AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline) – Arbitration will be the forum for a lawsuit that blames a Texas strip club for the fatal accident caused by an inebriated dancer.
The Texas Supreme Court on March 18 granted a motion to compel arbitration filed by Baby Dolls Topless Saloons in Dallas, which was alleged to have continued serving Mayra Naomi Salazar despite her being clearly intoxicated.
Stephanie Sotero Hernandez was riding with Salazar after work in January 2019. Salazar crashed the car, killing Hernandez.
Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Baby Dolls and Salazar. The Texas Supreme Court pointed to the contract signed by Hernandez that gave her the use of Baby Dolls for “the performing of live erotic dance entertainment and related activities.”
An arbitration provision deemed inadequate by lower courts actually was binding enough, the Texas Supreme Court ruled. Though it terminated at the end of 2017, it also stipulated it would renew each year.
“(T)he contract’s duration clause makes clear that Hernandez’s license is to ‘be automatically extended’ until the parties say otherwise,” the court ruled.
Hernandez’s family also argued the contract wasn’t discussed enough to be valid, but that argument “blinks the reality that they operated under it for almost two years, week after week, before Hernandez’s tragic death,” the court found.