Earlier this month marked National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, an observance that recognizes those who put their lives on the line daily as they serve and protect their communities. Here at Yarborough Applegate, we’re proud to support law enforcement this month and throughout the course of the year as we partner for victim advocacy.
Through our practice, our attorneys also work hard to make our communities safer places to live. We protect the public from dangerous and unsafe consumer goods through product liability law. We ensure workers can do their jobs safely by fighting for worker’s compensation. And we seek to make roads safer for motorists and pedestrians alike through our drunk driving and dram shop practice area.
In our pursuit of civil justice for victims of drunk driving, Yarborough Applegate works in partnership with local law enforcement to hold all wrongdoers accountable. That means going beyond the drunk driver and straight to the source: the bar, restaurant, or other alcohol retailer that played a role in enabling that drunk driver to get behind the wheel. We’re a proud donor to the South Carolina Troopers Association, a professional group that represents more than 90 percent of active-duty South Carolina State Troopers, and help educate local law enforcement on the key benefits of pursuing a dram shop case.
The potential impact a dram shop case can have on the life of a victim—and in protecting the general public—is profound. First, let’s consider a victim’s recoveries for injuries suffered. Many alcohol retailers in South Carolina are legally required to have a minimum of $1,000,000 of liability insurance for these precise situations. Compare this to a drunk driver who may have no liability insurance or only state minimum limits—hardly adequate to compensate a victim of drunk driving. On top of this, dram shop cases can result in mandated safer alcohol service practices, an outcome that can help prevent drunk driving and protect countless innocent lives.
“This is precisely the reason our team is so passionate about dram shop cases, which can be notoriously difficult and expensive to take on,” says David Lail, a Charleston, SC dram shop attorney and Yarborough Applegate partner. “Our goal, always, is that in pursuit of justice for an innocent victim, we can also help prevent that same harm from happening again to others. When we help keep impaired drivers off the roads, our community becomes that much safer.”
Learn more about Lail’s experience representing victims of drunk driving on his practice page. To explore the results of Yarborough Applegate’s many dram shop cases, click here.
Partner David Lail established the first-ever Dram Shop Justice Award to recognize the role law enforcement plays in addressing a root cause of drunk driving— unsafe alcohol providers.
In a dram shop case stemming from a deadly July 4, 2019, hit-and-run in which a drunk driver hit a cyclist, Yarborough Applegate attorneys Liam Duffy and David Yarborough recently obtained a key court ruling on behalf of the cyclist’s family.
Our attorneys will take the lead on educating our peers on what we’ve learned from handling dram shop cases through a series of continuing education opportunities.
Our attorneys are dedicated to holding all parties accountable for car accidents injuries caused by intoxicated drivers—including the drivers themselves and any commercial alcohol retailers who overserved the driver in violation of the law.
Our attorneys recently secured a $3.1 million jury verdict for a 24-year-old man who was seriously injured when an underage drunk driver crashed head-on into his car in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
As we savor the final days of 2021, we wanted to take a moment and revisit some of the year’s defining movements for our team here at Yarborough Applegate, and extend our deepest gratitude to all those who we’ve had the honor of working with along the way.