Tuesday, July 18, 2006
More frivolity, and some unexpected candor
It was only last week I posted on the most frivolous lawsuit of all time, and while this one doesn't quite meet that standard, it does raise my temperature nonetheless.
There are missing details I'd like to know about this story. Did the bar really serve him drinks after putting him into his car? If so, I'd like to know the name of that bar, but I suspect they did not, and assume this means they simply served him drinks the next time he came to the bar, which doesn't seem like something to litigate.
Frankly, if I leave a bar drunk and return sober at some point in the future, I would expect to be served, damnit! (A sentiment I suspect I share with Mr. Smith, by the way.) Indeed, wouldn't their failure to serve him a drink be grounds for another kind of lawsuit?
At any rate, this absurd lawsuit apparently (and surprisingly) failed to automatically meet the AP's social justice hurdle, so they consulted local expertise on the matter.
I relished Professor Noah's refreshing candor, but he'll be kicked out of the ABA if he doesn't curtail that kind of blasphemous talk.
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. -- A lawsuit accuses of a Gulf Coast strip club of serving drinks to a 50-year-old man they should have known was a "habitual drunkard."
"They knew that he was a drunkard," said attorney Sabato DeVito, a lawyer representing Spring Hill resident Johnny Eugene Smith. "And they continued to serve him alcohol even after they got him intoxicated and then helped him into his car."
There are missing details I'd like to know about this story. Did the bar really serve him drinks after putting him into his car? If so, I'd like to know the name of that bar, but I suspect they did not, and assume this means they simply served him drinks the next time he came to the bar, which doesn't seem like something to litigate.
Frankly, if I leave a bar drunk and return sober at some point in the future, I would expect to be served, damnit! (A sentiment I suspect I share with Mr. Smith, by the way.) Indeed, wouldn't their failure to serve him a drink be grounds for another kind of lawsuit?
At any rate, this absurd lawsuit apparently (and surprisingly) failed to automatically meet the AP's social justice hurdle, so they consulted local expertise on the matter.
University of Florida law professor Lars Noah told the Times the suit isn't frivolous, but it's unlikely to go far in the legal system.
"It's kind of surprising that any lawyer worth his salt would take a case like that," Noah said. "I'm partly to blame for that, I guess. We're churning them out."
I relished Professor Noah's refreshing candor, but he'll be kicked out of the ABA if he doesn't curtail that kind of blasphemous talk.
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