Cheap Suit

Let's take it as a given that, if you're a drunk driver, you are by definition an asshole. That is not to drive a bright wedge between the holy and the damned; people make mistakes, and many of us have been at one time or another in the asshole club to some degree. But it is implicitly understood that you're not supposed to be able to have a posthumous lawsuit filed on your behalf if you were quite clearly the asshole at fault.

ST. LOUIS - The father of Josh Hancock filed suit Thursday, claiming a restaurant provided drinks to the St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher even though he was intoxicated prior to the crash that killed him.

The suit, filed in St. Louis Circuit Court by Dean Hancock of Tupelo, Miss., does not specify damages. Mike Shannon’s Restaurant, owned by the longtime Cardinals broadcaster who starred on three World Series teams in the 1960s, is a defendant in the case along with Shannon’s daughter, Patricia Shannon Van Matre, the restaurant manager.

Other defendants include Eddie’s Towing, the company whose flatbed tow truck was struck by Hancock’s sport utility vehicle in the early hours of April 29; tow truck driver Jacob Edward Hargrove; and Justin Tolar, the driver whose stalled car on Interstate 64 was being assisted by Hargrove.

Nice, huh? They're even suing the tow truck company and the poor bastard who had the misfortune to have his hoopty break down in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Authorities said the 29-year pitcher had a blood content of nearly twice the legal limit for alcohol in his system when he crashed into the back of the tow truck. He was also speeding, using a cell phone and wasn’t wearing a seat belt, Police Chief Joe Mokwa said after the accident. Marijuana also was found in the SUV.

Well, shit, I guess Dad and his lawyers left out some deep pockets there -- namely, the cell-phone company, the accelerator-pedal manufacturer, and even the seat belt manufacturer, for not including a mechanism to force drunk, speeding, cell-phone yapping self-indulgent assholes to buckle up. I mean, it's gotta be somebody's fault here, right? Anyone but Mister Drunk-Speeding-Asshole-On-A-Fucking-Cell-Phone.

Mokwa said Hancock went to Shannon’s not long after the Cardinals played a day game against the Chicago Cubs on April 28. The lawsuit claimed that Hancock was a regular at the restaurant bar and was there for more than 3½ hours.

“It’s understood that for the entire 3½ hours that Josh Hancock was there that he was handed drinks,” Keith Kantack, a lawyer for Dean Hancock, said. “It’s our understanding that from the moment Josh Hancock entered Mike Shannon’s that night that he was never without a drink.”

As with poor dumb Lindsay Lohan the other day, I cannot help but wonder why someone who can easily afford a cab or even a limo insists on driving while shitfaced. It is a reasonable question to ask why the bar did not in fact insist he call one, but as the article says, Hancock was a regular, and it is a bartender's lifeblood to understand their customers' (especially the wealthier ones) needs and habits. Who knows how often Hancock did this sort of thing, knocked off a hard day's work and decided to throw back a few coldies. People do.

I'm not without sympathy for Hancock and his family, really. It's a sad thing to see a loved one cut down in the prime of life by a preventable split-second mistake. But that mistake is primarily the fault of alcohol, speeding, and inattention caused by cell-phone use, all of which were very much in the control of Josh Hancock himself. The tragedy of his untimely death does not give his father the right to abuse an already maligned tort system with this sort of thing. Ask the Cardinals organization to make some PSAs, make a donation to a good NPO in his name, and thank your lucky stars that he didn't take out a family with his reckless self-indulgence.