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In the lawsuit it states that Dave & Buster’s was and is vicariously liable for the acts of its agent, employee, or representative, Cordell Bentley-Russell.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Justice is what the family of 28-year-old Thony Roy wants after his untimely death at Dave & Buster’s in Jacksonville.
During a shift in late January, Roy was training Cordell Samuel Bentley-Russell. Witnesses say Bentley-Russell was in a bad mood that day, and ended up beating Roy until he was brain-dead. Roy died five days later.
Bentley-Russell is charged with manslaughter and has pleaded not guilty, but Roy’s family says Dave & Buster’s is also to blame for hiring Bentley-Russell, despite prior convictions for violent felonies.
“If there’s a foreseeable risk of harm, then the business owner has an obligation, a duty, and it’s a non-delegable duty, which means they can’t avoid it,” said Jacksonville Attorney Andrew Bonderud. “The business owner has a duty to do something about it and do something about the foreseeable risk of harm.”
Bonderud says if an employee of a restaurant is negligent, and if that negligence occurred during his role as an employee, then the employer can be held vicariously liable.
In the lawsuit it states that Dave & Buster’s was and is liable for the acts of its agent, employee, or representative, defendant Cordell Samuel Bentley-Russell.
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The lawsuit also states that the company failed to provide adequate security.
The lawsuit goes on to say that Dave & Buster’s knew that its employee had a violent past based on prior similar accidents and assigned Roy to work directly with him, despite knowing it was “virtually certain to result in injury or death to Thony Roy.”
“Often these cases are resolved pre-trial and the small percentage of these types of cases will actually go to trial with a jury to produce a verdict and you know decides what’s going to happen and who owes who how much money,” said Bonderud.
Late last week, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that will make it more difficult to bring these kinds of lawsuits.
But that will not affect this lawsuit since that law does not take effect until summer.
