$37,333 Awarded to Woman Beaten in Restroom of Bar

A former topless dancer whose left breast implant had to be surgically removed after she was beaten up in a Reseda bar was awarded $37,333 in damages Thursday by a Van Nuys Superior Court jury, which concluded that the bar manager provided inadequate security.

Because she could not afford to have the implant restored or the one in her right breast removed, Jo-Ann Banville has lived since the July, 1981, attack with one breast “significantly larger than the other,” said David C. Roberts, her attorney.

The imbalance, Roberts said, has hindered Banville’s career as a burlesque dancer and actress, and has caused her social embarrassment.

“How can you forget such an experience?” the attorney asked in an interview. “She has nothing but miserable memories.”

Banville, 35, who resembles television horror film hostess Elvira, testified during the three-day trial that she was drinking with two friends at the Rumble Inn in Reseda about 2 a.m. July 27 when she was instructed by the bartender to use the men’s restroom, because the women’s was out of order.

Two minutes after she entered the men’s room, Banville testified, a man with a Hell’s Angels tattoo on his chest and arm came in and began strangling and beating her. She fled the bar, but the assailant pursued her and attacked her a second time outside the premises, she and other witnesses testified.

One breast implant punctured the skin and had to be removed, Roberts said.

The assailant was never apprehended.

Banville lived in Arleta at the time of the attack, and worked as a cocktail waitress at The Country Club, a nightclub across the street from the Rumble Inn.

She is now unemployed and lives in the South Bay, her attorney said.

Roberts alleged that the bar attracted a tough, biker crowd and that the bartender should have stood guard outside the men’s room. He also asserted that the bartender permitted the second beating to take place by failing to intervene or call police after Banville fled outside.

But defense attorney Michael B. Lawler, representing Robert Rumble of Canoga Park, who managed the bar that his son owned, said the assault was unforeseeable. The bar has since changed ownership.

“The bar had been in business since 1974, and there were no previous incidents or problems,” Lawler said. “The bikers only started coming around when The Country Club changed from country music to heavy rock.”

By a vote of 9 to 3, the jury in the courtroom of Judge Robert M. Letteau ordered Rumble to pay $37,333 for emotional distress and medical expenses. Banville’s attorney had requested damages of $100 a day from the date of the attack through the rest of Banville’s life.