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24HourForums.com > The Top 10 Supported Forums > LC's Crimes & Trials > 21 year old dies from alcohol poisioning..parents sue bar owner and girl's friends |
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Marie5656 Forum-Blogger© Original500© Member  Just hanging out
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Saw this story on Nancy Grace today. The girl's BAC was something like .046. The parents are suing the bartender for serving her, and the friends...who they say encouraged her drinking. Lawsuit names friends, Mankato bar in woman's drinking death By ELIZABETH DUNBAR, The Associated Press 2008-02-28 22:25:30.0 Current rank: # 1,645 of 6,233 EDINA, Minn. - Amanda Jax would be alive if her friends had stopped buying her drinks, or if they had sought medical help when they saw the 21-year-old had vomited and was unconscious after partying on her birthday, her mother said Thursday. Jenny Haag and Kenneth Sterner, Jax's parents, have filed a lawsuit against the Mankato bar where Jax drank, saying the bartender shouldn't have served her after she was obviously drunk. But they've gone a step further by naming five friends who were with their daughter the night of Oct. 29, 2007. "They helped her drink, I think even when she was ready to quit," Haag said at a news conference held at her attorney's office in Edina. "Now she's dead." Haag said she had never seen Hannah Becker, Kathryn Lensing, Per Kvalsten, Rick Johnson or Jonathan McIntyre personally until her daughter's funeral. In the family's lawsuit, the five are accused of buying Jax drinks even after she was drunk and of leaving her unconcious and vomiting in a bed instead of seeking medical help. Lensing put Jax to bed at about 12:15 a.m., and four of them checked on her about 15 minutes later, according to the lawsuit. Jax had been unconscious for about an hour and had vomited twice when Lensing placed Jax on her left side and left her alone, the lawsuit said. Jax's friends found her body later that morning, and called 911. Authorities have said Jax died of alcohol poisoning and had a blood alcohol level of nearly 0.46 percent. "There were a lot of opportunities where someone could have stepped in and done something," said Alan Milavetz, Haag and Sterner's attorney. "It would have taken five minutes to take her to the hospital." Mark Solheim, an attorney for Becker, said he will "aggressively" fight the lawsuit and plans to ask a judge to dismiss it. "There is no legal duty to protect another person in this situation," said Solheim, who said he's never heard of another case like it in his nearly 20 years of dealing with alcohol-related lawsuits. "There is some personal responsibility here that should not be overlooked," he said, adding that Becker was under 21 at the time. Sidelines Bar & Grill is also named in the lawsuit, which says a bartender served Jax drinks and even provided Jax with her last drink that night - a "cherry bomb" shot - even after Jax appeared drunk. The bartender also took photos of Jax and her friends drinking, the lawsuit said. Craig Blattner, owner of Sidelines, did not return a call seeking comment. The Mankato City Council on Monday suspended Sidelines' liquor license. The bar has closed and lost its lease. McIntyre and Kvalsten did not return e-mail messages Thursday, and phone listings could not be found for McIntyre, Lensing, Kvalsten or Johnson. If the five people who partied with Jax are found liable by a jury, Milavetz said it would be the first such case in Minnesota. But he said a state law barring people from giving alcohol to someone who is obviously drunk applies not only to the bar, but to the other five defendants. Jax did not buy any drinks that night, he said. Milavetz also said several Minnesota civil cases support his argument, though none of them deal with the same circumstances as Jax's death. Haag said the high level of alcohol found in her daughter's system suggests that at some point, Jax wasn't able to make a rational decision about whether to drink more. Other people made that decision for her, she said. "I don't know how they can call themselves friends," Haag said. On the other hand, Haag acknowledged working with college students and said she hopes her daughter's story helps educate young adults and their parents on the dangers of binge drinking. "My daughter paid a high price. She died," Haag said. "We don't want another family to have to go through this." Jax was one of four college-aged people to die of alcohol-related causes since the start of the fall semester in Minnesota. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Last edited on 03:04 am by Marie5656  
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member 
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dram shop laws allow bars to be sued when an accident with injury or death results from drunk driving. there is likely a cause of action here. i don't believe the suit against her companions will succeed. she was 21 and drank voluntarily. they perhaps should have taken her to hospital, but good samaritan acts are not required by law.
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Marie5656 Forum-Blogger© Original500© Member Just hanging out
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Lady Cop wrote: i don't believe the suit against her companions will succeed. she was 21 and drank voluntarily. they perhaps should have taken her to hospital, but good samaritan acts are not required by law. That is a point being made on the Nancy Grace segment on CNN. That it cannot be proven the friends were at fault, and that they, in fact, could be seen as offering assistance by helping her out, and getting her home. Also that she was of age and able to make her own choices. To me, it seems the only fault of the friends would be a lack of judgement by not getting her out sooner, or not calling 911.
