Harris County, TX — September 23, 2023, John Patrick Reine was injured following a car accident at around 5:26 p.m. along U.S. Highway 290.
Officials said in their statements that the crash happened in the area of U.S. 290 and West Little York Road.
Investigators said that 58-year-old John Patrick Reine was in a Chevy Corvette that was going westbound along the Northwest Freeway. Just off Little York, authorities say the Corvette left its lane and hit the median barrier, causing the vehicle to spin out. As a result, Reine reportedly had incapacitating injuries. There did not appear to be any other injuries.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
Authorities included in their reports a serious accusation, and I want to be up front that these allegations which have not be confirmed, and I’m going to bring them to discuss something important that I don’t think gets enough attention. In their reports, authorities allege that the driver here was over three times the legal BAC limit for intoxicated driving. If true, that’s obviously serious, but in more ways than one. Allow me to explain.
At three times the legal limit, there is usually a complicit alcohol provider who broke the law and contributed to the crash. In Harris County, officials are actually relatively thorough when investigating negligent alcohol providers and seeing there are appropriate legal consequences. But I’ve found that when I’m handling personal injury claims against bars and the like after an accident, authorities are only ever conducting their own investigations when the person hurt wasn’t the drunk driver. When the victim was the person accused of being drunk, they’re rarely anywhere to be found.
In both potential scenarios, the bar would be breaking the law. So why should they treat a business differently just because the victim may also have mistakes to answer for? Texas law can account for the fact that someone may have consequences to face while also being the victim of someone else’s actions. That’s why it’s frustrating when authorities seem to apply their standard differently based on their own personal judgments. Maybe that’s not happening here, of course, reading details like these always makes me wonder how fair the authorities handling the investigations are truly being.
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