The Stupid! It Burns!

While Josh Hancock's death was tragic in the classical sense of the word, it doesn't excuse his family's response to it. Bryan Burwell of the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch describes the situation:

"That," of course, is the lawsuit that Josh Hancock's family has filed seeking to blame someone, anyone for the senseless death of the late Cardinal pitcher who died nearly a month ago when he plowed his SUV into the rear end of a tow truck on Highway 40 (Interstate 64). "That," of course, is the story of a 29-year-old man who was drunk, speeding, had a tin of marijuana in the front seat, was driving without his seat belt buckled, was talking on a cell phone, and who failed to brake before he barreled into this flatbed with the emergency lights flashing.

Of course Shannon didn't want to talk about this because Hancock's family is trying to blame him, as owner of the restaurant where Hancock spent his final 3 1/2 hours, for the death. So the family is suing Shannon and his daughter, the restaurant manager who tried to persuade Hancock to take a taxi. Hancock's family also is suing the tow truck driver and the man whose car he was attempting to remove from the highway, in some twisted logic that tries to make all of these folks responsible for a man's own
self-destructive behavior.

[snip]

Why can't Hancock's family see the disturbing irony in blaming the two people (tow truck driver Jacob Hargrove, and Justin Tolar, the man whose car Hargrove was towing) who could have been killed by their intoxicated son? Are they incapable of understanding the madness in blaming Shannon's daughter, the one person we know of who vainly attempted to make him take a taxi?