Attorneys for the estate of 19-year-old Jesse Clark-Nugent filed a wrongful death suit against The New 2 O’Clock Club today, August 11, 2014.
Jesse Clark-Nugent was killed in February when a fight broke out between a group of men at The 2 O’Clock Club . One of the men took out a knife and stabbed Jesse and two other men before running away. Police and medical responders arrived quickly, but were unable to save him.
The New 2 O’Clock club faces a big challenge in this case. Maryland law stipulates that patrons must be 21 or older to enter a strip club. With that in mind, if the club had provided adequate security, the 19-year-old should not have been able to even enter the club where the stabbing happened. Beyond that the suit claims that the defendant’s bouncers and staff stood by during the knife fight that led to the death. If attorneys for the Clark-Nugent family have found witnesses who can testify that the on-site security saw the fight and did not intervene, it’s a major problem.
At the time of the stabbing, WBALTV reports that the owner said “Security at my club is going to always be tight. We always card people that come in, and we always pat people down. We don’t even play with that.”
Providing adequate security is an important part of owning property. This often comes up in premises liability cases. Recently, a jury found McDonalds was responsible for a death caused at a fight at one of its restaurants, as well as an additional death caused when a car accident occurred as they tried to bring the injured person to the hospital. The reasoning was a security issue – that the restaurant had the responsibility to keep patrons safe. In that case, the jury awarded $27 million.
While this wrongful death suit against the 2 O’Clock Club will certainly not reach that level, such awards must be a cause of deep concern to the owners who allegedly allowed this act of violence to occur on their property.
