I’ve been considering starting a continuing category for unethical law suits, but what interests me about this story is that it coincides with a sudden flurry of new comments on the Shannon Stone post. That concerned the man who fell to his death at a Texas Rangers game last summer after lunging to catch a foul ball for his son. My post argued that when someone does something unequivocally reckless and foolish that leads to his injury and death,  it may be legally advantageous to sue third parties for not anticipating the situation and providing prophylactic safety measures, but is unethical to do so.

It was not one of my more popular posts.

This story, from South Carolina, raises a similar issue. Paraplegic Chelsea Hess is suing Jock’s Sports Grill  because the bartender failed to check her ID and didn’t determine whether she was already intoxicated when, at the age of 20 (in 2009), she drank, drove, and crashed her car, causing her current condition. Hess is also suing the state Department of Transportation, saying the agency failed to properly maintain the shoulder of the road where her car crashed.

The DOT suit could have merit: if she would not have crashed, driving drunk or not, had the road been in proper condition, then the state could be legitimately liable. There is also South Carolina precedent for the suit against the bar succeeding, under the logic of so-called “dram shop laws.” These are the laws that exist in many states making a liquor-serving establishment liable for a patron whom it serves liquor while obviously drunk, or is under age and is served in violation of state regulations. South Carolina doesn’t have such a law, but its courts have still awarded damages in cases where an obviously intoxicated patron is served more liquor and has an accident as a result.

I think that holding a bar responsible for getting an obvious drunk drunker still  is fair and reasonable. The intoxicated patron is not capable of rational decision-making; law or no law, the kind, responsible and fair thing to do is to cut him off. I have more problems with making a bar pay for the consequences of a 20-year-old  bluffing her way to an illegal drink or twelve and hurting herself as a result. Prosecute the bar for breaking the law. The 20-year-old, however, is responsible and accountable for her actions, and she’s hardly a kid. Her accident and current physical state is not the bar’s fault. It is her fault. The punishment for breaking the law by serving an illegal drink is in the statute, and it isn’t “lose your business” or “pay millions in damages.” Nor should it be. But Hess’s lawsuit against the bar is far from frivolous: it could be successful. It’s just unethical for her to bring it.

I should add, as a point of personal bias, that because lawsuits like Chelsea Hess’s succeed, I am carded at bars with some regularity, despite being born while Truman was president, on the theory that I might be a tall progeria victim and better safe than sorry.

I also understand that asking a 22-year-old paraplegic to refrain from pursuing a lawsuit with a plausible million dollar pay-off because it’s the right thing to do is a lot to expect, just as expecting Shannon Stone’s family to eschew seeking money from the Rangers in the wake of its tragedy is unreasonable. The most ethical conduct is often difficult, against self-interest, or unlikely. We should still acknowledge it, even as we acknowledge that it’s not going to happen very often, if ever.