The Texas Supreme Court delivered a crucial dram shop opinion this morning in Myers v. Raoger Corp. See Myers, 05-21-00988-CV, 698 SW3d 906, 07-05-23.
The appeal involves summary judgment issues in a dram shop case and, more specifically, the treatment of circumstantial evidence arising from a dram shop case in Dallas. See Myers v. Raoger Corp., 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS 4882, *11.
This morning, the Texas Supreme Court held that the denial of Plaintiff Myers’ motion for summary judgment was not an abuse of discretion.
One key takeaway is that in a dram shop case, there needs to be evidence of the customer’s apparent condition at the time of service. While that evidence can be circumstantial, it needs to be appropriately linked, and on the Myers record, it was not.
Moving forward, it looks like a Plaintiff will need more than a BAC level post-accident to meet their burden of “obvious intoxication” under the Texas Dram Shop Statute.
Fee Smith & Sharp has a breadth of experience and expertise in handling catastrophic dram shop cases. Please contact Founding Partner Tom Fee tfee@feesmith.com and Partner Justin Jones jjones@feesmith.com for additional information.
