$75M LAWSUIT CLAIMS CASINO LET MAN DRINK TO DEATH
BY HOLBROOK MOHR
ASSOCIATED PRESS
US VIDEO
BUY AP PHOTO REPRINTS
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- A lawsuit claims a Mississippi casino served so much alcohol to a man taking powerful prescription painkillers that he died on the floor of his hotel bathroom.
The lawsuit against IP Casino Resort and Spa in Biloxi was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Gulfport. It seeks damages of $75 million.
The suit claims casino workers kept serving free drinks to 30-year-old Bryan Lee Glenn in August 2009, ignoring pleas from the drunken man's family to stop serving him.
The suit says Glenn died in his hotel room. He'd taken prescribed painkillers including Percocet, morphine and Xanax, as well as antipsychotic medications in the three weeks before his death, the lawsuit says. He was being treated for physical injuries as well as psychosis and hallucinations. Glenn had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2004 four-wheeler accident, then suffered back injuries in a 2007 car wreck.
Casino spokeswoman Lynn Frisby said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit represents only one side of the legal argument. The casino hasn't responded in court filings.
Glenn and his mother and brother lived in coastal Long Beach, Miss., but lost everything to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and eventually settled in Virginia. They returned to Mississippi with a friend in August 2009 to pick up Glenn's check from a settlement from a previous lawsuit and to look for a place to live. They were staying at the IP resort.
Glenn picked up the $15,000 check on the morning of Aug. 6, 2009, and the group planned to use some of the money on a deposit for place to live. But once back at the resort, Glenn began betting up to $1,000 a hand on blackjack and ordering two drinks at a time - whiskey and cola and shots of tequila. The suit says a dealer, pit boss, waitress and security guard were among those who refused to intervene after Glenn was falling down drunk and his family begged the casino to stop serving him.
"He's old enough to make his own decisions," the lawsuit claims a pit boss said to Glenn's brother.
The lawsuit says Glenn had attempted suicide days before his death, was highly intoxicated and became agitated when his family tried to get him to leave the casino. When his friend and relatives finally convinced Glenn to leave, the lawsuit says, a dealer told him he still had chips and said, "`Aren't you going to come back and play?'"
He went back to gamble more and met a prostitute, whom he paid for services to be rendered later. When the casino stopped serving Glenn he began to leave with the prostitute, who reached in his pocket and took money. Glenn's mother argued with the prostitute, then went to a security guard, who made the woman give the money back, according to the lawsuit.
Glenn then went to a casino bar, called the Chill Lounge, and began drinking Long Island iced teas, a drink made with five liquors. His relatives say they asked the bartender to stop serving Glenn, but the relatives then had to leave to take another family member home. Glenn was not in the lounge when they returned. A doorman told his relatives he had been escorted out of the casino by security, the lawsuit says.
Glenn's brother, mother and friend found him in his hotel room, "on the floor and half in the bathtub, facing the toilet with his pants around his ankles," the family's lawyer wrote in the lawsuit.
Glenn's friend, trained as an emergency medical technician, tried for 25 minutes to revive Glenn until a casino medic arrived, according to the lawsuit. The medic told Glenn's friend to continue CPR because the medic didn't have a "mouthpiece." An ambulance crew arrived 20 minutes later, but Glenn died on the scene, the lawsuit says.
"Despite their best efforts to save him from harm, Bryan was slowly poisoned while his friend and family ... helplessly watched," the family's attorney, Michael Holleman, wrote in the lawsuit.
