FBI Drunk Driving Leads To Fatal Auto Accident in MD

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

Law enforcement officers are supposed to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. There are a few very good reasons for this. The first is that they are supposed to be the people who enforce the laws of our cities, counties and states. The second is that they are the only people in the country who have the right to take our freedom away from us. Administrative assistants can’t serve a warrant for your arrest. Restaurant employees can’t search you for drugs or weapons. Doctors and nurses can’t lead you away in handcuffs. The only people who can do any of those things are police or federal agents. If the police and agents are in charge of enforcing the law, then should also strictly adhere to the law. The obvious premise is that law enforcement officers are not supposed to break the law. It goes without saying that the rest of us aren’t supposed to either, but if those who are supposed to enforce the laws feel no compunction about violating those laws, it means that some laws don’t apply to some citizens, which renders the whole concept of law essentially meaningless.

 

One branch of law enforcement that is held to a particularly high standard is the FBI, which basically functions as our national investigative police force. They investigate bank robberies, terrorism, financial fraud, forgeries, kidnapping, or any crime that occurs over multiple states. It takes a lot more than standard police training to be able to join.

We were recently very shocked to learn about the following incident, particularly because it involves an FBI agent breaking the very law that he is supposed to uphold and enforce:

WASHINGTON - Law enforcement officials have identified the FBI agent suspected in a fatal drunk driving car crash in Brandywine, Md. Monday night as 37-year-old Adrian Norbell Johnson. The FBI says the agent has worked for the bureau for six years…Law enforcement sources tell FOX 5 Johnson's blood alcohol level shortly after the deadly crash was .25, three times the legal limit in Maryland. Prince George's County Police say that amount of alcohol in a driver's system is extremely dangerous.

Speaking as attorneys who help victims of drunk drivers, we can tell you  that a .25 blood alcohol level goes beyond “extremely dangerous” and veers right into “extremely reckless.” He would have had to consume at least 10 drinks in order to get to that level of drunkenness, and considering that the job of most law enforcement officers is to prevent people from drinking and driving, he must have known that drinking that much and then getting behind the wheel was both illegal and completely negligent. But he did it anyway.

If Agent Johnson had been pulled over by another police officer or got arrested at a sobriety checkpoint, this might have just been an unfortunate and embarrassing incident for the FBI. Instead it turned out to be an accident where one person died and another was left in critical care in the hospital. So this incident has turned out to be both a tragedy and an embarrassment, especially considering that Agent Johnson was meant to join the security detail for the Attorney General.

Drunk driving is a serious problem in this country, particularly in the Washington, D.C. area. There were 243 DUI fatalities in Virginia last year, 10 in the District, and 162 in Maryland. And the DUI accidents where people were injured numbers in the thousands. The cost of these accidents ranges in the tens of millions. Drinking and driving is a detriment to the safety of our society, and it is one that could be easily avoided if everyone simply exercised some basic responsibility.

There is a big difference between a run of the mill car accident and an accident that is caused by drunk driving. An accident can happen to anyone. But drunk driving is negligent behavior that is often the primary cause of an auto accident. You can’t blame a driver if a deer runs out in front of his car, but you can blame a driver if he drinks ten vodka tonics, and then attempts to drive home. Agent Johnson should have certainly known this, and why he decided to risk driving home after drinking that much is beyond us.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently helping people who have been injured in car accidents due to the negligence of drunk drivers. We can help anyone in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been injured in a drunk driving car accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident legal consultation.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Should A Bar Be Held Responsible For Drunk Patrons?

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

We aren’t big believers in the idea that accidents simply “happen.” To be sure, there are certainly instances that can be called “acts of God.” If a gust of wind blows a moving car over, you can’t say that anyone is at fault there. Or if somebody gets struck by lightning out of the clear blue sky, there would be no conceivable way to lay the blame on anyone. Sometimes, things just happen.

But as injury lawyers in Washington, D.C, it has been our experience that most accidents are “caused.” Somebody makes a poor decision, or somebody neglects to perform an expected task, or somebody acts without thinking about the consequences, and the end result is that someone gets hurt or worse. You can’t really call an instance of negligence by a doctor “an accident.” Nor can you call it “an accident” when a driver hits a pedestrian in the crosswalk because he was texting while driving.

Another thing that isn’t an accident is continuing to serve a patron alcohol after he has already had enough to be visibly intoxicated.  It’s hard to make the argument that you didn’t know that there would be potential harmful effects if you served a patron close to twenty drinks over the course of an evening and then didn’t even bother to try to call him a cab.

In many states, there are laws in place that hold establishments that serve alcohol liable for any damage that might be caused if their patrons get drunk and behave irresponsibly. These are called Dram Shop Laws. There are limits to these laws, of course. For instance, if a man walks into a bar after drinking heavily elsewhere and only orders one drink, and that man shows no visible signs of being drunk, it could be argued that there was no way for the bartender to know what the customer had been doing before entering the establishment. Bartenders have many talents and capabilities, but telepathy is not one of them.

However, In the case of Michael Eaton, telepathy was not needed.  On August 21, 2008, Mr. Eaton came into Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg at around 4 in the afternoon.  He opened a bar tab, and in the course of six hours he ordered 14 Coronas and 2 shots that are called “Lemon Drops.”  Lemon Drops are essentially about an ounce and a half of vodka.  It could be argued that Mr. Eaton didn’t drink all of the alcohol that he ordered.  But even if he bought half of those drinks for other people his tally up to that point would have been 8 drinks.

