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If a person is injured in a car accident because of his or her own drinking and driving, many people assume that the driver is the only one at fault. However, under Pennsylvania’s liquor liability law, when an establishment continues to serve alcohol to someone who is known to be drunk and then allows that person to drive, the establishment can be held responsible if the person is involved in a car accident.
A 39-year-old Westmoreland County man died in a fatal car accident in Indiana County last year. According to the toxicology report, his blood-alcohol content was .236 percent, nearly three times the legal limit in Pennsylvania.
He had been drinking at the Truck Stop 22 Dinner Theater Inc., also known as Streekers, just before he was involved in the fatal car accident. Streekers is an exotic dance club on Route 22 near the Cambria County.
Just after the man left the club, he struck three pylons that were placed at a dangerous spot in the road and where a guardrail had been damaged just a few days prior in a separate fatal accident. That caused him to lose control of his car, which then barrel-rolled down a steep embankment. The driver was ejected from the car and died at the scene of the accident.
His parents recently brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Streekers for serving their son an excessive amount of alcohol, even after he was drunk, and then allowing him to leave the establishment. The lawsuit claims that the Streekers’ employees knew or should have known that he was drunk and would be in danger if he drove.
To what extent should the strip-club owners be responsible for their clientele? Should the servers have stopped serving this man alcohol and prevented him from leaving the establishment in a motor vehicle? These and other issues will have to be addressed in this wrongful death lawsuit.
Source: TRIBUNE-REVIEW, “Seward man’s heirs sue Streekers club in fatal crash,” Paul Peirce, Aug 19, 2011