Minor League Outfielder Whose Skull Was Fractured by a Houston Bar's Bouncer and Owner Wins $2.28 Million of a $3.24 Million Verdict
After trial: Final. The judgment signed April 26, 2021 (modified July 19, 2021 as to the labels of Capel's damage elements) was appealed to the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, which dismissed the appeal on the defendants' own unopposed motion on December 22, 2022 without reaching the merits, so the $2,280,000 award to Capel stands with interest and costs. No Texas damages cap applied. Collection is partial: the bar's insurer, Golden Bear Insurance Company, paid out its $1,000,000 policy limit (shared between the two plaintiffs and net of defense costs) and refused the excess, which left the bar and its owner personally liable for at least $2,240,000 across both judgments. The Fifth Circuit on March 14, 2025 threw out the insurer's federal declaratory-judgment action (No. 24-20332), and the Stowers claim against Golden Bear for the excess remains pending in Harris County's 11th District Court (No. 2023-38328). We could not confirm how much of Capel's share has actually been paid, and the case was filed in January 2019, while Randy Sorrels was still at Abraham Watkins; he tried it in February 2021 after founding Sorrels Law.
Won by Sorrels Law.
In the first hours of January 1, 2019, at the Concrete Cowboy bar on Washington Avenue in Houston, a bouncer put 21-year-old minor league outfielder Conner Capel in a chokehold after telling him to move away from a waitress station, and as staff carried him out he was struck on the head with a flashlight, fracturing his skull above the left eye. Capel and his friend Kacy Clemens, who was choked and beaten when he tried to intervene, sued the bar's owner, 34th S&S LLC, and its principal Daniel J. Wierck for negligence, vicarious liability and gross negligence. On February 5, 2021, after nearly five hours of deliberation, a Harris County jury found the bar and Wierck 100 percent responsible, cleared both young men of any fault, and awarded $3.24 million: $2.28 million to Capel and $960,000 to Clemens. The defendants appealed and then voluntarily dismissed the appeal in December 2022, leaving the judgment final. The bar's insurer paid out only its $1 million policy limit, and a suit over the unpaid excess is still being litigated.
What happened
Conner Capel was 21 and an outfielder in the St. Louis Cardinals' minor league system when he went to Concrete Cowboy, a bar on Washington Avenue in Houston, to ring in 2019. He was there with Kacy Clemens, a minor league first baseman in the Toronto Blue Jays organization and the son of Roger Clemens; Capel's father, Mike Capel, had pitched alongside Roger Clemens at the University of Texas and in the majors, and Roger Clemens is Capel's godfather. According to the plaintiffs, the bar was over capacity that night.
Shortly after midnight on January 1, 2019, a bouncer told Capel to move away from a waitress station at the bar. What followed, as the plaintiffs described it in their pleadings and at trial, was an assault rather than an ejection. The bouncer put Capel in a chokehold. Four bar employees carried him toward the door, and along the way he was hit in the forehead with a flashlight, which the plaintiffs attributed to the bar's owner, Daniel J. Wierck. The blow fractured Capel's skull above his left eye, a wound that required both internal and external repair. Clemens tried to help his friend and was put in a chokehold himself, struck repeatedly in the ribs and thrown to the pavement outside, landing on his throwing elbow. Police called to the scene arrested the bouncer.
Later that month Capel and Clemens sued 34th S&S, LLC, the company doing business as Concrete Cowboy, and Wierck in Harris County district court (Cause No. 2019-07278, 113th District Court), attaching photographs of their injuries and alleging negligence, vicarious liability for the bouncer's conduct and gross negligence. Their counsel sent the bar's insurer, Golden Bear Insurance Company, a demand to settle for the policy limits, which were $1 million for assault and battery less defense costs. Golden Bear refused, and the case went to trial in early 2021 with Randy Sorrels of Sorrels Law trying it for the plaintiffs.
On Friday, February 5, 2021, after nearly five hours of deliberation, the jury found Concrete Cowboy and Wierck fully at fault, assigned no responsibility to either plaintiff, and returned $3.24 million in damages: $2.28 million for Capel and $960,000 for Clemens. Sorrels said afterward that the two years of litigation had been about exposing the bar's cover-up of the attack and that the jury had held the bar and its owner 100 percent responsible.
The court signed a final judgment on April 26, 2021, incorporating the verdict and adding prejudgment interest, post-judgment interest and costs, and on July 19, 2021 granted a motion to modify that adjusted the labels on Capel's damage categories to include past and future physical disfigurement. The defendants appealed to the Fourteenth Court of Appeals (No. 14-21-00413-CV). The court abated the appeal in September 2022 so the parties could talk, and on December 6, 2022 the defendants filed an unopposed motion to dismiss their own appeal, saying they had reached an alternative agreement with the plaintiffs. The court dismissed the appeal on December 22, 2022 and issued its mandate the same day, so the judgment stands as entered.
