The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday, November 6, upheld a $900,000 jury verdict against Walmart over an underage alcohol sale at its Orange Beach store that preceded a fatal crash in Gulf Shores, rejecting the retailer's appeal and formally overruling a 1934 precedent that had been used to argue Alabama's Dram Shop Act did not cover deaths at all.
The decision, reported independently by WPMI NBC 15 in Mobile, affirms the judgment a Baldwin County jury returned in August 2025 after a three-day trial. The jury awarded $900,000 in compensatory damages to the estate of James E. Reed and awarded no punitive damages.
The purchase: champagne, hard seltzer and a fake license examined for under five seconds
The case began on March 15, 2022, when Walters — identified in the reporting by surname only, a 20-year-old University of Alabama student on spring break — bought champagne and a 12-pack of Truly Hard Seltzer at the Orange Beach Walmart. He used a self-checkout register and presented a fake Georgia driver's license to employee Secret Harris, who, according to surveillance video cited in the case, examined the ID for less than five seconds.
The fatal crash the next afternoon
The following afternoon, Walters drank at least four hard seltzers at a Gulf Shores beach house and, intoxicated, got behind the wheel to drive to dinner. At the same time, 80-year-old James E. Reed of Indiana was vacationing at Gulf State Park with his wife and 11-year-old grandson. After an evening bike ride, the family attempted to cross Highway 180 at East 16th Street. Reed's wife and grandson crossed safely, but as Reed followed on his mobility scooter, Walters struck and killed him. Investigators later recorded Walters' blood-alcohol concentration at 0.11, above the 0.08 legal limit.
Reed's wife sued Walters and Walmart. The claims against Walters were later dismissed after a settlement, leaving Walmart as the sole defendant at trial and on appeal. Walmart has not been quoted in the reporting on the Supreme Court decision, and no further appeal by the company was announced in the reports.
The law in the background: Alabama's Dram Shop Act
The lawsuit proceeded under Alabama's Dram Shop Act, which permits certain lawsuits against businesses that illegally provide alcohol when the resulting intoxication causes injuries or death. The case was decided under the version of the Act in effect at the time of the 2022 purchase. State lawmakers amended the law in 2023, adding language that addresses whether alcohol sellers knew or should have known they were making an illegal sale; those changes did not apply to this case because the incident occurred before the amendments took effect.
The court's three rulings
First, the justices formally overruled the court's 1934 decision in Webb v. French. For decades, Webb had been cited to argue that the Dram Shop Act allowed only lawsuits for injuries, not death; the new ruling clarified that the Act permits claims arising from a fatal accident. Second, the court affirmed that Estell Reed, acting as the personal representative of her husband's estate, had standing to bring the lawsuit. Finally, the court ruled that an alcohol retailer is not automatically shielded from liability merely because a clerk asks for and examines an ID: because evidence showed the fake Georgia license had visible defects and was examined for less than five seconds, the justices held the trial court was correct to let a jury decide whether Walmart actually complied with the law.
Justice Will Sellers dissented. He argued that Walmart had taken reasonable steps to prevent sales to minors and should not be held liable for failing to detect a convincing fake identification.
The ruling leaves the $900,000 judgment intact and settles, for cases under the pre-2023 version of the Dram Shop Act, that a fatal crash can support a claim and that a brief ID glance is not automatic protection for a seller. It does not decide how the amended 2023 law, with its knowledge language, will apply to newer cases.
Why retailers across Alabama will read this decision closely
For any store that sells alcohol in Alabama, the practical message is about the checkout: an ID check that lasts under five seconds, on a license with visible defects, was evidence a jury was allowed to weigh — and the state's highest court has now said that weighing was proper. The ruling also removes a 92-year-old argument that death claims fell outside the Act altogether, which had shadowed Dram Shop litigation for decades.
What happens next
With the appeal rejected, the $900,000 compensatory judgment against Walmart stands as the final word in the reports so far. The underlying events remain a 2022 tragedy: an Indiana grandfather killed while crossing a Gulf Shores highway with his family, after an underage spring-break purchase that surveillance video showed was checked for only seconds. No punitive damages were awarded, and the claims against the driver himself were settled earlier and dismissed.