Article published by Huffington Post on February 21, 2013.
A Dallas court has awarded $10.5 million to the family of a young woman who was fatally crushed by a monster truck in the parking lot of a strip club.
Kasey McKenzie, 23, was run over on March 17, 2011, when Eric Crutchfield left the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club after several hours of drinking. Blood tests later showed that Crutchfield — who drove a Ford-F250 with gigantic wheels — had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system.
In a unanimous verdict, the jury awarded the multi-million dollar sum to McKenzie’s parents, who claimed that the bar overserved Crutchfield and was therefore responsible for their daughter’s death.
“We believe that obviously he was intoxicated; it was apparent to the bartender and the club that he was intoxicated, and he got behind the wheel of his monster truck and ran over Kasey McKenzie,” Michael Schmidt, the attorney for McKenzie’s parents, told NBC DFW.
McKenzie died on the scene from her injuries, according to CBS.
The strip club was found responsible under the “dram shop” doctrine, which states that “restaurants, bars and liquor stores can be held liable if they serve alcohol to customers who are clearly intoxicated,” according to the Dallas Morning News.
A Dallas Police Department account of the incident claimed that Crutchfield’s truck was so enormous that despite crushing McKenzie with his front and rear tires, he initially had no idea of the tragedy.
Crutchfield is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story, citing a CBS article, reported that McKenzie was an employee at the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club. Huffington Post has removed that claim because CBS now reports that she didn’t work there.
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