Tiger Woods and his girlfriend are being sued for wrongful death after an employee at Wood’s flagship restaurant crashed his car after being served a drink while at work as a bartender.
Woods, his corporation that runs his The Woods restaurant and his girlfriend, Erica Herman, are being sued by the parents of 24-year-old #NicholasFImmesberger. Immesberger died on December 10, 2018, after getting into a crash while driving drunk.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday and obtained by CBS states, “The employees, management, and owners of The Woods over-served a young man they knew was suffering from the disease of alcoholism.” The suit also claims they “ignored Immesberger’s disease, they fueled it by over-serving him alcohol to the point of severe intoxication and then sending him out to his car to drive home. As a result of this negligence, Immesberger crashed his vehicle and died on December 10, 2018, after leaving The Woods.” The lawsuit maintains that Herman, the restaurant’s general manager, “personally knew Immesberger, specifically recruited him to work at The Woods and was well aware of Immesberger’s habitual abuse of alcohol.” It also states the athlete himself “knew Immesberger personally and through information and believe (sic), Herman had discussed Immesberger and his drinking of alcohol with Tiger.”
According to a complaint, the day of the incident, Immesberger ended his shift at the restaurant at 3:00 p.m., and stayed around to drink for another three hours. But the lawsuit states employees at The Woods were aware that Immesberger crashed a car driving drunk in a separate incident one month prior. CBS news reports Immesberger’s friend told The Woods employees not to serve the man anymore. At the time of his death, Immesberger’s blood alcohol level was .256, three times more than the legal limit.
The lawsuit argues that because Woods is the owner of the restaurant he is “directly responsible for ensuring that his employees and management” were not over-serving its employees and customers and that he is “individually liable in this action because he individually participated in the serving of alcohol to Immesberger” with “personal knowledge” that he had a drinking problem. Tiger was asked about the incident during his PGA Championship press conference … and Woods said, “We’re all very sad that Nick passed away. It was a terrible, terrible night. “He continued, “A terrible ending and just we feel bad for him and his entire family. It’s very sad.”
