When an Accident Implies Negligence: The Principle of Res Ipsa Loquitur
One can't look at any controversy in the courts without hearing someone getting worked up about "judges making laws." While judges shouldn't rewrite laws from the bench in the face of a clearly defined statute, our common law legal system actually encourages them to speak on issues where the law is silent. These well-established principles...
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)...
The First-Rate Intelligence of Truck Accident Defense Attorneys
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." -F. Scott Fitzgerald In this line, the renowned author makes a point that modern life requires us to keep contradictory ideas straight in our heads while at the...
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...
What Elements Make a Commercial Loading Dock Dangerous?
It hardly needs noting that one of the most dangerous areas on any commercial property is the loading dock. The combination of large machines, heavy cargo, and all-too-fragile human beings often proves calamitous. Leaving aside these obvious dangers, we wondered whether or not there are factors that lead to some loading docks being more dangerous...
What Can Be Done to Protect People from Going Under Tractor-Trailers During a Crash?
Many people suffer from anxiety when driving in close proximity to tractor-trailers and while they may not realize it, there's a good reason for this fear. The space under an 18-wheeler's trailer actually has a dangerous, even lethal, legacy. This problem is illustrated by a recent crash in Houston between a motorcycle and an 18-wheeler,...
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...
Whodunnit: Evaluating An Accident With Several Possible Causes
There's a common misconception that accident attorneys will often sue anyone even tangentially related to a wreck—especially if those distantly-involved parties have deep pockets. The idea of course is that profit, not prudence, guides the attorneys' decision-making. It's a deeply cynical stance that is perpetuated by pop culture's insistence on portraying attorneys as vultures and...
How Trucking Companies Hide Behind Intentional Tort Arguments
By paying a monthly fee to an insurance agency, people essentially place a bet that something bad will happen to them or their property. To "win" on that bet, the insured must first actually lose by incurring serious damages. Depending on the policy in question, that could mean anything from a home ruined by a...
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...
Are Wet Road Conditions Grounds for an Act of God Defense?
While crashes due to inclement weather are not uncommon across the United States, I recently learned of an incident here in Texas, which prompted me to write a little more in-depth about the phenomenon. In wet, foggy conditions, a tractor-trailer hydroplaned just outside of Midland. It entered oncoming traffic and collided with a passenger vehicle,...
Intoxicated Driving Study: Harris County, TX and DUI Crashes
The first reported drunk driving accident in the United States happened in 1904. Automobiles were still very new technology when these matters started to arise, and yet similar incidents started to be published with increasing frequency. Further evidence that people love to drink in exotic situations and locales, as though we needed any more confirmation....
A Quick Refresher on Texas Dram Shop Law
Texas dram shop cases are seldom cut and dried. It's an important element of tort law; after all, bars and restaurants that over-serve their customers deserve to be held accountable for putting profits before safety. While the intoxicated individual most certainly owns a significant share of the responsibility—failing to observe his or her own limits,...
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...
Stopping the Buck: Rose City Tragedy and Truck Accident Liability
President Harry Truman famously had a placard on his desk that read "The Buck Stops Here." The phrase ultimately means that one must take responsibility for their decisions and actions, and shouldn't "pass the buck" to avoid any consequences. That idealism is laudable, of course, but ducking blame has been practiced for millennia and shows...
How Trucking Company Lawyers Shift Blame Following an Accident
Defense Attorneys Say The Darnedest Things About a year ago, one of our firm's attorneys, Keith Purdue, was taking the deposition of a trucking company's "safety manager." This deposition was a fairly heated affair, wherein we were essentially accusing the man being deposed of having a largely ceremonious title and/or a job that merely existed...
How Can Human Perception Affect A Motorcycle Accident Case?
Perception is tricky. Two people can parse an image or a situation differently even when receiving identical input. Take this classic example: Or try this: Visual tricks like these have been around for years and illustrate a crucial point known to cognitive scientists and illusionists alike: In some instances, our senses lie to us. This...
Do Trucking Companies Need Safer Delivery Rules In Residential Neighborhoods?
Freight needs to get all over the country, and every year over $9 trillion in freight is hauled to and fro by trucks. We can talk all day about some glimmering future of electronic drones making deliveries (thanks for the raised expectations, Amazon), but our infrastructure right now depends largely on these diesel behemoths to...
