Trant v. Henaghan Holdings, LLC, 2024-J-0771 (2024)

The Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a liquor liability case involving the death of a 21-year-old college student who was served while intoxicated and later died in a car crash. The bar attempted to claim that Massachusetts law precluded recovery due to the woman’s own negligence, which was rejected by both courts. The Appeals Court also agreed that SUGARMAN’s attorneys had presented multiple pieces of evidence from which a jury could conclude that the woman was intoxicated at the time the bar last served her alcohol and from which the jury could conclude that the bar was both negligent and grossly negligent.