Dallas Drunk Driving Accident Attorney

Attorney Michael Grossman on the Complexities & Procedures of Recovering Compensation in a Drunk Driver Accident

If you have been injured or loved one has been killed in a drunk driving accident in Dallas or elsewhere in the Metroplex, then Texas liquor liability laws are an area of genuine concern.

The issues in question are extremely complex and are often difficult to decipher for inexperienced attorneys and impossible to comprehend for people with no legal experience at all. As a result, confusion often reigns in drunk driving cases. Dallas drunk driving accident attorney Michael Grossman and his associates at Grossman Law Offices want to help put the intricacies of drunk driving laws in terms you can understand, so you can make the best decisions whether pursuing action against the driver or the establishment that over-served the driver.

Understanding Drunk Driving Accidents

Due to the tendency of severity in drunken driving accidents coupled with the gross negligence of their actions, drunk drivers often receive heavier penalties to compensate those they’ve injured than the negligent driver in a standard car wreck. Since inebriated drivers are often unable to control their reflexes, drunken driving accidents usually result in more severe physical damages and fatalities that can beg for an aggressive legal response. In most drunk driving accidents, there are usually multiple parties at fault for the accident, and you need the guidance of an experienced attorney who can bring independent lawsuits against all of the liable parties according to their degree of negligence.

Likely Defendants in Drunken Driving Accidents

Obviously, the drunk driver will be a defendant in any drunk driving accident case. All drivers have a legal duty to provide for the safety of all other drivers, passengers and pedestrians on the road. When someone gets behind the wheel while legally intoxicated, then he or she has violated this responsibility and is accountable for any harm that results. In the state of Texas, the law establishes the level of intoxication at a blood alcohol concentration of .08 percent.

However, other third parties may also be held accountable for the drunk driver’s actions. A bar, restaurant, club or other drinking establishment may be held liable under what are known as dram shop laws in the Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code. The law forbids these establishments from serving a patron past the point of legal inebriation, and the drinking establishment can be liable for the negligent driving of any patron. These dram shop laws consider the drunk driving accident to be a chain of events that only ends with the wreck but begins when the driver began consuming alcohol. The circumstances of how the driver became intoxicated can affect an injured victim’s ability to file a civil claim against the drinking establishment. Depending upon the percentage of liability the bar played in the drunk driving accident, the victim may be eligible to seek compensation from the drinking establishment. This is very important for victims, since many drunk drivers lack the resources to adequately compensate the victims they have injured.

Should the Bar be Held Accountable?

Many people don’t think it’s fair that a bar should be held responsible for the actions of the patrons they serve, but this belief is based upon a lack of knowledge about the issues at hand. These same people question whether or not an adult shouldn’t be accountable for his or her own actions and wonder how the drinking establishment can control what their patrons do after they leave the bar. The state of Texas, however, debates this viewpoint with its dram shop laws.

Bars Must Provide for Everyone’s Safety

Texas dram shop laws do not remove liability from the driver, but they just encourage the bars to act in such a way as to make the roads of the Lone Star State safer for everyone. By making the party that supplies the drinks accountable, the laws can reduce the amount of drunk drivers on the roads. Since the state law establishes the legal level of drunkenness at .08 BAC, it recognizes that a person is no longer of sound mind to make his or her own decisions at that point. If anyone reaches a blood alcohol level of .08, then that person has already broken the law by committing public intoxication. Thus, it’s illegal for a bar or other drinking establishment to serve anyone who has reached this limit. Most opponents of dram shop laws don’t realize this. However, if a bar over-serves any patron, then it has violated the law. If that patron then injures someone else in an accident, the bar can be held partially accountable for the accident by negligently over-serving.

Businesses and clubs that serve alcohol must also acquire and maintain a liquor license to do so, and they must stay in compliance with Texas law regarding the serving of alcohol to do so. Just like when you get a driver’s license, and you are expected to comply with the driving laws in the state, drinking establishments are expected to adhere to the drinking laws of the state. The fallout from over-serving patrons can be severe, like fatal drunk driving wrecks, so strict penalties have been established to reduce the amount of violations. Sadly, many drinking establishments ignore the laws and sell as much booze, as they want to patrons in order for the bar to make more money and the bartender to stuff his or her tip jar. Intoxicated drinkers usually want to keep on drinking, and servers can easily take advantage of make the world a more dangerous place. In order to encourage drinking establishments to help keep the roads safe for everyone, they must be held accountable for overselling.

According to long-accepted scientific thought on the subject, alcohol impairs a person’s inhibitions and ability to make rational decisions. Thus, drunken people often make decisions that they wouldn’t have made if they were sober and often lack the reasoning to determine whether or not they are still capable of driving. As a result, the servers in the drinking establishment must assume the responsibility for ensuring public safety.

In addition, drinking establishments are responsible for ensuring that their servers know how to recognize when patrons have reached the legal limit. Bartenders must go through the proper training about the effects and dangers of alcohol and how to identify drunks who should be cut off before they are permitted to serve alcohol in the state of Texas. Moreover, drinking establishments are responsible for ensuring that all of their servers receive this training. Therefore, no bartender can claim ignorance of the law in order to avoid liability for over-serving a patron before he or she got involved in a drunk driving wreck.

If you still think a drinking establishment shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of its patrons, consider the analogy of a dentist who needs to sedate a patient before removing his or her wisdom teeth. Since the patient will still be woozy from the anesthesia after the surgery, the dentist must not allow the patient to drive home afterward. Certainly, if the dentist did allow the patient to drive home and that patient got into an accident, then the dentist should certainly be held accountable. The same exact principle comes into play with a drinking establishment’s contributory negligence in a dram shop case; both the bar and the dentist have a responsibility to ensure public safety.

