The daughter of a 67-year-old Pennsylvania woman who was killed trying to cross Route 309 in Richland Township last year after leaving a popular nightclub has filed a lawsuit against the club and the driver who hit her mother.
The Wrongful death lawsuit states that bartenders should have realized Lorraine Gibbons was intoxicated and refused to serve her even though she was walking and not driving to her home across the street.
In testimony during Carmen Burgos' guilty plea hearing, Gibbons' blood alcohol level was said to be 0.30, which nearly four times the state legal limit for driving when she was struck and killed.
The plaintiff's attorney said he was not sure how often liquor serving establishments have been sued over furnishing alcohol to intoxicated patrons who are not driving.
The lawsuit also names Burgos, the 33-year-old driver of the car, who pleaded guilty last week to leaving the scene of a fatal accident and having her car torched to hide the evidence.
Burgos has not been sentenced, but will receive a minimum of one year in jail and could be sentenced to as many as seven years behind bars and assessed a $15,000 fine.
The civil lawsuit accuses her of driving too fast and failing to stop and help.
It alleges the nightclub continued to serve Lorraine Gibbons after she was intoxicated, failed to prevent her from leaving in an intoxicated state, and failed to properly train employees to identify intoxicated patrons and stop serving them.
Reference:
"Lawsuit filed over fatal crash on Rt. 309," The Morning Call, Scott Kraus, April 2007.
