The juice is generally not worth the squeeze. Practically speaking, it is not worth the plaintiff lawyer’s time to execute a judgment (take possession of a local restaurant or bar’s tables, chairs, and used restaurant equipment and then sell those assets to satisfy part of a judgment). Restaurant and bar owners-if they are smart-lease the restaurant/bar property from a separate legal entity and take other actions to limit a plaintiff’s ability to collect amounts in excess of the insurance limit. This is so even when there are multiple fatalities or life-altering injuries as a result of a drunk driving accident.
A plaintiff may obtain a judgment against the restaurant or bar in excess of $100,000.00 but there is usually no economical way for a plaintiff to recover anything other than the $100,000.00 in insurance coverage. Since dram shop insurance is expensive and hard to obtain for local restaurants and bars, they naturally obtain the absolute minimum dram shop coverage required: $100,000.00 single-limit coverage. When an insurance carrier knows you’ve got to have dram shop coverage to sell alcohol (like a pharmaceutical company knows you’ve got to have medicine to stay alive), the insurance company can command a higher premium and they know you’ll pay it or you can’t be in business. This creates what economists call inelastic demand. All Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board licensees are required by law to have a minimum amount of dram shop insurance coverage.High jury verdicts against Alabama businesses increase the risk restaurants and bars will also have to pay large sums of money.Alabama’s former dram shop statute was essentially a strict liability statute making it relatively easy to blame restaurants and bars for a drunk driver’s criminal wrongdoing.A number of factors contribute to expensive and hard to obtain dram shop insurance: However, there is no question dram shop coverage in Alabama is very expensive and hard to obtain for local restaurants and bars. The scope and scale of those insurance programs makes it economical for franchisees to secure $1,000,000.00 or more in dram shop coverage. Large restaurant and hotel chains make insurance programs available to franchisees-think Applebee’s, Olive Garden, Hampton Inn, Marriott etc. So, changing the causation standard from “consequence of” to “proximate cause” is nothing more than a superficial academic change in the law. If they can get their case in front of a jury, they gloss over the proximate cause element and focus on a defendant’s violation of rules, and the plaintiff’s injuries, pain, and suffering. Anecdotally, plaintiff lawyers don’t really care about causation.
#APPLE BEE BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA TRIAL#
Causation is almost always a jury question it is extraordinarily rare for a trial judge to dismiss a case at the summary judgment stage on proximate cause, and even more rare for Alabama appellate courts to uphold a dismissal on that basis.
However, from a practical standpoint, this change is almost meaningless. Academically, the new statute’s “proximate cause” standard makes it harder to meet the elements of a dram shop claim. The new dram shop statute uses the more familiar “proximate cause” standard. The standard casts a very broad net and made it easy to connect a restaurant’s or bar’s violation of the dram shop statute with injuries a plaintiff sustained in a subsequent drunk driving accident. The causation standard in Alabama’s former dram shop statute was “consequence of”. Let me explain:įirst, a quick comment on a substantive change in the law which industry claim is a major win for the restaurant and hospitality industry. The long-term outcome will be higher dram shop premiums for local restaurants and bars, not lower premiums. Why would Alabama plaintiff lawyers agree to dram shop reform making it harder for them to recover money from small businesses and harder for them to put money in their pockets? One likely reason is the so-called “dram shop reform” bill is part of a larger strategy by Alabama plaintiff lawyers to increase minimum dram shop coverage requirements. Alabama plaintiff lawyers (through their powerful lobbying groups) were consulted on the bill, proposed changes to the bill, and ultimately agreed to the bill as passed. Ostensibly, the new legislation makes it harder to sue restaurants and bars for dram shop claims, thereby lowering the risk of exposure, and in turn, lower dram shop insurance premiums. Alabama’s new dram shop statute has been heralded for months as a “historic dram shop reform” and a win for the restaurant and hospitality industry.
0 kommentar(er)
