Accuser blamed in UM case dealing with alcohol liability

Two witnesses to a 1986 fight on the University of Maine campus that produced an alcohol-liability lawsuit being tried this week in Bangor placed at least part of the blame on the accuser.

The testimony of Mark Ryan and Peter Inzana, however, was not given in person as the trial progressed Tuesday in Penobscot County Superior Court. Rather, the statements of the men, who before the altercation had been drinking at a campus pub with the man accused of starting it, came in sworn depositions that were read to the jury.

In his 1988 lawsuit, Thomas Levasseur, who was a freshman at the time of the fight and now lives in Bangor, holds the university responsible for his injuries under a law that forbids bars from serving alcohol to visibly intoxicated patrons.

According to testimony, Philip Willette of Portland, who wasn’t a student at the time, drank as many as 10 servings in 12-ounce containers before he and some friends left the establishment and encountered Levasseur, who was riding a friend’s bicycle back to his dormitory.

The two reportedly scrapped twice — once after a pitcher thrown by Willette struck Levasseur, and again a few minutes later. Neither Ryan nor Inzana, who were released as co-defendants with Willette and the university before the case came to trial, was certain who started the first fight, but both maintained that Levasseur initiated the second.

“Mr. Levasseur could have kept riding his bike,” Ryan stated in his deposition, which the jury heard Tuesday. “He stopped. He didn’t have to go at Willette the second time.”

Also in dispute is whether Willette earlier in the evening had been barred by a police officer from re-entering the lounge because he already was intoxicated.

Willette contends that he wasn’t turned away that night, and some testimony suggested that the rejected patron might have been someone else, but that others waiting in line to enter the pub gave the officer Willette’s name.

The officer, Harry Dalton, testified Tuesday that he “took someone else’s word for it” that the rejected patron was Willette.