B. Everett Jordan Lake Topics: This didn't take long

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	Name:	Jim120 -
	Subject:	This didn't take long
	Date:	8/15/2008 1:48:24 PM

As long-time-ago lawyer who did NOT specialize in this area: unless the law has changed since back in my day, which is certainly possible, you're not quite right. A "saloonkeeper" is under an obligation to exercise reasonable care to make sure that no patron consumes excessive alcohol to the extent they might cause injury to others. What is reasonable care? It's essentially always a jury question, and as always, it covers the whole waterfront of knowable and observable facts and behavior, but usually what they wind up talking about is how many drinks the patron had and whether they showed any apparent signs of intoxication in the restaurant/bar/whatever. If they ARE a minor or known alcoholic, that could well enter into it, but you can certainly incur liability serving too many drinks to non-alcoholics and people over 21.

Perhaps interestingly, as I recall, when Jere Beasley started practicing law in Montgomery many years ago, he was a deep-in-debt former Lt Governor coming fresh off a wildly expensive and unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in which he got trounced so badly he permanently swore off elective politics. He had borrowed heavily to make the race -- at least hundreds of thousands. His first big successful plaintiff's case (as I remember it anyhow) was a big verdict against a "dinner theatre" in Montgomery --a "dramshop case" as they call it. I forget the details but all such cases are more or less alike -- someone allegedly got drunk while visiting a place that served liquor and seriously injured or killed someone usually (but not necessarily) while driving a vehicle after leaving the establishment. As I remember it, the case was highly visible and sort of kick-started his post-political career. It involved a really big verdict (there was speculation afterwards about whether the establishment had assets or insurance coverage matching or remotely approaching the size of the verdict, and I don't know the answer to that, but even if not it was a huge PR victory generating lots of headlines).

He is a remarkably skillful trial lawyer and has been a big help to a lot of people who needed it badly. As the old saying goes, "All lawyers are villains, except of course for YOUR lawyer when you need one." (BTW, I was almost exclusively a defense attorney and did try a case against Beasley once.)