Bar held liable may extend personal injury responsibility
In Monday's Guardian, a legal columnist examined the liability of a bar owner for any car crash that might occur to a driver driving home after drinking in his establishment.
He encouraged his readers to consider whether the owner should be held responsible for supplying the motorist with a drink that took him over the limit, and therefore for any personal injury sustained in an accident. Many US states hold that the landlord should be liable.
In New Jersey, however, a bar owner has been held liable in a personal injury claim for an accident caused by a drink-driver who only drank soft drinks in his bar, having come in already having drunk dangerous levels of alcohol. The columnist suggests that UK law may come to follow this precedent on drink-driving car crashcompensation claims in the future.
*A replacement vehicle can usually be supplied within 4-6 working hours, where there is an admission of liability from the other person’s insurance company. If this person is not known, their insurance details are not known, they are uninsured or there is a potential dispute over who caused the accident, a replacement vehicle cannot be provided.
