Wisc. man takes Galveston bar to court after drunk driver kills daughter

GALVESTON - A Wisconsin man has filed a lawsuit in response to an auto-pedestrian accident in Galveston that killed his daughter almost two years ago.

Roger Harris's lawsuit, filed Aug. 13 in Galveston County District Court, alleges Island Yard Byrds Inc. served the motorist who fatally struck Amanda Medlock, 34, the evening of Oct. 1, 2011.

Harris seeks more than $1 million in damages.

According to recent court documents, the respondent, doing business as both The Spot and Side Yard, sold alcoholic beverages to patron Felix Garza "even though it was apparent to the defendants that Felix Garza was obviously intoxicated to the extent that he presented a clear danger to himself and to other persons."

Garza, who is not a defendant in the case, then left the respondents' premises in his 2006 Lincoln Zephyr "while in a state of obvious intoxication" and drove west on Seawall Boulevard.

Meanwhile, the decedent and a male companion were crossing the 5400 block of Seawall when Garza "failed to keep a proper lookout for pedestrians crossing the roadway" when he purportedly hit the pair, the original petition says.

It adds Medlock sustained fatal injuries as a result of the collision in question.

A local state district court recently sentenced the 31-year-old Garza, a Texas City local, to 28 years in prison for the incident that is now the focus of the litigation.

Attorney Keith C. Purdue of the Grossman Law Offices P.C. in Dallas is representing Harris, and Galveston County 212th District Court Judge Susan Criss is presiding over the case.

Case No. 13-CV-1052