[KappaKittyCat]

"Actually, the chapter is not responsible if something happens to them because the event is held at a third party vendor. The Westin would be held responsible if anything happened within the actual formal. As for outside, that would be the responsibility of the establishment they were attending." -Shadokat

I'm going to preface this post by saying that I have no formal legal training, only the layman's knowledge that comes from closely following the news, studying landmark Supreme Court cases in my high school U.S. government and political science classes, reading John Grisham novels, and watching Law & Order. This post is based on my simple understanding of the law, which I gleaned from the above sources and my training as chapter risk management and standards chairs. Any of our other, more finely tuned GC legal minds should please feel free to jump in at any time and correct my errors.

That said...

I attended a nifty presentation at Kappa Convention this summer. It's called "Something of Value," and it's presented by Greek women attorneys through NPC. It's all about the legal liabilities and responsibility issues involved with Greek life when it comes to alcohol, formals, etc. It's very interesting and informative, so informative, in fact, that it scared the living daylights out of most of the standards and risk management chairs who were there.

The point of the presentation is that while a chapter could not be held criminally liable for anything that happened to its members in such a situation, both the chapter, the national organization, and the individual members (as well as the hotel, bartenders, security firm, bus company, and anyone else) could be found responsible in a civil suit. The standard for a criminal negligence case, "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that the jury is 100% certain that the defendant could and should have done something to prevent the situation from occurring, that the situation is entirely the fault of the defendant's failing to act.

The standard for a civil responsibility case is different. It's called "preponderance of the evidence" and it's based on the question, "What would a reasonable person have done to prevent the situation from occurring?" If the jury believes that the defendant failed to do what any reasonable person might have done, even if they think the defendent is only a teensy bit responsible, they must find for the plaintiff. They then have the discretion to award damages as they see fit. They could find for the plaintiff and award damages in the amount of $1 if they wanted to. Juries have done that. Guilt is a yes or no question, but responsibility comes in myriad shades of gray.

So what does that mean for our dear friends at SAEP? Well, Sigma could not be held criminally liable. The individual responsiblity factor alone (meaning that the girls in question were obviously acting of their own free will) is enough to blast a huge hole in any prosecution case. For that reason, no prosecutor in his right mind would bring charges against them.

But, both Sigma's chapter and its individual members could be held responsible if Jordan and Mara were to, say, have been injured on their way over to the strip club or going home to their new hotel, or had Candace and Amanda been sexually assaulted in their drunken state, or so on. These sisters, who pledged loyalty and friendship to the pledges, should have at least said something like, "You should stay in the same hotel with the rest of us because it's safer," or, "Please don't go wandering around outside the hotel at night because it's dangerous," or, "Maybe you've had enough to drink," or, "Maybe you shouldn't go off alone with your date when you're both drunk like that," etc. Somebody should have kept an eye on them and their dates. Somebody should have cautioned them against pre-partying. They shouldn't have just stood idly by and let them leave, slobbering drunk as they were.

Now, maybe Sigma sisters did say these things. I would imagine that they might have. I hope that they had some sort of risk management talk before they even left for San Francisco, but I'm aware that had any of these things happened, the film would make it no further than the editing room floor. It's not good TV. Were Jordan, Candace, Amanda, and Mara's actions abhorrently irresponsible not to mention inexcusibly rude? Of course. Nobody argues with that. But did the other Sigmas have a duty to them as sisters, friends, women, and even fellow human beings to at least caution, if not intercede? I think so. Could a talented attorney convince a jury that anything that might have happened to these ladies was at least partially the fault of Sigma and its individual members? You bet your badges.