his car into a tree.
Just like a building maintenance staff share liability when you jump off.
Blow it out your ass, Greg. How about:
Doesn’t that make more sense? Stop making me responsible for your fucking stupidity. No wonder OJ got off. The damn glove was liable. Stupid fuck.
Let’s not forget to sue the local government for failing to put rails on the side of the road to keep out-of-control drunks from crashing. Let’s not forget to sue the lightpost manufacturer for making his lightposts too strong. Don’t forget the automobile manufacturer, for not providing some means of preventing drunks from operating their equipment. Don’t forget to sue every other bar patron that made it home safely, as they could have prevented you from being a total dipshit. Why don’t you sue to police department for not catching you earlier? Or the hospital for not fixing you up quick enough?
The crappy thing about this situation is that the bar is hosed no matter what they do. I’m not an expert in legal matters, but I suspect they now have a choice: Spend money to defend themselves, or spend money on a settlement. They’ll have to gamble to determine which is a cheaper deal for them. This situation blows.
All that said, let’s not forget the precedent of smokers (who willingly smoke) being able to sue cigarette manufacturers for daring to sell them tobacco. There is an established history to this sort of thing.
I think it’s crap, mind you, but it’s there.
And as far as this:
There’s a sharp left turn leading to an immediate stop sign right outside my house. On the outside of the turn there are several signs on wooden posts. The damn things get creamed once a week or so by people who don’t make the turn all the way. It’s kind of our little contribution to society that we go out and make sure no one is hurt, get the sign out of the road, and call the county and tell them that it needs replacing.
Once, when I made such a call, I asked why they didn’t just make the pole out of steel or put up some steel and cement posts to protect it and was told, “If we do that, someone’s going to die sometime shortly. We’d rather just keep replacing them.”
spooje, if that pissed you off, how about this from excite.com this morning-
"QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) - A Canadian family whose son was crushed to death by a vending machine after a drinking binge three years ago is suing a Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. unit and several others for gross carelessness and $650,600, the defendants said on Wednesday.
Kevin Mackle, a 19-year-old student at Bishop’s University in Quebec, had tried to shake a soft drink loose when the 920-pound machine tipped on to him. The incident occurred in December 1998."
The article goes on to say that Coke should have known that a drunken undergrad might try to tilt the machine towards himself and thus be injured.
Additionally-
“In his report on the incident, the Quebec coroner recommended that Toronto-based Coca-Cola Bottling Co. place warning stickers on vending machines and ensure that machines in schools be equipped with devices that would prevent them being shaken loose. The coroner noted that 35 people had died since 1978 in the United States from toppling vending machines.”
I suppose it’s at least some consolation that it is Canada rather than the US, but I’m sure we’ll have a copycat “crime” soon.
I understand that product liability is important, but when are people going to start taking responsibility for their own stupid actions? This shit drives me crazy, and it doesn’t help anybody.
It is so sad. I mean, could I could actually sue Colt if my husband is shot with one of their weapons? That is an absolute crock of shit. Free will and personal responsibility should carry a lot more weight than deep pockets.
More and more, I don’t want to live in or raise my kids in this place. Is there any place left on this planet that isn’t completely whacked-out?
Actually, I think it does affect you personally. This whole “No matter what I do to myself through my own stupidity or clumsiness, it’s somebody else’s fault.” idea that has found it’s way into the law is why you have to, (or will have to), buy any number of different flavors of liability insurance just in case somebody injures theirself on your property or with something you lent, rented or sold to them. (If any English language mavins want to sort that sentence out for me, please do.) I’m not talking about ‘hidden defects’ here. Obviously if I furnish you with a defective product that causes injury, and you didn’t know about the defect, you should be allowed to sue me, but I don’t think anybody can argue that this guy didn’t know that driving drunk was dangerous.
Jonathan, point taken about there being legal precedent for this sort of thing, however the tobacco industry suits are not a very good example. It’s been pretty well established that tobacco products are addictive and carcinogenic, but the industry did try to conceal &/or deny those facts for a long time. A better example might have been the liability policy I have to carry, and pay for, in case you fall off my porch and break your leg. It’s the same principle really. I have to protect against your clumsiness.
