Posted on 12/07/2009 10:06:57 PM PST by This_far
CHEYENNE — A head-on collision that killed a Ten Sleep couple last year is prompting a new legal challenge to a state law that protects bar owners from being held responsible for the actions of intoxicated patrons.
John and Carol Munkberg died Jan. 28, 2008, in a fiery crash in Big Horn County. He was 70, and she was 66.
The other driver, Randall LaBrie, 41, of Malta, Mont., had a blood alcohol level of 0.16 percent — twice the legal limit — and was driving in the wrong lane, police reports stated. LaBrie and his two passengers also died.
The Munkbergs’ relatives sued this week, seeking damages from Doug and Denny Freier, owners of two Big Horn County saloons that LaBrie reportedly visited before the crash.
Pat Crank, a former state attorney general now in private practice in Cheyenne, represents the Munkbergs’ relatives in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks District Judge Steven Cranfill of Cody to declare that a Wyoming law that protects bar owners from legal action stemming from the actions of intoxicated patrons is unconstitutional. In the alternative, the lawsuit asks the judge to certify the question of whether the law is constitutional to the Wyoming Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.com ...
How expensive would that be?
(good business for breathalyzer makers)
i em goin tu su mykrospht fore awl thie werdz i mizzpel.
No. I take a fairly libertarian position on vehicular vehicualarism. Everyone who dies on the road, dies in the spirit of freedom. If you drink and you die, you made your choice. If you drive and you are killed by a drunk driver, you made your choice to drive on roads that are accessible to drunk drivers. Sorry for being libertarian on that issue, but liberty has is price.
My car dealer offers a courtesy car to drive people home when they drop off a car for repair. One driver and a van could take all the patrons of most bars home in less than 2 hours...
I thought most bartenders/servers had to be aware of a patrons condition due to being liable for overserving.
HOW they are supposed to do so (and not be sued for NOT serving, which I’ve also read of happening), is beyond me. I’ve always been on the ‘patron’ end of the equation.
I’m just wondering how this might involve anyones constitutional rights???
The American evasion of personal responsibility hustles on apace; why not sue school teachers if a kid grows up and makes a hash of his/her life?
How about suing restaurants if I get heart disease?
Why not sue the supermarket where I bought the bananas on the peel of which I slipped and slammed my head into the wall?
If I go to Home Depot and buy carpentry supplies, then go home and mash my thumb with a hammer, is the store responsible?
If anything goes wrong in anyone’s life for any reason whatsoever, there’s always a venal, ignorant, corrupt lawyer just a phone call away; and a jury of idiots ready to further erode standards of personal responsibility in an increasingly amoral nation.
No problem there. I'm still trying to understand what part of the Constitution would apply here though?
My bartender offers me a courtesy car to drive home in if I get to drunk. I only wrecked it once. /s
Agree with most of your reply (Bloomberg is already screwing with the restaurants and there are warning labels on hammers... maybe there should be instructions also?).
As to bars/servers, they should be aware of their customers condition for the sake of THEIR common sense, their responsibility and the desire for return customers.
Responsibility yes, but alcohol diminishes that ability in many.
This past Superbowl Sunday, I was near a local sports bar when the game ended and there were six large passenger vans lined up to take people home.
Well, if they are liberals (as most lawyers are), it is because they don't like it.
The legislature is directed by the USC (and States' versions in all instances) to pass laws that they see fit. The only thing I can see is some sort of extreme suggestion this inhibits "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Before you laugh, this has been the basis for about 90% of all Federal Law, so it may have a chance.
There also could be some sort of Bill of Attainder or Ex Pos Factos Law approach -- the idea that the Legislature signed away the rights of a 3rd party.
Other than that, I got nuthin -- OTOH I am not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet (but I am a bit of a lay Constitutional scholar).
I seem to remember this same issue coming to a head in Arizona a few years back. I do not remember the ultimate legal decision on it but I think it went up through District/State/Federal Courts. Maybe higher.
Perhaps someone else recalls this.
Don't yell at me, but please allow me to suggest that serving a clearly drunk person more alcohol without ensuring they won't be driving is like allowing them to pass out in the middle of the street and allowing a car to run over them.
There is almost always a "test of the reasonable man" that can be applied.
Of course, the problem is that by the time someone is so drunk they should be cut off, they are already too drunk to drive.
But that is the direction the law has gone in the last 25 years. I think in California bars and even private individuals are at risk should someone leave their place and drive drunk and hurt or kill someone or something.
A certain amount of due diligence can at least indemnify the bar or owner.
That was the Arizona Cardinals' team bus...
‘A certain amount of due diligence can at least indemnify the bar or owner.’
Ah, but that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it; NO amount of “due diligence” can indemnify ANYONE in the current legal climate.
Buy a cup of coffee at McDonald’s, then, like an absolute chump, spill it in your lap. But - voila! - with the aid of a corrupt lawyer and a dozen drooling cretins in the jury, turn your idiocy into millions in the bank by claiming that when you ordered “hot coffee” you didn’t mean THAT hot.
It’s a sick system, and it’s only growing sicker by the year. I stand by my previous post 100%.
Probably true.
That one MAY have been righteous -- she was badly burned, moreso than most people realize. But I am not sure how the "cure" of adding YET ANOTHER "warning" label would have kept it from happening.
It’s a sick system, and it’s only growing sicker by the year. I stand by my previous post 100%.
