‘Drunk driver’ sues the bars that served him

 

New York Post

By Nick Fugallo and Amanda Woods

May 8, 2017

A New Jersey man who says he drank too much tequila before crashing his motorcycle and seriously injuring his leg, is suing not one, but two bars that served him — even though cops determined he wasn’t legally drunk.

 

Antonio Salomon-Merlino, 28, was boozing it up at two establishments — Oh! Calamares in Kearny, where he had 13 drinks, mostly Patron shots and pisco sours — and then rode his motorcycle to Hector’s Sports Bar in Clifton, where he guzzled even more alcohol, he told The Post of the July 2015 incident that sparked his lawsuit.

 

He said he doesn’t remember his bill at the second joint, but he spent over $300 at Oh! Calamares.

 

“I was intoxicated around midway through my drinks at Calamares,” Salomon-Merlino said. “[The bartenders] never cut me off or told me ‘you had enough.’”

 

Still, he got back on his 2009 Suzuki motorcycle and started heading home. Around 3:15 a.m., he crashed the bike into a concrete barricade on Outwater Lane in Lodi and flipped into a ditch.

 

“I was told if I had went just five more feet, I would have been killed by a pipe or broken my neck,” he said Monday.

 

While responding cops initially charged Salomon-Merlino with drunken driving, they didn’t test his blood-alcohol level until five hours after the accident, his lawyer said.

 

It was just below the legal threshold for driving drunk, around 0.078, according to a toxicology report from the State Police — so the charge was dismissed.

 

“I was way more intoxicated than that,” Salomon-Merlino insisted.

 

Now he and his lawyer, Natalie Zammitti Shaw ,of Fort Lee, are pushing that claim — so they can make the case that the bars over-served.

 

Both establishments “knew or should have reasonably foreseen” that their “failure to use reasonable care in the service of alcoholic beverages to [Salomon-Merlino]” could cause him to inflict “bodily injury to himself or others,” according to the lawsuit, filed on April 25.

 

They also “had a duty to exercise reasonable care” when serving alcohol to Lodi and other patrons, the suit said.

 

“We haven’t been formally served by a court in regards to the suit this person is trying to pass along,” said a manager for Oh! Calamares. “We haven’t been contacted by his lawyers or our own lawyers, and if and when we do, we’ll look into the matter as efficiently as possible to resolve the issue.”

 

Hector’s Sports Bar could not be reached for comment Monday.

 

The suit was issued under New Jersey’s Dram Shop Law, which allows anyone injured by a drunken driver to seek damages from the vendor who served the alcohol if the driver was visibly intoxicated.

 

Salomon-Merlino is also suing the borough of Lodi for failing to keep Outerwater Lane free from dangerous conditions.

 

The suit also claims that “confusing, damaged and/or missing signs,” as well as a lack of traffic lights, contributed to the accident.

 

Salomon-Merlino was unemployed prior to the accident. He’d hoped to become a police officer — but now that dream is ruined, he said.

 

He has had three surgeries on his leg and consulted seven doctors about his injuries, he said. He also had skin graphing and a knee reconstruction done — and anticipates another surgery on the veins in his leg.

 

“Walking, even driving is a challenge and my leg still gets swollen,” he said. “I needed a CPM machine daily to help bend my leg.”

 

When asked if he would ever drink and drive again:

 

“I’m lucky to be alive, let alone have my leg still,” he said. “Now, there’s Uber.”