Who Pays When a Drunk Driver Hits a Pedestrian?
I realize that we have touched on this topic many times before, but there are still many people who believe that liquor liability, or dram shop, laws unfairly punish bars for the behavior of drunk drivers. The common perception is that a person goes out, decides to drink too much, hurts themselves, and then turns...
Austin PD Miss The Point By Blaming Reflectors Instead of Drunk Driver
For all their purported benefits to the environment and individual health, bicycles still take some flak as a means of transportation. Some of that may stem from their slightly-ambiguous status as a vehicle (should they stay on the sidewalk? Should they be in the road? In places without bike lanes, how much of either is...
Recognizing The Very Human Victims of Texas Drunk Driving Accidents
I wish I wasn't able to say this, but Texas endures far too many drunk driving accidents for us to be able to write about them all. In 2015, TxDOT reported 960 fatalities related to driving while intoxicated (almost 3 every single day), which unfortunately is too many to fully chronicle and examine. Furthermore, that...
Keep Austin Weird, Not Dangerous!: Texas Dram Shop Law and Travis County
The city of Austin, Texas is host to a wide variety of interesting sights and activities. Considered by many as the state's major artistic hub, "ATX" is a cultural center famous for unique cuisine and live music concerts. The city actually ranks first in Texas for number of artists and musicians per capita, which likely...
Do Southlake and Grapevine, TX Have a Drunk Driving Problem?
A law-abiding bar won't serve a patron after a certain point, but it doesn't require stumbling and blackouts to reach the legal definition of impairment. After reaching .08 blood-alcohol content (BAC), Texans can't get behind the wheel without breaking the law, and yet the statistics gathered by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA)...
Texas Dram Shop Law Helps the Victims of Drunk Driving
For many people, an understanding of dram shop law begins and ends with the phrase "person sues bar." Many people have made it a point to object to this idea, considering it unfair that an establishment that serves alcohol should be held accountable for doing what they're paid to do--serving a patron. Without looking any...
A Quick Refresher on Temporal Proximity and Dram Shop Law
Few articles that we write are more contentious than those that touch on the topic of dram shop law, or liquor liability. These provisions of Texas law hold bars accountable for their role in drunk-driving accidents. Rather than spend time getting into the merits of such laws, I'll simply say that dram shop is the...
How Drunk is a .32 BAC and How Dangerous Is It?
Toxicology results suggest that many people arrested for intoxication have a BAC in the range of .15 to .30—well over the legal limit, with the latter number approaching potentially lethal levels. Some accounts actually suggest that the highest BAC ever recorded in the United States was in 1982, when an unidentified 24-year-old woman staggered into...
How Does a Texas Jury Apportion Responsibility Between a Bar and a Drunk Driver?
I talk a lot about Texas dram shop law, where an establishment that serves alcohol may be held liable if a drunk person causes injury to himself or others, but it's definitely important to keep individual accountability in the equation. Dram shop laws don't excuse drunk drivers; it just acknowledges that the bars who provided...
Seeing the Signs: How We Spot Possible Dram Shop Accidents
Drunk driving appears to be a blind spot in our national consciousness. I cannot think of a single person, no matter how contrarian, who could compellingly argue that this practice has positive benefits. It's dangerous, it's illegal, and it flies in the face of common sense. I doubt I need to be worried about some...
The Case of Caden Nieneker: How Do Texas Dram Shop Laws Relate to House Parties?
On the surface, house parties seem like a great idea. However, they can have downsides: Food and drinks may run out, the bathroom line can get ridiculous, some people don't know when to stop drinking (often with disastrous results), and depending on your guest list there's a risk of illegal underage consumption that's better controlled...
Insurance Fraudster Jeffrey Cohen Gets 37 Years in Prison
We pulled this one from the "stranger than fiction bin." Last December, 40-year-old Jeffrey Brian Cohen was sentenced to a 37-year federal prison sentence for several charges, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and making false statements to an insurance regulator. Essentially, Mr. Cohen ran a scam insurance company that collected over $100 million in...
Just How Drunk is a .26 BAC?
A few days ago, our firm was hired on a case wherein a young woman went to a Buffalo Wild Wings, was served an obscene quantity of alcohol, and then died in an accident after the bar sent her on her way. Unrelated, a few members of our staff were having a conversation about the...
Back the Blue by Getting a DUI
In the wake of the cowardly and deadly ambush on Dallas City and DART officers on July 7th, there has been a remarkable outpouring of support for the police in the Metroplex. The community has raised funds for the families of the 5 officers who were killed, as well as for the 9 wounded officers...
I Guess Dram Shop Law Isn’t For Everyone
When you're part of a team who makes winning dram shop cases seem simple, it's easy to take for granted how elusive this area of the law is to other firms. But a recent encounter with a man who initially hired an attorney who didn't know what he was doing reminded me just how unfamiliar...
Why The Law Lets You Sue Bars for Drunk Driving Accidents
This country has a big with drunk driving accidents, but we also have another problem that people rarely talk about—least of all in the news. I'm talking about bars and other licensed alcohol providers that over-serve their customers, who then get into the very accidents that we've been talking about. In this post, I'll briefly...
