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24 ¦ DECEMBER 21, 2020 VERDI CTS & SETTLEMENTS

Lawyer’s Private Investigator Helps Secure
Settlement After One-Vehicle Car Wreck

By Robert Storace

Christopher Garcia suffered a traumatic brain injury after his friend, Jovanni Ramirez, is said to have consumed

alcohol at Jacks Bar & Steakhouse while he was already intoxicated. Garcia settled his lawsuit against the eatery

W for $240,000. Courtesy photo
hen representing client Christopher Garcia, Billings and an amended June 9 lawsuit says Gar-
plaintiffs counsel Peter Billings took full cia and a friend, Jovanni Ramirez, were drinking at
advantage of the 2005 Connecticut Dram Jacks Bar & Steakhouse in New Haven in January
Shop Act—which allows litigants to hold businesses 2019, where the staff continued to serve Ramirez
liable for up to $250,000 for serving alcohol to an even though he was drunk.
intoxicated person, who then injures someone else. Billings said Ramirez, while intoxicated, swerved
Billings, partner and owner with Billings, Barrett off the roadway and struck a tree in West Haven.
& Bowman in Stratford, faced numerous obstacles Garcia, who is in his 20s, was a passenger in the car.
in representing Garcia. Obstacles, he said, he re- Garcia suffered a skull fracture, a traumatic brain in-
solved with the help of a private investigator and a jury and injuries to his neck and back. He was in a
video in the day of Garcia’s life post-accident. coma, Billings said.

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