Insurance Company Suing Sigma Chi (U of Georgia alleged incident)
 

Interesting suit dealing with the issue of what an insurance company should have to pay for.

http://media.www.redandblack.com/med...-3752860.shtml

Excerpt from much longer article (article has some links with it to additional documents):

The University chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity is being sued in federal court by its insurance underwriter, stating it should not have to defend the fraternity against an injury lawsuit brought by a Gainesville woman.

Liberty Capital Corp. states in its lawsuit against Sigma Chi that the fraternity was not acting in accordance with the insurance policy and it should not have to pay damages if the woman wins her lawsuit against Sigma Chi. . . .

Can you post a link to the full article?

I just read this on Twitter. Sucks.

To the lawyers:

Is it even necessary to sue Sigma Chi? Couldn't the insurance provider just deny the claim (stating that they were negligent/acting outside of the scope of coverage)?

Yeah, I think I can.
Just a second and I'll dig it up. Here we go.... the article is in the July 24 '09 online issue of the Red and Black (student paper at UGA).

http://media.www.redandblack.com/med...-3752860.shtml

And here's the one to the federal court filing

http://media.collegepublisher.com/me...s/p01j094u.pdf

There could be a lot of reasons for doing this through a lawsuit - one that comes to mind is that they want to get a court decision on the books that interprets the policy in a certain way. That would have more of a preclusive effect on future claims than a denial of this claim.

Plus, if they have to run their policy language by the insurance commissioner, the company can point to a favorable court decision if they were to write their policies in a certain way that would foreclose coverage on these claims in the future.

Seems like a lot of extra effort. Seems surprising that there wouldn't already be a decision on the books (considering the number of fraternity/sorority claims in the past decade or two). Guess that's why you all get paid the big bucks, though.

It's sort of surprising that the chapter thought the insurance company would pay the claim. Didn't everyone get the living daylights scared out of them in risk management sessions about how we would all be personally liable if someone got hurt when we were violating the rules?

I guess this reflects the danger of using scare tactics vs. the more complicated legal truth. And it probably reflects the chapter not having money lying around to pay the woman's claim.

The girl, and Sigma Chi too I guess, is really lucky that she didn't end up with brain damage or break her neck. It sounds like she fell of the loft and landed on her face.

The company might be looking at the litigation costs and deciding it's better to get declaratory relief saying that they're out of the picture rather than defending a claim for the young lady's personal injuries.

I imagine our liability policies contain all kinds of exclusions. If Sigma Chi loses here, blame their IHQ for negotiating an insufficient policy.

Bad week to be a Sigma Chi IHQ lawyer...

But can you negotiate a policy that covers you for damage that results from breaking the law? That's kind of what they are looking at here: members were responsible for serving alcohol to an underage person who because injured as a result of her drunkenness. Is anyone going to cover you for that?

[Eta: well I guess almost all auto-insurance covers us from damages that resulted even if we broke some laws, but I have a hard time imagining that a GLO could get coverage for what happened here.]

ETA: actually I'm surprised that Sigma Chi is sticking by the chapter as much as they are considering that some Sigma Chi policies were likely broken as well. On some level, I admire them for it, but, if the reporting in the Red and Black is accurate, there's a yikes factor too. Ask yourself what the Sigma Chi legal team and fraternity leadership would have said about this scenario in advance.

Several years ago, one of our daughters was at a fraternity party at the lake home of one of the members' grandparents. They made a slip and slide on which you slid down the hill and went up in the air a ways and then down into the lake. Except our daughter--she's really little and she flew further out than anyone else and landed hard on her rear on a mostly submerged stump. Her body started to go numb and luckily, her boyfriend saw what happened and dragged her out before she swallowed any more water.

The fraternity risk people kept calling us, assuring us that they'd pay for all her bills, which amounted to thousands (and they did); they were probably afraid that we'd sue. Once we saw that she wasn't going to have lasting effects, we knew we wouldn't but we could tell that the fraternity was terrified.

