Texas Roadhouse Lawsuit in Georgia: The $95M Jury Verdict

A federal jury in Atlanta cleared Texas Roadhouse of liability in June 2025 in the $95 million wrongful death lawsuit brought over the 2020 death of 13-year-old Leonardo “Leo” Camacho, finding the driver who struck him, Katie Pancione, 100% at fault. The Georgia lawsuit against Texas Roadhouse turned on the state’s dram shop statute, and the verdict reflected how difficult that law is for plaintiffs to win under.¹

What Happened the Night of the Crash

On June 16, 2020, Leo Camacho and his father, Jose Camacho, were doing yard work at Christ Culture Center church on Kelly Mill Road in Cumming, Georgia. At about 6:37 p.m., a white Infiniti QX56 driven by Katie Pancione jumped the curb, crossed the sidewalk, and hit both of them. Leo died from his injuries. His father survived.²³

Pancione left the scene and drove to her boyfriend’s house. There, she told him she had hit the curb while looking at her phone, then drank two 100-milliliter bottles of Fireball Whiskey and took what court records described as an “excessive number” of Klonopin pills in an apparent suicide attempt. A Forsyth County Sheriff’s deputy later arrested her. A blood sample drawn at 9:48 p.m., more than three hours after she had left the Texas Roadhouse in Cumming, showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.176% and tested positive for Klonopin.²

Pancione later pleaded guilty in Forsyth County Superior Court to felony first-degree homicide by vehicle, hit and run involving a death, serious injury by vehicle, and hit and run involving a serious injury. She was sentenced in August 2023 to ten years, with five to serve in prison followed by five years of probation.⁴

What the Camacho Family Argued

Leo’s parents, Jose Camacho and Daniela Torres, sued Texas Roadhouse Holdings, LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, seeking at least $95 million.⁵ Their theory was that Pancione was already heavily intoxicated when she walked into the Cumming restaurant, and that staff should have refused to serve her.

The centerpiece of the plaintiffs’ proof was a retrograde extrapolation by James Gordon, a forensic toxicologist with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Working backward from the 0.176% reading at 9:48 p.m., and setting aside the Fireball Whiskey Pancione had consumed after the crash, Gordon calculated her BAC would have been roughly 0.225 when she entered Texas Roadhouse, nearly three times the legal limit. Additional experts, including Dr. Charles McKay, Dr. David Eagerton, and Marissa Orlowski, testified that a person at 0.225 would show “pronounced manifestations” of intoxication such as slurred speech and an unsteady gait, signs a trained server should catch.⁶

How Texas Roadhouse Defended the Case

The defense told a much narrower story of what happened inside the restaurant. Pancione arrived at the Cumming Texas Roadhouse around 6:10 p.m. to pick up a takeout order and stayed about 17 minutes. She ordered one pint of Michelob Ultra and drank roughly three-quarters of it. The bartender who served her, Sierra “Cheyenne” Phillips, testified that Pancione showed no visible signs of intoxication.²

Texas Roadhouse’s attorneys played surveillance footage from the restaurant and argued it showed no impairment. They attacked the plaintiffs’ toxicology work as “guesstimations” resting on an unproven assumption that Pancione had been drinking earlier in the day. They pointed to testimony from Pancione and her boyfriend that the Fireball was consumed after the crash, which accounted for the elevated BAC hours later, and to other witnesses who said Pancione had appeared sober earlier that day.²⁷

The defense also argued Georgia law does not require a restaurant to affirmatively prove a customer is sober before serving them, and that the plaintiffs had not met the statutory burden of showing Pancione was in a state of “noticeable intoxication” when she was served.⁷

Why Georgia’s Dram Shop Law Made the Case Hard to Win

Georgia’s dram shop statute, O.C.G.A. § 51-1-40, is unusually favorable to alcohol sellers. The statute declares that “the consumption of alcoholic beverages, rather than the serving of alcoholic beverages, is the proximate cause of any injury” caused by an intoxicated person.⁸

To overcome that default, a plaintiff has to prove the establishment “willfully, knowingly, and unlawfully” served someone in a state of “noticeable intoxication,” and that it knew the person would soon be driving. Georgia courts read “noticeable intoxication” to mean visible behavioral signs of impairment at the time of service. A high BAC reading alone, without evidence of outwardly visible signs when the drink was poured, is often not enough.⁹

That framing is what made the surveillance footage and the bartender’s testimony so effective. The plaintiffs had a compelling toxicological reconstruction of what Pancione’s BAC probably was. The defense had video and a live witness describing an unremarkable 17-minute takeout pickup. Under Georgia’s statute, the second set of facts was closer to the legal question the jury had to answer.

The Verdict

The trial ran nine days in the Northern District of Georgia, beginning June 16, 2025, exactly five years after the crash.⁵ On June 24, 2025, after several hours of deliberation, the jury cleared Texas Roadhouse of all liability and assigned Katie Pancione 100% of the fault for Leo Camacho’s death. The case was formally terminated the next day. Attorneys for both sides did not respond to media requests for comment on the verdict.¹

1
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jury Clears Texas Roadhouse of Blame in Death of Georgia Boy Hit by Car
2
JuryVerdicts.net. Camacho v. Texas Roadhouse Holdings, Summary Judgment Briefing
3
Forsyth County News. Two Pedestrians Injured by Hit-and-Run Driver in Cumming
4
The Cumming Forsyth County News. Pancione Sentencing Report
5
PACER Monitor. Camacho et al v. Texas Roadhouse Holdings, LLC
6
JuryVerdicts.net. Camacho v. Texas Roadhouse, Plaintiff Response to Summary Judgment
7
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Texas Roadhouse Fights $95M Demand at Trial Over Georgia Child’s Death
8
Justia. Georgia Code Section 51-1-40, Liability for Acts of Intoxicated Persons
9
Georgia State University Law Review. Dram Shop Liability Under O.C.G.A. Section 51-1-40