Personal Injury Law

Coyote Ugly Gone Wrong: Girl Injured in Tennessee Bar Dancing Incident

By mbrickley

Hollywood?s Coyote Ugly is the movie that made bar dancing with beautiful young ladies famous ? and a restaurant chain in Nashville, Tenn. by the same name also gained fame when the film was released back in 2000. The restaurant continues to glamorize the scene by asking young ladies if they would like to dance on the bar.

But according to an article in The Tennessean, dancing on the bar recently went a little too far when Brittany Barnes ? a young college student ? fell off and hit her head. She suffered brain injuries from the incident.

The night the incident occurred, Barnes was visiting her friends in Nashville. They had dinner and decided to hit the downtown bars. When they went into the Coyote Ugly, the bar staff invited them to dance on the bar, which is when she slipped and fell.

She is suing the Tennessee company for $500,000 ? claiming the bar was negligent. She claimed due to the wet conditions on the bar- she fell back onto the floor and hit her head. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance and treated for her injuries. Due to the head injuries, Barnes claims she lost her sense of smell.

In the lawsuit, Barnes also states that the bar employees could have done more to prevent the accident since the bar was wet. It should have been dry if they were inviting people to dance on it.

According to the Tennessean, Barnes? personal injury attorney Rob Shelton stated the establishment has a ?duty under Tennessee law to provide a safe place for their patrons.? He continued to state that Barnes may have had a few drinks but she was not intoxicated.

Coyote Ugly claims the employees were not negligent in this case and that Barnes should have exorcised caution when climbing up on the bar to dance. The company had no further comments.

Signs are now posted at the bar that state: ?Attention Ladies, dance on the bar at your own risk.? There are also signs posted at the entry way to provide fair warning to any patrons who decide to climb on the bar and dance.

Hopefully the signage will help make Coyote Ugly a safer environment, and this one incident won?t cause the bar to break its bar-dancing tradition forever.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on September 30, 2009 (boomark / email).