Oh, and they left the slip and slide in place and another small girl went down it an hour later--after the ambulance had carried our daughter away!--and she was injured and had to go to the ER too. (She wasn't at the party when our girl was hurt and had no idea what had happened before.) I bet that that fraternity's Risk Management folks were alll over them.

Yipes - that is scary. I'm glad both girls are OK.

If this fraternity party was held at someone's house, would the owner of the house have any sort of liability since it took place on his property?

The ADPi was really bruised up and our daughter had a badly sprained back. They were both in physical therapy for a couple of months but finally got better.

Oddly enough, the fraternity seemed desperate to go ahead and pay the bills and not involve the grandparents and I'm wondering if they even knew about the party.

I'm glad they were okay, Carnation.

You'd think that if you know you're at fault or if you think you're going be held liable, that you'd want to make arrangements to pay medical expenses to avoid the additional costs of the suit.

Maybe the Red and Black's coverage misrepresents what the medical expenses really were so that's why it hasn't been taken care of in this case.

I guess I just have such a different outlook on things like this. I can't remember EVER getting hurt and thinking to myself "I should sue" anyone. I fell off my swingset when I was six, and got a concussion. My parents didn't sue Fischer-Price. I fell out of the tree house at a friend's house when I was seven and sprained my wrist, and my parents didn't sue her parents. And I have fallen down when I've been overly intoxicated, banging up my knees, and it has never occurred to me to sue the bar that "over served" me. ESPECIALLY not when I knew in good conscience that I had no business being in a bar when I was under the age of 21.

I'm not trying to say that it's the girl's fault necessarily that this happened, but if you make the choice to go to a fraternity party, and then you make the choice to get drunk (I'm sure nobody was forcing drinks down her throat), and then you get hurt, maybe you should chalk it up to a life lesson in responsibility. I don't know, that's just my take on the situation. I'm sure others have probably thought the same thing, and maybe it doesn't have any bearing on the suit whatsoever, but like I said, those are just my thoughts.

Uh...

Unlike the plaintiff in this case, you weren't an invited guest at someone's party who became overly intoxicated, was taken back to a boy's room, undressed, placed on a top bunk bed so he could come back and "sleep with you." you weren't left alone in this state where you unconsciously rolled over and fell out of bed causing tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your face, teeth, mandible, not to mention nerve damage, humiliation, pain and suffering, etc.

No doubt her parents didn't feel like they should be on the hook for the medical bills so they talked to a lawyer. Alternatively, they were never given a choice because their daughter's insurance company (rather than the daughter) is bringing suit against Sigma Chi, Sigma Chi's insurance, and probably several young men from the UGA chapter.

Your situation doesn't come remotely close to hers, you suffered no serious damages, and to say that she should chalk up receiving serious injuries from a fall when she was in someone else's care is something she should chalk up to "life experience" is actually kind of dumb.

I'm sure you're a smart person, just not in post #16 on this thread :)

This was the only part of your post I hadn't considered. So thanks for addressing it, because it does kind of shed some new light on the situation (for me at least).


Indeed. :D

Normally, I'm looking at things from the personal responsibility lens, too. But I wasn't expecting that the be the standard here, especially because she was served alcohol underage.

You know, the fact that she was knowingly served alcohol underage then set up to be raped was the reason the insurance company not wanting to pay. But why sue Sigma Chi instead of just dropping them or refusing the claim?

Okay, I'm belatedly drawing my personal line in discussing this before "set her up to be raped." Yes, if someone is really impaired, she can't really consent, but the guy didn't have sex with her (no one did) and while taking of her dress goes along with sex, it also goes along with the possibility of sleeping or keeping her from puking on it. We have only one side of the story here. We don't know that she was set up to be raped the same way we're pretty sure she was served alcohol underage.

And the serving alcohol to her deal is probably enough for the insurance company to deny the claim. I don't they were or could be insured for the harm that comes up with they over-serve underaged guests.

