Case Study | Liquor Liability
for a victim of a drunk driving crash
The driver of a vehicle was over-served at a local bar and became intoxicated. He crashed his vehicle driving home from the bar and caused substantial injuries to our client. The driver was arrested and prosecuted for DWI. Through strategic coordination of the criminal and civil proceedings, Palermo Law recovered $1,025,000 — a result that would not have been possible without pursuing the bar under New York’s Dram Shop Act.
| 1 | Identified the Bar as a Second Defendant
From the outset, we recognized that the driver’s insurance limits alone were unlikely to fully compensate our client. We investigated the events preceding the crash and established that the defendant had been drinking at a local bar immediately before the accident — opening a claim under New York’s Dram Shop Act (GOL §11-101). |
| 2 | Coordinated Timing With the Criminal Prosecution
Rather than rushing to depose the defendant, we waited for the criminal case to resolve. Once the driver entered a guilty plea, his plea allocution — sworn testimony on the record — documented exactly how much he had consumed that night. We then proceeded to his civil deposition. |
| 3 | Used Sworn Criminal Testimony to Lock in the Facts
At deposition, the defendant could not contradict his own guilty plea. The plea allocution established the amount of alcohol consumed and the sequence of events — making it impossible for the defense to minimize his intoxication or dispute how much he drank at the bar. |
| 4 | Pursued the Bar’s Insurance Under the Dram Shop Act
With the drinking established on the record, we pursued the bar for serving a visibly intoxicated patron. The bar’s liability insurer contributed significantly to the settlement. Without the bar’s coverage, our client would have been severely under-compensated — the driver’s policy alone was not enough to reflect the full extent of her injuries. |
The Dram Shop claim was not an afterthought — it was the key to fair compensation. New York law holds establishments liable when they serve alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person who then causes injury. By identifying both the driver and the bar as defendants and using the criminal proceeding to build an airtight evidentiary record, we ensured our client recovered what she was owed.
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