Collecting it is another matter. After defending the bar through trial, Golden Bear tendered what remained of its $1 million limit, leaving the bar and Wierck personally liable for at least $2.24 million of the two judgments. Post-verdict mediation failed, and Golden Bear went to federal court seeking a declaration that it owed nothing more because the pre-trial demand letter had not triggered its duty to settle under Texas's Stowers doctrine. A district judge agreed in June 2024, but on March 14, 2025 the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the insurer could not use the Declaratory Judgment Act to pre-empt a negligence claim that had already ripened, and ordered the federal case dismissed. The bar, Wierck, Capel and Clemens are pursuing that Stowers claim against Golden Bear in Harris County's 11th District Court (Cause No. 2023-38328), where the insurer's petition for mandamus was denied in March 2024. Capel's appellate counsel of record were Randall Sorrels, Alexandra Farias-Sorrels and Tina Robbins of Sorrels Law and H. Victor Thomas.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Golden Bear Insurance Co. v. 34th S&S, L.L.C., No. 24-20332, March 14, 2025: the altercation on New Year's Day 2019 and the bouncer's arrest, the claims pleaded, the Stowers demand for policy limits, the $1 million assault-and-battery limit, the jury's separate verdicts of $960,000 for Clemens and $2.28 million for Capel, the judgment's interest and costs, the insurer's tender of the remaining limit, the $2.24 million excess left on the bar and Wierck, the failed mediation, the federal declaratory action and its reversal, and the pending state-court Stowers suit
- 2.Houston Chronicle, February 7, 2021: the $3.24 million verdict, the jury clearing both plaintiffs and finding the bar liable, the over-capacity allegation, the waitress-station confrontation, the flashlight blow and skull fracture above Capel's left eye, Clemens's rib and elbow injuries, the players' ages and baseball careers, Randy Sorrels's statement and the bar's counsel's response
- 3.KPRC Click2Houston, February 6, 2021: Friday verdict finding Concrete Cowboy and owner Daniel J. Wierck fully at fault, the chokehold, four employees carrying Capel out, the owner striking him with a flashlight, Capel's skull fracture requiring internal and external wound repair, Clemens's intervention and injuries, Randy Sorrels identified as a partner at Sorrels Law
- 4.ABC13 Houston, February 6, 2021: the verdict, the bouncer's instruction to move, the chokehold and flashlight, Capel's skull fracture and Clemens's elbow injury, Sorrels's quote about the bar's cover-up
- 5.Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals docket, No. 14-21-00413-CV: trial court 113th District Court, Cause No. 2019-07278, judgment signed April 26, 2021, motion for new trial May 26, 2021, notice of appeal July 23, 2021, abatement September 15, 2022, motion to dismiss December 6, 2022, dismissal and mandate December 22, 2022, and counsel of record for appellees (Randall Sorrels, Alexandra Farias-Sorrels, Tina Robbins, H. Victor Thomas)
- 6.Fourteenth Court of Appeals, concurring and dissenting memorandum opinion of Justice Spain, December 22, 2022: the appeal was from the April 26, 2021 final judgment, the July 19, 2021 order modifying the judgment to include past and future physical disfigurement in Capel's actual damages, and the appellants' unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal
- 7.Texas First Court of Appeals docket, In re Golden Bear Insurance Company, No. 01-24-00185-CV: mandamus petition filed March 6, 2024 from the 11th District Court of Harris County, Cause No. 2023-38328, denied March 28, 2024
More proven verdicts from Sorrels Law
All Sorrels Law proven verdicts →On September 7, 2019, Ulysses Cruz, a 48-year-old United Airlines ramp worker serving as a wing walker at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, was struck from behind by an Allied Aviation Fueling Company of Houston van whose driver said the morning sun was in his eyes. Cruz was paralyzed from the chest down and suffered a stroke two days later that cost him the use of his dominant right arm. After a two-week trial before Judge Ravi Sandill, a Harris County jury on October 25, 2021 found Allied 70 percent and driver Reginald Willis 30 percent at fault and awarded Cruz, his wife and their two children $352.7 million in compensatory damages. Judge Sandill conditioned denial of a new trial on a $117.5 million remittitur of noneconomic damages, which the family accepted, and an amended judgment of about $235.3 million was signed February 7, 2022. Allied appealed, the parties reached a confidential mediated settlement, and on July 18, 2023 the First Court of Appeals vacated the judgment and dismissed the case at the parties' joint request.
Kacy Clemens, a 24-year-old minor league first baseman and the son of pitcher Roger Clemens, was put in a chokehold, punched repeatedly in the ribs and thrown to the pavement outside Houston's Concrete Cowboy bar in the early hours of January 1, 2019 when he tried to help his friend Conner Capel, whom a bouncer had choked and whom the bar's owner allegedly struck with a flashlight. Clemens landed on his right elbow, his throwing arm, and the swelling limited his training. He and Capel sued the bar's operator, 34th S&S LLC, and owner Daniel J. Wierck for negligence, vicarious liability and gross negligence. On February 5, 2021 a Harris County jury found the bar and Wierck 100 percent responsible, cleared both men, and awarded $3.24 million, of which $960,000 went to Clemens. The defendants' appeal was voluntarily dismissed in December 2022, making the judgment final, but the insurer paid only its $1 million limit and litigation over the unpaid excess continues.
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