On Yet Another Legal Front

I’m sure I have no conception of the suffering this little guy and his family have had to endure and I am sorry for it. But the award was breathtaking.

An appeals court on Thursday overturned a landmark $105 million verdict against a stadium vendor that sold beer to a drunken fan who later paralyzed a girl in an auto wreck.
Ordering a new trial, the three-judge state appeals panel said the trial court improperly allowed testimony about the “drinking environment” at the 1999 football game at Giants Stadium.
The family claimed that vendors for Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. continued to sell beer to Daniel Lanzaro during a 1999 New York Giants game even though he was clearly drunk, and that the concessionaire fostered an atmosphere in which intoxicated patrons were able to still buy alcohol.
Hours later, Lanzaro, then 34, caused the wreck that paralyzed then-2-year-old Antonia Verni from the neck down.

My heartless cynical side kicked in, however, when I read this waaaay down in the column…

…However, the court said a new jury can consider whether other defendants previously excluded can also be held responsible in the case. Those defendants include the National Football League, two bars where Lanzaro drank after the game and a friend of Lanzaro’s who drank with him on the day of the accident.

He was barhopping AFTER the game? That turns a tragedy into a ‘go for who’s got the most cash‘ lawsuit in my eyes. Of course the jury awarded some ridiculous amount if they think he poured down the stadium steps into his car, then drove off to ruin that poor child’s life. Obviously there’s no dinero in either local bars or the poor schmuck who was out with him.

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