Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Country Dance Ends|With Accident on Ceiling

PHOENIX (CN) — Sunstroke and rattlesnakes are not the only dangers of the Arizona desert: there's always a chance you can get your foot caught in a ceiling fan while country dancing.

That's what Kansas resident Dyani Neiswender says in her lawsuit against the Moonshine Whiskey Bar and Grill, in Tempe. She says it cost her pain and suffering and $30,000 in medical bills to fix her foot after it was whacked by "an industrial-strength ceiling fan" as she danced in a style that the bar "promoted and encouraged."

Often packed with students from nearby Arizona State University, Moonshine Whiskey Bar and Grill is a favorite spot in metro Phoenix for cowboy boot-stomping, twirling two-stepping, and drink-in-hand line-dancing to country music.

But an advanced dance move cost Neiswender plenty on May 28, 2014.

"While at defendant's establishment, plaintiff was dancing with other patrons and with her dance partner performing a dance move often advertised on defendant's promotional material, in which plaintiff was lifted above her dance partner with her feet in the air," Neiswender says in the May 23 complaint in Maricopa County Court.

"While performing this move, plaintiff's foot was struck and injured by an industrial-strength ceiling fan that had no safety covering at the time."

Neiswender says the bar "promoted and encouraged this type of dancing at its establishment."

"As a result of the ceiling fan striking plaintiff's foot, plaintiff's left foot was severely lacerated through her boot," she says.

The Moonshine Whiskey Bar's owner Kris Michell told Courthouse News on Wednesday that he bought the bar after Neiswender was hurt.

"It is unfortunate that she was injured," Michell said in an email. "We had nothing to do with her injuries and were not the owners of Moonshine Whiskey Bar at the time of the event. My company True Country Enterprises did not even exist when this event took place. We are in no way responsible."

Neiswender says that after $30,000 of medical bills, surgery and months of physical therapy, she "has yet to fully recover, and she likely will never reach the level of activity that she enjoyed before the accident."

She sued former owners Moonshine Group Enterprises LLC and True Country Enterprises LLC, seeking damages for negligence.

Moonshine Group LLC, which owned the bar in 2014, filed articles of termination with the Arizona Corporation Commission in September 2015.

Neiswender is represented by Brandon Yost with the Law Offices of Kevin Jensen. He did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...