The Illinois Supreme Court recently ruled that a strip club could be sued for allowing a patron to drive drunk. The patron then crashed into a car in oncoming traffic, killing that motorist and her unborn child, as well as the passenger in his car. See http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/2110464,Diamonds-strip-club-lawsuit_AU031810.article.
While I feel terrible for the victims and their families for their loss, I believe that only the drunk driver should be held responsible for their deaths. The driver was convicted of aggravated DUI and sentenced to 12 years in prison. The strip club that the driver was at did not even serve alcohol, and it appears that the driver was kicked out of the club.
Shouldn’t owners of private businesses be allowed to kick people out of their establishments for unruly behavior and not have to worry about a lawsuit being filed? Can we really expect business owners to babysit adults and take responsibility for their bad behavior? What should the employees of the strip club have done, called a cab? There is no guarantee that the driver would have gone along with that. He obviously drove to the strip club in the first place, how he was going to get home if he was not kicked out? Obviously he would have driven.
I can understand holding bars and taverns accountable because they serve the drinks. But to blame a private establishment for a driver’s drinking and driving when they were not the ones serving the drinks seems a bit much to me.
