Tennessee widower sues restaurant for overserving driver
Larry Bailey said his wife was killed after her car was hit by a drunk driver who had left Chili’s Bar and Grill before the crash.
By Marissa Sulek
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) — A Lebanon man is suing a big restaurant chain after he claims employees overserved a woman who killed his wife, Ashley Bailey.
Each time Larry Bailey goes to the Lebanon Public Square, he pays a visit to Ashley at the memorial.
“I’ll sit there, and I’ll just have a little moment with her because that’s the last place she was,” Larry Bailey said.
Ashley Bailey was driving with their 3-year-old son Colson in the square last April. That’s where 71-year-old Sandra Lee Strickland, an alleged drunk driver, hit Ashley’s car killing her and injuring her son.
Larry Bailey said the problem doesn’t only lie with Strickland, but those who made her the drinks at the Chili’s Bar and Grill on Hartmann Drive that afternoon. The lawsuit filed on his behalf said Strickland was a regular.
It also said Strickland hit another car at Main Street and Greenwood Avenue before she made her way to the square where she hit Ashley Bailey.
“I was raised that you should always be held accountable for your actions,” Larry Bailey said.
“In this case the most responsible are the people who were serving her alcohol,” says personal injury lawyer, Hugh Green.
It’s an accident Green remembers. In fact, it happened right outside his office door.
“We looked out there and everyone was shocked,” Green said. “How could you have that kind of damage on a traffic square where the traffic flow is five miles per hour?”
That’s why he’s helping Larry and Colson Bailey sue Chili’s, two female employees, and the restaurant’s parent company, Brinker International, for $7.5 million.
While no amount of money can replace a wife and mother, it’s what Larry Bailey knows he has to do for others.
“If any good comes from this, it’s that no one is overserved and leaves and takes a mother from their child, or a father from their child, or any parent from their kids, or any child from their parent God forbid – that’s good,” Larry Bailey said.
Strickland’s criminal jury trial will take place later this summer. She is charged with DUI first-degree and vehicular homicide by intoxication.
Green said the two employees, Brinker International, and Chilis Southwest Bar and Grill have not responded to their complaint. They have 30 days to do so.
Brinker International said it is aware of the lawsuit and cannot comment on pending litigation.
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