Minor League First Baseman Choked and Beaten by a Houston Bar's Staff Wins $960,000 of a $3.24 Million Verdict

Kacy Clemens grew up in Houston, played at Memorial High School and the University of Texas, and was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2017. By the end of 2018 he was a 24-year-old first baseman who had reached Double-A, and he spent New Year's Eve at Concrete Cowboy, a bar on Washington Avenue, with Conner Capel, an outfielder in the Cardinals system whose father had been Roger Clemens's college teammate. According to the plaintiffs, the bar was packed past capacity.

Shortly after midnight on January 1, 2019, a bouncer told Capel to move away from a waitress station and then put him in a chokehold. Four employees carried Capel toward the door and, the plaintiffs alleged, the bar's owner, Daniel J. Wierck, hit him in the forehead with a flashlight, fracturing his skull above the left eye. Clemens went to his friend's aid. He was put in a chokehold too, struck repeatedly in the ribs, and thrown to the ground outside the bar, landing on his right elbow. That is his throwing arm, and the swelling that followed limited his off-season training; he also had injuries to his ribs and neck. Police who responded arrested the bouncer.

Clemens and Capel sued 34th S&S, LLC, which does business as Concrete Cowboy, and Wierck in Harris County's 113th District Court in January 2019 (Cause No. 2019-07278), attaching photographs of their injuries and pleading negligence, vicarious liability and gross negligence. Their lawyer sent the bar's insurer, Golden Bear Insurance Company, a demand to settle within the policy's $1 million assault-and-battery limit. The insurer said no. The case was tried in early 2021 by Randy Sorrels of Sorrels Law, with Roger Clemens taking the stand and being questioned about his own history along the way.

On February 5, 2021, after nearly five hours of deliberation, the jury found Concrete Cowboy and Wierck fully responsible, found no fault on the part of either plaintiff, and awarded $3.24 million: $960,000 to Clemens and $2.28 million to Capel. Sorrels said the two men felt exonerated, that they had never done anything to start the violence, and that two years of exposing the bar's cover-up had been rewarded. The bar's attorney said his clients were reviewing their next steps.

The trial court signed a final judgment on April 26, 2021, adding prejudgment interest, post-judgment interest and costs. The defendants moved for a new trial, then appealed to the Fourteenth Court of Appeals (No. 14-21-00413-CV). After briefing, the court abated the appeal in September 2022 to let the parties negotiate. 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 granted it on December 22, 2022 and issued its mandate that day, so the judgment was never reviewed and stands as entered.

The fight since then has been with the insurer. Golden Bear defended the bar through trial, then tendered what was left of its $1 million limit and refused to pay more, leaving Concrete Cowboy and Wierck personally liable for at least $2.24 million of the two judgments. When mediation failed, Golden Bear filed a federal declaratory-judgment action arguing that the plaintiffs' pre-trial demand letter had been too vague to trigger its Stowers duty to settle. A district court agreed in June 2024, but on March 14, 2025 the Fifth Circuit reversed and ordered the case dismissed, holding that an insurer cannot use the Declaratory Judgment Act to get an advance ruling on a negligence claim that has already accrued. The bar, Wierck, Clemens and Capel are pressing that Stowers claim, along with a malpractice claim against the bar's original defense lawyer, in Harris County's 11th District Court (Cause No. 2023-38328). Clemens's appellate counsel of record were Randall Sorrels, Alexandra Farias-Sorrels and Tina Robbins of Sorrels Law and H. Victor Thomas.