There. That should fulfill my quota for pompous pedantry for a while.
I forgot to mention that I think this was probably a case of the drink can sticking, and the drunk righteousness of the undergrad causing the overbalance, not an inherent flaw in the design of the vending machine.
Any kid over the age of 12 or so knows that if you tip something heavy that’s a lot bigger than you, it might fall over. Duh.
The kid must have been really strong. I have tried to tilt a Coke machine and didn’t move it a smidge.
Missouri enacted its own version of the Dram Shop Laws last year. When I was waiting tables, my employer handed a copy out to all of us. My initial reaction “What fucking bullshit.”
And now that I’m in law school and have had a chance to study it a bit more, my reaction is “what fucking bullshit.”
That said, allow me to clarify the situation some. The justification behind the law is that the bar has a responsibility (in their own small way) to the welfare of society. They, as a professional dispenser of intoxicating beverages, should know and recognize the signs of inebriation and cut that person off. The drunk, while drunk by his or her own choice, is now too drunk to make rational choices. The bartenders, however, are sober and need to take responsibility for him.
As I said, what fucking bullshit, but there’s as good an answer as you’re going to get. At least thank the scales of justice that the courts have struck down cases where a guest has sued the hosts of a party because the guest drank too much and had an accident on the way home.
Beelzebubba, your examples aren’t analogous to the situation because with WalMart and the knife, or Ford and the tree, there’s no indication at the time of the sale that a problem would ensue. If a psychopath was screaming “sell me the knife so I can go slice my wife’s neck!” there might be a bit of wiggle room. Also, Professor Keating was just explaining the law, not giving his opinion of it. Don’t kill the messenger.
First off…for all you people with knowledge of the law…could the bar get a public defender?
I would imagine it would be next to impossible for the drunk to win this case anyhow (although I’m fairly naive…). I mean there is so many scenarios that the bar could bring up, like his friend bought him drinks…he was drunk when he got here and was simply here to have fun, etc. I hope that in all things good, that I am right about this.
I’ll tell ya what though, my wife and I are trying to decide whether to settle down in either Canada or the United States (neither one of us is really all that partial) and if either this case, or the coca cola case are won by the plaintiff, fuck that, we’re moving to Europe.
This happened in California? Unless something dramatic has happened in California during the last 12 months, then the plaintiff is barred by statute from recovering damages from the dramshop. See Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code sec. 25602 (dramshop liability only for service to “obviously intoxicated minors”). Mr. Postler is 41 years old, so there is no dramshop liability for serving him alcohol under California law.
Very few states allow the intoxicated customer to recover for his own injuries. California is one of them. Chalup v. Aspen Mine Co., 221 Cal. Rptr. 97 (Cal. Ct. App. 1985). However, since service to an obviously intoxicated minor is a prerequisite to dramshop liability, the injured customer obviously has to have been a minor. Again, this guy’s got no case.
By my count, fewer than half a dozen states allow the customers to recover for injuries due to negligent service. A couple more allow customers to recover for “reckless” service, and one or two others allow minor customers to recover while adults cannot. The general rule, however, is that dramshop liability is there to compensate innocent third parties who are injured because some dumbass bartender kept serving a drunk even after it was obvious the customer was loaded.
Enderw24, you may be surprised to hear that Missouri has long had a dramshop act. But it was only last year that the state supreme court struck down a provision requiring criminal conviction of the dramshop as a prerequisite to a civil suit by the victim. Missouri has not yet (AFAIK) ruled on whether the intoxicated customer can recover for his own injuries, but it’s a fairly conservative court up there, so I’d be surprised if they extended liability that far.
I published a law review article on dramshop liability last year. You wanna know what dramshop law is like anywhere in America, the answer is at my fingertips.