After closing that first bar tab, he opened another, this time purchasing 3 more Coronas and a shot of tequila. Then he paid that off and left.

At no point did anyone at the bar cut him off.  At no point did anyone say “I think you’ve had enough.” It’s a safe assumption that the only thing that was said to Mr. Eaton by the employees at Dogfish Ale House was “Would you like another round?” or “Here’s your check.” They can’t make the argument that they didn’t know he was drunk. They were also responsible for getting him that way.

This is an important point. Because after Mr. Eaton left the bar, he got into his car and proceeded to drive down I-270 at around 90 miles an hour.  It was there that he slammed into a car carrying Jazimen Warr, a ten year old girl. Jazimen Warr did not survive the experience.

Mr. Eaton is now serving a term in prison for vehicular manslaughter, which is what he deserves.  But the underlying question is this: How much responsibility does Dogfish Head Alehouse have in the death of Ms. Warr? Mr. Eaton sat in that establishment for four hours and consumed enough alcohol to where there could have been no question as to his state. Establishments that sell alcohol should have a duty to do so in a responsible manner. So where does this leave Dogfish Head Ale House? Are they liable?

We believe they are. Unfortunately, Maryland believes that they are not.

Maryland is one of the few states in America that has no laws establishing liability for bar and restaurant owners for the actions of their customers, even if the amount of alcohol they consume is a direct cause for anything that happens later.  Considering what the Warr family lost, and considering how easy it would have been for the people at Dogfish Head Ale House to prevent what happened, we believe dram shop laws should be put into place. This is a position that we have held for quite some time, and it is one of the reasons that we are representing the Warr family.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to anyone in the Maryland, D.C. and Virginia areas who has been injured due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one in the D.C. area has been injured due to a drunk driver, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation today.
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Virignia Drunk Driving Accident Sentenced - Barely

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

This story comes from WAVY down in Virginia Beach:

A 24-year-old woman who seriously injured two people in a drunk driving head-on collision in March 2009 was sentenced Wednesday to serve four years and six months in prison.

Lisa Marie Schettler, a Virginia Beach native, had a blood alcohol level of .44 that night in March. With that much alcohol in your system, you shouldn’t even be allowed to leave the house, much less get behind the wheel of a car. Yet that’s exactly what Ms. Schettler did. Her car drifted across the double yellow line on Bird Neck Road and slammed directly into the front of another car, which was occupied by Donald and Elaine Gay. According to the news report, all three of them were seriously injured.

Ms. Schettler is lucky that there were only injuries involved, and it’s hard to imagine that the Gay’s feel lucky at all, although they should count themselves lucky to be alive. What you had here was just about the purest form of vehicular negligence that exists. It’s dangerous enough to drink even a minor amount of alcohol and then get behind the wheel of a car; Ms. Schettler drank enough to the point where she shouldn’t have been able to see straight.

The news report doesn’t say anything about Ms. Schettler’s weight, but with a BAC of .44, we could make a fair guess that she had at least nine drinks, which is more than enough to impair someone’s ability to drive a car.

So as a result of this act of irresponsibility, two completely innocent people were badly injured. They went through painful and expensive medical treatment, they were unable to go to work and earn a living for themselves, and they had to go through a prolonged and painful recuperation process. And all they did to deserve this ordeal was to simply get in their car.

If you take the numbers available for drunk driving related accidents in Virginia as a whole, you actually get somewhat of an encouraging scenario. The earliest numbers available at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles are from 1984, when the Old Dominion had a staggering 19,371 alcohol related vehicle accidents. This was 15.7% of all vehicle crashes. In other words, if you got into a car wreck in Virginia in 1984, there was just under a 16% chance that the other driver had been drinking.

Things have improved drastically over the following 26 years. In 2009, the total number of alcohol related crashes was 9,366, which is almost exactly 10,000 less alcohol related crashes in Virginia. We can take that to mean that raising awareness of the dangers of drunken driving and increasing the penalties for drunken driving have made a difference in Virginia. But sadly, the awareness in Virginia didn’t make enough a difference to stop Lisa Marie Schettler from getting behind the wheel of a car after nine drinks and a blood alcohol content of .44.

The definition of negligence is when one person or party does not live up to the reasonable expectations of keeping someone else from getting hurt. For instance, if you are in possession of a loaded gun, you would not fire it in public for no apparent reason. Similarly, if you have been drinking a large volume of alcohol, you would not get behind the wheel of a car. You can’t make the argument that you didn’t know that drinking and driving was illegal. You can’t make the argument that you didn’t plan on hurting anybody. A person who drinks and drives is a perfect example of someone engaging in negligent behavior.

As injury attorneys based in the Washington, D.C. area, Virginia is right in our back yard. In our twenty five years as an injury law firm, we have represented countless Virginians who were injured due to the negligence of another driver. So even though Virginia Beach is a few hours away from our offices in Silver Spring, the story of Ms. Schettler and Mr. and Mrs. Gay caught our attention.

We have dedicated a significant portion of our practice to helping car accident victims in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. get fair compensation when they get injured due to no fault of their own, and that includes people who have been injured due to drunk drivers. We help our clients get past the artificially low settlement offers and delaying tactics that insurance companies use to avoid paying injury victims what they deserve. If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. and you feel that you need legal counsel, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident injury consultation.

To learn more about auto accidents and auto injury, please read our auto accident page, or our injury page, or watch our accident videos on Youtube.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,