Debates Continue Over Liability For Deaths Caused By On-Campus 'Binge Drinking'

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently agreed to a $6 million settlement in order to avoid litigation over a freshman's death by alcohol poisoning during a fraternity hazing ritual. Scott Krueger was an 18-year old freshman pledge who drank himself unconscious at an ìAnimal House Contestî event that was part of the initiation ritual to join the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at MIT; Scott was admitted to a local hospital with a 0.4 blood alcohol level, and died three days later. To avoid being named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Scott's parents, MIT agreed to pay the student's surviving family $4.75 million, and spend another $1.25 million to establish a scholarship in his name. Although MIT settled, the family is proceeding with its wrongful death lawsuit against the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Moreover, the MIT chapter of the fraternity was indicted by a local grand jury for hazing and manslaughter; however, no one was ever arraigned because the fraternity chapter disbanded before criminal proceedings commenced.

The MIT settlement is only the latest headline concerning a subject of growing interest and heated debate: alcohol on campus. Interest in alcohol consumption on American college and university campuses skyrocketed in 1993 when researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health released the initial results of their ìCollege Alcohol Study.î The study initially was based on data collected from a national sample of nearly 17,600 students at 140 four-year colleges and universities across America; these institutions were resurveyed in 1997 and 1999. The results made instant news across the country as America learned that 44 percent of U.S. college students reportedly engaged in binge drinking during the two weeks prior to the survey.

Not surprisingly, the study has generated a spirited debate. Many newspaper editorials heralded the study as a scientific basis for substantiating demand that colleges and universities prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol on campus. At the other end of the media spectrum, The Sunday New York Times Magazine published an article in its October 24, 1999, issue entitled ìThe Battle of the Binge.î The article's subtitle posed the question: ìWhy do college students drink so stupidly?î In the article's text, author Jack Hitt answered his own question: ìBecause [for college students under 21] drinking intelligently is against the law.î

Even as the mainstream media expand their coverage of ìbinge drinkingî on American college and university campuses, courts across the country are grappling with the difficult issues of responsibility and liability for the injuries and damage that can result from such excessive alcohol consumption. Historically, state statutes and common law theories of liability embraced the concept of personal responsibility, and generally rejected notions that a lawful provider of alcoholic beverages would be responsible for a...