Retail and Hospitality

We know that bars, restaurants, liquor stores, hotels, tap rooms, brew pubs, and retail stores enjoy serving and servicing their customers, but they do not relish being served with notice of a dram shop claim or a civil lawsuit.

Our lawyers have defended retail and hospitality clients for over 30 years from every liability claim they faced, ranging from large food borne illness outbreaks to the smallest slip and fall.  Our litigation experience especially helps us to navigate our clients through the complicated and heavily regulated Minnesota Dram Shop cases.  Our extensive experience in defending dram shop claims has taught us that our clients’ best defense to a dram shop claim is prevention, so we author articles, lecture, and give seminars to lawyers, claim representatives, and our clients’ employees to educate them in the proactive steps they can take to prevent dram shop claims from occurring in the first place.   

When claims do inevitably arise, we are ready and able to offer our clients a full and comprehensive defense. Our attorneys possess extensive knowledge pertaining to bar and restaurant operations based on their extensive experience in running bars and restaurants.  We bring our experience to bear in quickly learning our clients’ operations from the host at the front door to the security officers, servers, bartenders, and managers whom are essential to every restaurant’s or bar’s operations.  The deep relationships we develop with our clients enables us to successfully handle and try hundreds of retail and hospitality liability claims.

Not every claim should go to trial, so our lawyers use their experience to successfully settle cases when they need to be settled, often saving establishments and their insurers thousands of dollars. On the other hand, some cases should go to trial. Our attorneys have obtained favorable verdicts for retail and hospitality clients in rural and urban courtrooms throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota.  

8th Circuit Denies “Drive-By” ADA Claims

The 8th Circuit recently affirmed a District of Minnesota Order for Summary Judgment, dismissing claims for damages stemming from...

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Minnesota Court of Appeals Reverses Summary Judgment (In Part) and Remands Tenant’s Trip and Fall Suit for Trial

In a published decision, the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently revived a tenant’s trip and fall suit for trial. Wise v....

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The Minnesota Supreme Court Interprets Minnesota’s Statutory Dram Shop Notice Requirement

In Buskey v. Am. Legion Post # 270 , ___ N.W.2d ___ (Minn. April 4, 2018), a divided Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the trial...

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