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Drunk Beer Pong "Winner" Tries To Sue Bar After Getting Run Over
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 7, 2012
Modified Feb 7, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 7, 2012
Modified Feb 7, 2012
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A judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a New Jersey man who blamed Wicked Willy's bar on Bleecker Street for getting him so drunk he tried to cross a highway and got run over. Alan Berger was 22 years old on that fateful night in 2009 when he dominated the beer pong table at Wicked Willy's. His lawyer argued that Berger should have been cut off, telling the Post "he was ‘winning’ and never left the beer-pong table." We were under the impression that you drink less when winning beer pong, but Berger's lawyer says his client got wasted because Wicked Willy's didn't monitor the action at the table. “They had just an unlimited amount of beer going on down there," the attorney says.
Berger took a bus home to New Jersey after a few hours of beer pong, and then got run over by a car going 50 mph along Highway 9 near Manalapan. He broke his hip, leg and foot, tore both his knees, and sustained a lacerated liver. And when they checked his blood alcohol content at the hospital it registered .26 — almost four times higher than the legal driving limit. Nevertheless, a judge ruled yesterday that Berger, not Willy, is to blame. "Plaintiff voluntarily engaged in the drinking game" and "consumed alcohol to the point of diminished capacity," ruled Justice Lucy Billings, setting a dangerous legal precedent in which drunk people are responsible for the consequences of their actions.
Tagged
alcoholism
beer pong
bleecker street
drinking
wicked willy's
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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