That's fine -- I was just trying to show how maybe the legal system arrived where it did -- analytical.
But let me share this (in your support). My wife is from Mexico and I just got back from spending a week there. There is a commercial with a guy standing on a fast-moving train leaning into the wind holding a laptop. Automatically, I looked for the usual "professional stunt man - do not attempt." Nope. The commercial just ran. I noted those warnings we get in the USA to my in-laws and they said (basically) "what kind of pendejo (translation: idiot/a-hole, etc.) thinks he can stand on a train like that and not get killed?"
Pretty sad when Mexico has more common sense than us.
Thanx. Guess I’ll have to go with ‘because’ for now.
That one MAY have been righteous — she was badly burned, moreso than most people realize. But I am not sure how the “cure” of adding YET ANOTHER “warning” label would have kept it from happening.
If you’re referring to the suit against McDonald’s, as I believe you are, then I can only conclude by this statement that you are quite clearly and completely out of your mind.
The woman was driving in her car and juggling the coffee with one hand, while the other was on the steering wheel.
OF COURSE she spilled it all over herself.
And you believe McDonald’s was liable for her injuries??????
Since we are both Freepers, I’ll be very, very, very polite, and say merely that you have a very odd and hugely eccentric sense of personal responsibility.
As for Mexico, bringing suit pays far less well down there than defending drug dealers, kidnappers, and professional murderers. They’ll catch on to the Tort Gravy Train eventually.
Well, you are not quite getting my point, but that is on me, not you.
The Mexico reference was a cluck-cluck about how they just don’t look at the courts as a slot machine like we do.
I can give you a rationale but you may not think it passes the giggle test . If my right to collect from some one who was negligent , is treated as a property right , and that right is taken away by statute , why is it not a taking and what overriding public policy is served . Utah has a law protecting ski resorts from suits for ski injuries , calling it a form of assumed risk , but a few years ago , its motorist guest statute was overturned , IIRC , on a theory the injured party had a right to at least have a court determine if the driver was at fault for injuring his passenger.
Sorry - it’s late and my brain is on autopilot.
Bars are just business with liability insurance polices and they have deeper pockets than the drunken drivers whose insurance companies may be able to op out if the driver is committing a crime i.e. DUI
IMHO
.
When liberals don't like a policy it is by definition unconstitutional. Finding a rationalization as to why is the job of the most brilliant legal minds. Only dimwits could accept a radical notion like individuals being responsible for their own actions.
“...outlawing open containers of alcohol on roads.” Another red herring.
Sorry for disagreeing with you, but I am. Your way is anarchy.
I say the freedom way is to hold the individual responsible for their actions. You drive while drunk and cause a problem you pay the price. Same if you drive recklessly.
Also, let’s follow your line of reasoning to it’s logical conclusion.
If you walk down a sidewalk and are raped and murdered you made your choice to walk on a sidewalk accessible to raping murderers. Sorry, but liberty has it’s price.
Seems to me they would have to prove that the alcohol was consumed AT the bar, and not after the patron LEFT the bar—say another bottle in the car or a different bar. We need microchips in the people and movement sensors in all public locations NOW!!!/s
Holding the bar responsible for DUIs was tried in Hawaii when I was there - when control was shifting from kamaaina to haole. It was thought it would cut down on DUIs. There was a problem with it - when a drunk driver was pulled he wouldn’t name the bar he was last drinking in but the bar where he was cut off, not wanting to get a “good” bartender in trouble.
It's called the right to legal recourse. If a person believes another person (or entity) is responsible for damages, they have the right to take them to court.
The Wyoming law that protects bar owners from legal action stemming from the actions of intoxicated patrons prohibits this. That's where the 'unconstitutional' part comes in.
Of course, one must realize that the original right to legal recourse contained in English law was intended to provide compensation for someones negligent action, NOT as a substitute for personal responsibility.
------
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. I've just done over a decade of research trying to figure out how the American people became so screwed by our own legal system. :-)
in reality attorneys will name as many bars as possible in the lawsuit - that's all they have to do is name them - then the insurance company attorneys all slice up the copability and the payout
I've rarely seen a successful defense from a bar because after all the discover the bars insurance company has the choice to settle or go to trial
They always settle and than just increase the premiums
It's a legal scam perpetuated by the trial lawyers
.
That has the same problem as calling a taxi for the drunks, yeah they get home OK, but how does their car get back home?
Belated thank you!
Have you found anything in your research that would/could/can be used against our elected "representative" Senators who vote for the mandatory part of the (insurance) healthcare bill?
(aside from the nebulous results from the voting booth?)
It's obvious that they don't listen to their constituents (or the polls) concerning this.
The only one that would come to mind as far as government is concerned is US Code Title 8 section 242 -Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
If government isn't given an authority by the Constitution to do a certain thing (like forcing us to buy insurance) it isn't a 'real' law, it merely has the appearance of one.
-----
Hope this helps!
Thank You. It's a start for me (one amongst others who are ready to be 'jailed' for not purchasing mandatory insurance).
I look forward to the supposed law suits concerning the Constitutionality of this bill (and hopefully, repercussions against all who've signed onto it!).
Lawyers are scum. Period.
I must say though, that from past (and from friends) experience(s), one doesn't want to enter a legal battle with a 'nice guy' for a lawyer, unless he's in the employ of the opposition.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.