Student dies in drunken fall — is school on the hook?
January 18, 2010 by Tom D'AgostinoPosted in: From the Courts, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
A jury said a school should pay $260,000 to the family of a student who was killed. Here’s why an appeals court wiped out the award.
Keith Orzech was a 21-year-old student at Fairleigh Dickinson University when he had a party in his residence hall suite. Orzech, who was also a resident advisor, violated the school’s alcohol policy by having grain alcohol at the party and allowing drinking games to be played.
Orzech got very drunk at the party, but his roommate said he was sleeping and “fine” when he checked on him at about 3:00 a.m. However, sometime during the next few hours Orzech leaned out of his fourth-floor window and fell to his death.
When the administrator of his estate sued, a jury found Orzech and the school equally negligent and assessed total damages at $520,000. The trial judge entered judgment against the school for $260,000.
An appeals court reversed. It said the school was immune to the administrator’s negligence claim by virtue of a state immunity law.
Cite: Orzech v. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ.
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Tags: alcohol, alcohol abuse, negligence
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January 20th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
I wonder when the time will come that people take responsibility for THEMSELVES? Why would this family sue the school when the student was clearly violating the alcohol policy? It’s very sad that he died, however, it’s an outrageous lawsuit. How dare they blame the school for their son’s drunken state!!…
January 20th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
HERE IS A PERSPECTIVE…..Knowing the modus operandi of some lawyers, this grieving family may have been contacted by a dozen of them even before funeral arrangements had been made. These ambulance-chasing, slick-tongued barristers may have convinced the family the university bore some blame. This is not so difficult a task when the person to be convinced is going through “blame seeking” in the grieving process. Of course, the attorney is willing to take the case without fee for a percent of the settlement. The mindset permeating our culture that someone else is always to blame has been underwritten by a small percent of get-rich-quick-vultures in the legal profession who prey on the misfortunes of others. I am grateful the vast majority of the attorneys do not fit that profile.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:50 am
Once again, blame the other party. My question is this: Was it the school Administration who was purchasing the grain alcohol, sneaking it into this student’s room, looking the other way when the drinking games were occurring and then forcing the alcohol down this RA’s throat? OR how about this blame game: Shouldn’t the roommate have some responsibility in this also? I mean he did check on him and said he was “okay and sleeping fine” shouldn’t he have at least phoned the family to inform them that their son, brother, nephew was passed out in a drunken stupor?
If blame must be placed, place it on those at the party who turned a blind eye to getting drunk at a Chrisian University as well as the student himself for being in a place of authority and abusing that authority to put other’s in harms way also.
I am sorry for the loss of life and no one deserves anything like this to happen. But awful things like this do happen and I agree that during the “blame” phase of the grieving process it is easier to blame someone else than to place the responsibility with where it alreay lies.
God bless the family of Keith Orzech and those who were his friends and anyone else who may have to live through a terrible trauma of losing a child, relative or friend to such carelessness.
January 25th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Well said, all of the above — wish I had expressed it so well!
While my deep sympathy goes out to the parents and family [losing a child has to be one of the worst things that can happen!] the fact is that a 21-year-old (NOT a teenager!) in a position of trust (RA) flagrantly violated both the rules of the University and his own responsibilities. So how can FDU be found at fault, other than through legalistic con/distortions?!
January 25th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
The sad thing is that lessons will not be learned, students will continue to drink to get drunk and some will die. I wonder what the ruling would have been if a college allowed drinking on campus, as a “student right.” I wonder how much alchohol actually costs society in terms of deaths, and accidents. I know, I know, “It’s a person’s decision to choose,” but it doesn’t hurt to consider the consequences of a free-flowing society, at least while still sober.
January 25th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Wow! I’m in total agreement with the previous posts. This doesn’t happen very often! Having lost two sisters in accidents and living with my parent’s grief, I can understand how this student’s parents must feel. However, we never felt the need to blame anyone else: They were accidents and nothing was going to bring them back. The body design in one of the vehicles could have been attributed as it had been addressed prior to her accident in news reports. However, she was aware of the dangers and continued to drive her car. Why would we blame the manufacturer? The same goes for this student: He knew he wasn’t supposed to have alcohol in his quarters – and I’m sure he knew the ‘risks’ of over-indulging. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY – and this includes the loved ones of accident victims – before filing lawsuits. Trying to live in denial that their son would ‘partake’ of alcohol won’t change the outcome: He drank too much and died.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
[...] 3. Student dies in drunken fall — is school on the hook? [...]
February 5th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Yet another case of self-inflicted wounds. The University did what it was supposed to do. It had policies in place that precluded this sort of accident. Unfortunately, as the old expression does, “who will watch the watchers?? This young man was the RA, and responsible for enforcing the policies. Worst case of suicide I ever saw.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
I’m surprised that Isaac Newton wasn’t sued. After all, if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have gravity, and it would be impossible to fall.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
If you want to make sure that there aren’t any more needless deaths like this, and that other parents don’t lose their children as a result of conduct that hardly surprises anyone, we ought to require that the college really does make some good faith effort to enforce the rules it developed because it knows its students are young and immature. There is only one way to do this — and that is to make the college liable for damages in a case like this (assuming, once again, that the college did not act reasonably to enforce its policy). If your goal is to apply the death penalty randomly to those who overimbibe, you’ll like the way the law was applied in this case. It has the consequence of telling colleges not to worry about their students’ drinking.
February 21st, 2010 at 9:07 am
NJBob Said
quote:
If you want to make sure that there aren’t any more needless deaths like this, and that other parents don’t lose their children as a result of conduct that hardly surprises anyone, we ought to require that the college really does make some good faith effort to enforce the rules it developed because it knows its students are young and immature.
unquote
…………..
Does NJBob want guards at all university residence halls to inspect packages, like at airports? Imagine that
police-state practice! and if a guard fails to see the case of booze, then a lawsuit wins?
RAs act as agents, so at some point individuals need to behave responsibly