Train death spurs lawsuit against bar
October 6, 2011
By DANIEL BLACKBURN
Parents of a young North County man killed by a train have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of a popular downtown Paso Robles bar and restaurant and are asking for a jury trial.
Bryan Brady was celebrating his 21st birthday at The Crooked Kilt, an establishment now known as Pappy McGregor’s, on July 31, 2010. Within hours after witnesses saw him being dragged away from the bar by two people, he was struck by a northbound Union Pacific freight train near 13th Street. He had been lying unconscious on the tracks, according to police, but how he got there is the subject of an intense investigation.
That investigation, however, is being privately financed by Brady’s parents, Don and Kasi after a Paso Robles police probe fizzled in the wake of deep departmental cuts.
According to a police report — compiled at the insistence of his parents weeks after Brady’s death — the young man was knocked out by an unidentified person outside the saloon. He then lay unconscious on the sidewalk in front of the saloon for at least several minutes, observed by saloon employees.
The assailant was described as white, 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 170 to 180 pounds, with sandy blond hair and a buzz haircut, and driving a grey pickup truck. He remains unidentified.
Surveillance cameras that would normally show activities directly in front of the saloon were not working that night, saloon managers told police.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday by San Luis Obispo attorney Duncan S. Skogsberg, alleges Pappy McGregor’s employees were negligent in not calling police or paramedics. It alleges that the younger Brady was allowed admission into the establishment despite the “door security staff (who) were aware (Brady) was already intoxicated, but nevertheless allowed him to enter.”
Those same employees “were present and observed (Brady) being attacked, and immediately thereafter, lying unconscious and unresponsive.” Nor did they “call 911 to summon police and medical attention for him,” the lawsuit asserts.
And when the young man was carried away by “patrons unknown,” the saloon staff “did nothing to inquire or intervene.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
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