Do Dram Shop Laws Hold the Drinking Establishment Completely Responsible?

Often times, people assume that dram shop laws hold bars and clubs accountable for 100 percent of the damages in a drunk driving accident, but that is simply not the case. In most cases, an experienced lawyer will sue both the driver and the drinking establishment and attempt to recover damages according to their proportionate negligence for the accident. For example, if a bartender over-serves a patron who then goes out and injures someone in a drunk driving accident, then the bar is liable for whatever percentage of damages the court determines. If the injured victim sustains $500,000 in damages, and the bar is found to be 20 percent liable, then the bar owes $100,000. If the bar is found to be 50 percent liable, then it owes $500,000. The drinking establishment is never found to be completely responsible. Dram shop laws were not created to allow drunk drivers to avoid responsibility for their actions but to make all negligent parties accountable for their roles in making drunk driving accidents happen.

What Constitutes Proximate Cause?

Not many people who are against dram shop laws realize the impact proximate cause can have on drunk driving cases. The proximate cause of any drunk driving accident is someone who may have indirectly contributed to the cause of the wreck. While this possible defendant wasn’t actually involved in the accident, he or she did something to make the accident occur.

For examples, the driver of one car erratically swerves into oncoming traffic on a Dallas street, and another innocent driver must swerve to avoid colliding with the first driver, popping the curb and ramming into a storefront. The first driver is the proximate cause of the accident, even though he or she was not actually in the accident.

In another example, a veterinarian prescribes a drug to a dog without informing the dog’s owner that the experimental drug may cause kidney failure. The dog then dies of kidney failure, and the vet’s reluctance to inform the owner about the danger to the dog’s kidneys is the proximate cause of the dog’s death.

According to Texas dram shop laws, a bartender must be aware of the dangers of over-serving patrons and permitting them to drive. If a patron injures or kills another person in a drunk driving accident, then the bar is a proximate cause of the injury or deaths.

Server and Bartender Responsibilities

The responsibility of bartenders to regulate the drinking of their clients is a great one, so the Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission (TABC) has established rules and regulations to let bartenders and servers know how to spot patrons who are on the verge of inebriation and to cut off sales when they’ve reached the point of public intoxication. The aim of these laws and those that allow compensation in dram shop cases is to do whatever possible to ensure the public’s safety.

By law, every establishment that serves alcohol must have a TABC liquor license, and every server that works at a licensed bar must go through the required training to learn all the guidelines, rules and expectations of recognizing the warning signs of drunkenness in patrons.

Moreover, drinking establishments have written policies designating how servers must track various patrons’ alcoholic consumption. Many different methods have proven to be successful o monitor the quantity and potency of alcohol being consumed by customers, including: tally sheets, hand signals, electronic tracking systems, color-coded glasses or coasters.

While these systems usually work, every drinking establishment must be prepared for instance when they do by providing a written policy for handling situations involving patrons who have become intoxicated. In most cases, a manager or bouncer will step in to cut off service. In many cases, customers will complicate matters by sneaking a flask into bars in order to save money or just get more intoxicated than the bar will permit. In such an instance, the flask should be confiscated, and the customer cut off from service. The manager should be prepare to provide food for customers to aid with the absorption of alcohol, and to make arrangements for s safe ride home – usually through a cab service. Only by following all of these guidelines, can drinking establishments avoid liability, and more importantly, prevent drunken driving accidents.

Spotting Indicators of Intoxication

Let’s face it, drunkenness is often easy to spot, and servers are expected to do so. TABC rules state that servers and bartenders must be on the lookout for signs of “obvious intoxication,” such as: slurred speech, falling asleep in a chair or at the bar, swaying while walking, sitting or standings, an inability to coherently express thoughts, aggressive and/or violent behavior. As soon as the server notices any of these signs, service should be cut off immediately.

Spotting signs of intoxication is much more difficult with regular drinkers who may be able to “hold their liquor” better and don’t often readily display the obvious signs of drunkenness. That’s why servers must make note when they have served a patron enough drinks to make him or her intoxicated and cut that person off even when he or she is not showing signs of intoxication. Generally speaking, customers should not be served more than two beers or glasses of wine or one shot or cocktail per hour. Exceeding this limit will likely lead to intoxication.

The Safe Harbor Defense

If a bar follows every possible precaution outlined by the TABC and a customer still manages to get into a drunk driving accident, then the drinking establishment can plead the safe harbor defense and avoid liability for the harm done in the accident. The defense must be able to prove they met every state guideline in order to employ the safe harbor defense. Being able to do so provides immunity from lawsuits.

Of course, many drinking establishments will attempt to use the safe harbor defense when they have not met all of the safety guidelines put in place to serve responsibly. Since many establishments will unjustly attempt to use this defense, you must have experience legal assistance if you want to receive the compensation you deserve from the negligent bar. At Grossman Law Offices, our attorneys have spent 20 years handling dram shop laws, and we know how to investigate thoroughly and conduct careful depositions to prove drinking establishments failed to meet their duty to serve their patrons safely. We can help you prove your case and secure the compensation you deserve from the negligent bar that served the drunk who injured you in an accident.

We Can Help

While the basic rules regarding drunken driving accidents in Texas is fairly clear-cut, actually resolving cases involving dram shop laws can be complex and extremely challenging. A drinking establishment can and should be held responsible for its portion of liability if it negligently ignored the responsibility of serving its patrons, and that neglect has caused a drunk driving accident and injuries or death. Unfortunately, proving the bar’s negligence is not going to come easy, and the experienced dram shop lawyers at Grossman Law Offices can help. Call us today for a free consultation at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free), and we can answer any questions you have about the specifics of your case and tell you how we can help you recover from the harm that’s been done to you.