My guess is that dropping Sigma Chi now wouldn't get them out of a claim from before they dropped them, and I also guess that they have refused the claim, but they want to court to make that clear, and they aren't willing to wait around for Sigma Chi to sue them to resolve it. But of course, I don't know

That would make sense, and you are right in that I was assuming. However from what I read of the article, he intended to return to "sleep with her" which is why I said that she was set up to be rapped.

Right, but we only have one account. We don't know who said it, and we don't know if "sleep with" is being used euphemistically or if he really simply intended to sleep with her in his own bed.

If he had purely predatory intentions, it's hard to figure out why he left her there for 45 minutes or whatever the article says, during which she fell off the loft. Or maybe he's the world's least effective rapist or really likes to procrastinate.

But I think the Sigma Chis are pretty good guys, in general as far as I know, and while they handled getting her help after the injuries pretty stupidly, I don't know if I'm ready to make the leap from dumbass but relatively normal behavior to actually malicious behavior. Either way, I think at least some of the guys in that chapter are going to be held responsible for what happened to her.

ok good point, and I really should have considered my words better.

Your right though in that at least some of the members will be disciplined. The president, whoever invited her, who ever gave a minor alcohol, the RM so on, so on. Does anybody know if there are criminal charges going out?

I don't know, but I doubt it. Girls being willingly served alcohol at private fraternity parties is probably pretty low down on the UGA police's list, and that's probably the only thing that jumps out at me as clearly being something they could easily be charged with.

The other stuff are bad decisions for sure, but I think they'd be more likely to be handled with a law suit.

Update or Follow-up Article July 29 '09

Some follow-up by the Red and Black (July 29 '09 online edition)

http://media.www.redandblack.com/med...-3753177.shtml

Excerpts:

The University chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity was put on probation after hosting a party where they served alcohol to minors and ignored risk management protocol, which resulted in severe injuries to one partygoer.

. . . As a result of the fraternity's probation, they will be allowed to hold only seven social events where alcohol is served, in addition to informal tailgates during football season. Members of the fraternity will also be required to attend several educational programs, according to the organization's informal resolution agreement.

The fraternity member named in the lawsuit as having invited the woman to the party has also been put on probation for alcohol related misconduct after being arrested by University Police and charged with underage possession of alcohol and possession of a fake ID. . . .

WTF? That's some soft probation.

Yeah, I wondered about that myself. Since I have no personal experience of the UGA campus and its Greek scene, though, I guess I can't really say. A penalty that might be a slap on the wrist or a wag of a finger at one school might be devastating at another.

"My son was invited to a fraternity house Monday night where he was offered a beer and witnessed alcoholic beverages being consumed," one parent said in an e-mail. "I thought you might want to know this and warn these kids to be careful in how they conduct themselves."

This comment from a parent email to Greek Life made me laugh. Sure, I guess the guy shouldn't have been offered a beer, but the other part about witnessing alcohol being consumed at a fraternity house hardly seems worthy of comment. And it amuses me more that the parent thought it was something to react to than it probably should. I hope the kid doesn't go to the Georgia-Florida game for goodness sake.

As far as the probation, it does seem kind of light, but I'd guess unless the university wanted to make an example of them because this girl got hurt, the people deciding the case had to know that this is pretty run of the mill behavior. And lets be honest, it probably is. College kids drink underage. College guys will serve drinks to under-aged girls. It would probably be really hard to come down hard in the case knowing that you would either turn a blind eye to all the other groups doing the same thing OR take on some obligation for supervising or policing more closely.

The other factor is that Sigma Chi probably hasn't been in even a smidgen of trouble since they came back onto campus. (I'm not sure what year, but they were off campus the entire time I was at UGA.) The university probably has a system that builds based on the number of offenses.

^^

Sigma Chi was originally chartered at Georgia in 1872. They left campus in 1990 and were re-chartered in 1996.