[quote]
This whole “No matter what I do to myself through my own stupidity or clumsiness, it’s somebody else’s fault.” idea that has found it’s way into the law is why you have to, (or will have to), buy any number of different flavors of liability insurance just in case somebody injures theirself on your property or with something you lent, rented or sold to them. (If any English language mavins want to sort that sentence out for me, please do.)
[quote]
This whole “No matter what I do to myself through my own stupidity or clumsiness, it’s somebody else’s fault” idea that has found its way into the law is why you have to buy(or will have to buy) any number of different flavors of liability insurance just in case somebody injures himself on your property or with something you lent, rented, or sold to them.
Glad to be of some service. Clarity is always the most important thing in pursuasive writing Your sentence was already clear as it was, with only a few minor punctuation issues and a faulty parallelism having to do with the use of infinitives.
By the way, drunk driving does directly affect everyone who drives. Liability insurance would be much less expensive without the losses insurance companies incurr from the lives and property destroyed by drunk drivers.
Secondly, let’s spew venom where venom is due–tobacco lawsuits are a completely different animal. The reason tobacco litigants have been successful is because tobacco companies knew what their horrible, horrible cigarettes were doing to people, they knew all the health risks; and not only did they do NOTHING to warn the public, but they continued to talk out of their asses for years.
And it’s convenient for people to say some shit like “Well, Jesus, they’re cigarettes. Of course they’re bad for you,” when we have years of perspective on this shit. It’s just not fair.
You are not helping my anger management! Jonathan Chance
Don’t get me started on that.
[/quote]
andrew dupont
Horsefeathers!!! It doesn’t matter that they lied. We all knew they were lying. Christ, there have been warnings on the packs for better than 30 years. They were informed. They willfully turned a blind eye to the risk and took their chances. Now they want to blame somebody else? To fucking late, goddammit!!!
We need to responsible for our own actions!
minty green You are probably correct about them being legally barred from collecting. But California judges have been know to be , well, stupid. It may take a lot of money in legal fees for the dramshop to get rid of this buttwipe. They may consider settling out of court. I hope not. I hope they ream this guy.
And here we have another problem. As some of you may know, spooje used to drink quite heavily, and was impaired for usually 80% of my waking hours. I was, however, able to hide this fact from most people, because I was very rarely obviously loaded. Friends, girlfriends, teachers, cops… I was able to fool them all most of the time. My Mother could only tell I’d been drinking because I would curse more when I was loaded.
Even in a bar, in can be difficult to gauge how loaded a person is unless you watch them for a while. And a bartender, most often, doesn’t have time to watch over these pukes to see if they had too many. Why should they be responsible for us anyhoo? We need to change these silly laws.
Brief hijack…
Man, I hear you about that intersection. A few weeks ago, I was almost nailed head on by some loon who was amazed that the road stopped. I thought he was going to end up taking out your fence.
On to the OP.
Yes, these kind of sad lawsuits chaff my buns. There’s nothing that pisses me off more than someone who won’t take resposibility for their actions. Unfortunatly, this seems to be the norm now days. I wonder how long before folks get outraged about it and the tide starts to turn back. (it will turn back… right?.. right??)
I strongly disagree. Well, as I argued in my article, we ought to change the dramshop laws so that they’re more uniform. But on the whole, I think the majority position is the correct one: if a licensed provider of alcoholic beverages serves alcohol to a customer who is already obviously intoxicated, that dramshop may be held civilly liable, along with the drunk, for an injury that occurs to an innocent third party as a result of the customer’s intoxication.
Every state in the nation has laws prohibiting licensed sellers from serving alcohol to obviously intoxicated customers. Sometimes they’re criminal laws, sometimes they’ll just get your license revoked. The point is, dramshops are already under a duty “to watch over these pukes to see if they had too many.” And that’s the way it should be. Yes, the drunk bears primary responsibility for any injury he causes, but I think it’s bad policy to declare that the business that makes its mone off serving alcohol is totally off the hook for its actions in continuing to serve a customer even after he’s loaded.
Incidentally, if nobody could tell you were drunk, you weren’t “obviously intoxicated.” That means no liability for the dramshop, as a matter of law. See, tort law really is rational sometimes.
