BLOOMINGTON – It was 1:50 a.m. on a Sunday in September 2022 when an intoxicated Kilroy’s Sports employee driving her car struck and killed IU student Nate Stratton as he rode an electric scooter along Walnut Street.
A recent settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the driver and the owners of the downtown Bloomington bar includes a provision that the owners of Kilroy’s Sports invest $600,000 over the next decade on a campaign warning of the dangers of intoxicated driving.
Portions of the March 23 settlement agreement aren’t public, but this part is: Kilroy’s Sports will donate $60,000 annually for 10 years to a program aimed at preventing alcohol-related deaths in Bloomington.
A statement to the H-T from Stratton’s family says they will work alongside Kilroy’s Sports, Indiana’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) chapter and others to create a prevention program to increase awareness of the dangers of drunken driving.
“There are no winners in the case because Nate is gone,” the family statement said. The money from Kilroy’s will be used “to build an advocacy campaign to honor Nate’s memory and prevent this tragedy from happening again.”
Other settlement details are confidential, said Bloomington attorney Fred Schultz, who represented the Strattons. The wrongful-death claim soughtcompensatory damages for Stratton’s death and payment of medical, funeral and burial expenses.
The civil lawsuit alleged Kilroy’s Sports was in part responsible for the fatal crash because employees served free alcohol to Madelyn Howard, who was then 22, when she was clearly intoxicated.
“Defendant Kilroy’s Sports, LLC, by and through its agents and employees, was negligent in the means, manner, and method of furnishing alcohol to Madelyn Howard and violated their duty to exercise ordinary and reasonable care,” the lawsuit states.
Kilroy’s Sports “breached their common-law duty of reasonable care and encouraged Ms. Howard’s unfettered consumption of alcohol.”
It’s illegal in Indiana for bar employees to serve alcohol to people who are obviously intoxicated. “Kilroy’s continued service of alcohol to a visibly intoxicated Madelyn Howard, which directly and proximately led to the death of Nate Stratton,” Schultz said after the lawsuit was filed.
Howard told police she didn’t realize her Mercedes sedan had struck and killed 20-year-old business major Stratton. After the impact, she kept on driving, the mangled scooter lodged beneath her car.
Howard, an IU graduate from Crown Point, pleaded guilty in 2024 to leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and causing death while operating a vehicle while intoxicated. She’s 26 now and has served two years of a 10-year sentence at the Indiana Women’s Prison.
Her blood-alcohol level several hours after the crash was nearly three times the limit for intoxicated driving in Indiana. During a May 2024 hearing, Monroe Circuit Judge Darcie Fawcett cited the high level of alcohol as an aggravating factor justifying the prison term.
Stratton died at IU Health Bloomington Hospital a few hours after the Sept. 18, 2022, accident near 12th and Walnut streets. Howard’s speeding car drove off the road and onto the sidewalk near Domino’s Pizza, striking Stratton, who was in the bike lane.
During Howard’s sentencing hearing, Elizabeth Stratton clutched a box containing her son’s ashes as her husband described falling to the floor when he got word from a doctor their son was dead.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Wrongful-death settlement means bar will fund alcohol awareness campaign
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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