Why do lawsuits need to be checked? If the lawsuit is frivolous, I have faith that the court will dismiss it. We're not privy to the exact facts of the case, but if a bar does serve an inebriated person, they are going to be liable for at least some of the damages caused by that person.

The bar probably has insurance -- or they do if they're smart.

Whether they're liable to the estate of the person who took the alcohol is going to turn on state law, but it seems like a long shot. Nevertheless, if the estate has a valid claim, it ought to be allowed to proceed to trial even if under the facts we have it looks bad. We're just not in a very good position to judge that.

Total hijack - vast majority of my CF% work is out of state (obv - Iowa is a TERRIBLE venue for these kinds of lawsuits . . . see: Independence, MO or Cook Co, IL for better) but the cases I've done in IA have had damages allocated by % fault assigned to the defendant.

Actually now that I think about it, I think MO is the same way - however, that's for consumer fraud and product liability-type actions, so . . . uh, I don't know. I leave that the lawyers and stick to non-verbal communication and voodoo.

Unfortunately, there is no reason to have faith that courts will promote personal responsibility.

Wasn't there a case a few years ago involving TGIF and a drunk driving accident?

The drunks' family tried to sue TGIF for serving him too much alcohol but during an appeal to the SC (either state or federal) it was found to favor TGIF. Basically it was ruled that a bar/bartender cannot be found liable for some drunkasses mistakes?

If there was that decision, it maybe affected SC tort law, but I can't imagine a decision that would take away all liability from a bar/restaurant in those circumstances. Like Kevin said, it differs from state to state, but I can't imagine a regime that would lift liability like that. That's one of the things you buy liability insurance for, situations like this.

This is the FIRST thing that came to mind for me too.

And although I do think that bartenders should (if possible) exercise some judgment as to if a patron has had too much to drink, I doubt if this case pans out to be one of those. And really, unless they are sitting at the bar, is there any way to monitor this? I know when I was a bartender in college, when it was busy, I could barely keep up with drink orders.

From the last article I read, he was not only drunk (twice the legal limit), had marijuana in the car (so possibly high too), talking on his cell phone, and was not wearing a seatbelt. Shoot, it’s been proven that talking on the cell phone while driving is the equivalent of driving drunk so I can't imagine how he was driving at all.

Anyway, I hope his family finds closer. I know its hard to recognize that Josh just made some bad choices which caused his demise, but suing isn't going to make it better.

He should sue himself for being a bad parent who allowed his son to turn into an alcoholic!

Kidding, sorta...he might not be that bad of a father.

Yeah, last time I checked Josh Hancock was an adult and a professional athlete, it's not like he was a 17 year old still living with his parents.