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Brian Grand Poobah of Moderation 
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I'll never really understand this. How do you just sit there and watch your friend get so shitfaced he/she can't even stand up? I've seen a few times where there's a kid that comes into a bar, and the big tradition is "21 drinks 'cause you're 21!". And it's not like they don't understand the causal relationship between drinking and intoxication. That seems to be the whole point of the exercise. It just never occurs to them that 21 drinks may just be a bad idea...  I mean, yeah, sometimes people drink too much and need to "sleep it off", but wouldn't her being unconscious be a clue that something's amiss?? And I'm not sure the friends aren't liable here. It's not just that they didn't help, but they were the ones buying her the drinks in the first place. She didn't buy her own. They could've (and should've) cut her off at some point.
"It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last." -- "A Long December", Counting Crows |
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member
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it seems that in that age group of those drinking, there is a loss of good judgment. (they were drinking also.) i do think there is a moral liability, i just don't think there is a legal liability. and even though they bought the drinks, she drank them of her own free will. one problem is that these are new legal drinkers, and they don't have the experience to handle it or know when to quit. the bar should have cut them all off.
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sirlamre Pioneer100© Member Official Forum Troublemaker
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I think it may not pass case law, but it'll set some standards perhaps. Next case might pass. I'd say there IS a difference here and that is that THEY were deciding to buy her the drinks - not her asking for them, so far as it appears. Once someone isn't capable of handling their affairs, and you cause them harm because of that - while you may not be responsible for their positive welfare, so to speak - iyou ARE responsible in society for not taking advantage of their incapacity and doing them harm because of it. Just like tipping over someone in a wheelchair into the road is a crime- they cannot easily prevent you from doing it. So IMHO, they are NOT at fault for failing to take her to a hospital-- ie, they don't have to take 'positive' action. But the friends ARE responsible for giving her the repeated drinks...ie, taking advantage of her impaired state to get her to drink MORE than she should have, since she was not able to clearly decide to NOT drink on her own. To me, that's the same kind of situation as misleading a mentally ill person to cause them to harm themselves - like telling them that a harmful drug will make them 'feel good' and not knowing better, they take it. Cases HAVE been won in situations like that- I think there's a similar rationale here-- past a certain point of drunkenness, she was unable to protect herself from from the further 'harm' done to her with more drinks -- in that sense, they all took advantage of her- Since the bar didn't actually choose to supply the additional drinks, but they were requested by the friends, I think they're involved as well as the bar. Last edited on 05:56 pm by sirlamre |
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member
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Since the bar didn't actually choose to supply the additional drinks, the bar did choose to continue serving her. they have a responsibilty by law to cut off someone clearly incapacitated by drink. and in the face of many cases, most bars take that seriously, they don't want to be sued. their liquor license has been suspended.
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UsedToRide Original500© Member  ^^^That is LOVE!!^^^
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the bar did choose to continue serving her. they have a responsibilty by law to cut off someone clearly incapacitated by drink. Hell yes they do. They have many training procedures available now to help a bartender learn the signs of when a person has had too much to drink, and it doesn't sound like this was in question by anyone. Puking and pasing out is a pretty sure sign that the person has had enough. I'd be interested to learn if any of the bartenders at this bar had the TIPS/TAMS training. Even if they didn't it seems to me that even a green bartender should have been able to see the problem. In a very busy bar when I was going Mach 2 with my hair on fire I still kept an eye on my customers and could spot someone getting out of control easily. It was a rare shift when I didn't cut off (and piss off) at least one person.
Respect some, trust one, fear none ~~Bullet A hundred criminals may be set free, but one innocent man should not go to prison, for that will make the entire system criminal ~Chief Justice T.L.Venkatraman |
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Marie5656 Forum-Blogger© Original500© Member Just hanging out
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UTR, a question for you. When you tended bar, were you required by management to shut people off if clearly intoxicated..or was it left as a judgement call on your part? My niece used to own a bar, and though she had bartenders, she was there most evenings. She made the decision that she would shut people off herself, so it would not fall onto the bartender. But that was her decision. The person who co-owned the bar with her also would do that if she were there.
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UsedToRide Original500© Member ^^^That is LOVE!!^^^
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Marie5656 wrote: UTR, a question for you. When you tended bar, were you required by management to shut people off if clearly intoxicated..or was it left as a judgement call on your part? It was my judgement call. I said that's it, and that was it. I've never had a boss come to me and say "Maybe they've had enough". I'd sooner cut someone off too early, before they're really smashed and have them pissed at me than cut them off too late. Many times I had people come back the next day and thank me for shutting them down the night before. I always thought of my bar as my domain. I make the rules, and the customer isn't always right. Not when there is booze involved. You think I cut you off too soon? Piss on ya, and go to any other bar down the street. Maybe they'll serve you there, and maybe they won't, but you'll get no more from me.
Respect some, trust one, fear none ~~Bullet A hundred criminals may be set free, but one innocent man should not go to prison, for that will make the entire system criminal ~Chief Justice T.L.Venkatraman |
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24HourForums.com > The Top 10 Supported Forums > LC's Crimes & Trials > 21 year old dies from alcohol poisioning..parents sue bar owner and girl's friends | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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