Bar Can Be Liable For Overzealous Bouncer

Christopher Monette went out to have a couple of beers with his brother in Daytona Beach.  Little did he know that by the end of the night, he would be in the hospital diagnosed with a serious brain injury.  According this this article, Monette got a little rowdy at The Doghouse bar in Daytona Beach, when a Doghouse employee named "Lurch" approached him and began to escort him out.  Apparently, some exchange ensued, and Lurch ended up dropping or tossing Monette out of the bar and on to his head so violently that Monette was later diagnosed with a brain bleed.

To make matters worse, at the time of this attack at the Doghouse, Lurch was purportedly out of jail on bond for an attack earlier this year on a customer while he was working at another Daytona Beach nightclub called the Colliseum.

Unfortunately for the owners of the Doghouse, businesses are responsible for the actions of their employees in the course and scope of their employment.  In situations like this one, the business owners of the Doghouse had a duty to background screen Lurch to make sure that he would be safe to have around its customers.  Even a cursory background check should have revealed that Lurch (also known as Nathaniel Phelps) was facing charges for beating up a woman at the Colliseum.

Certainly, bar employees sometimes have to be firm with rowdy customers, but this level of violence is unexcusable.  This isn't Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse, after all. The owners of the Doghouse should have done their homework before hiring Lurch.  We have successfully handled cases against bars and nightclubs across Florida.