For an establishment to be sued on liquor liability grounds in Florida, plaintiffs must show that the bartender knew the over-served, drunken driver was an addict.
The plaintiffs also cannot expect to prevail if an amended complaint—naming a different driver—is substantially different from the initial lawsuit and was filed years later, a Florida appeals court said this week in a case that involved a Tampa bowling alley, a 2014 crash that killed a 27-year-old, and court proceedings that were complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and lost evidence.
The plaintiffs were the father of victim Larry James Sillaway, who died in the crash, and the injured passenger Dawn Edgerton. Their legal team did not substitute the name of a different alleged drunken driver until 2022. That was eight years after the crash and nearly six years after the initial suit was filed. That substitution and delay had unfairly hamstrung the defense for Brandon Crossroads Bowl in Tampa, the 2nd District Court of Appeals said in upholding a Hillsborough County Circuit Court judge’s decision…