Barb,

You always come across the most interesting things.

Based on the article, it seems that the judge had no choice but to find for the plantiff as the defendant did not show. (I know people who have gotten out of speeding tickets because the police officer did not show up for court. OK, so that's a vice versa expample.)

The chapter president should have notified her advisor and chapter attorney immediately instead of taking the "wait & see" approach. The advisor and the attorney would notify HQ and they could handle matter from there. However, the chapter attorney could have filed something on her behalf. (The article did not mention if these things were done.)

We had a similar situtation on my campus where a new initiate felt that she was being slandered by some "jealous" members of her chapter. She sued the individual "slanderers", the chapter officers for "condoning" their actions and the national organization for allowing the chapter to "operate" in that fashion. The chapter and national attornies took care of it. The initiate dropped her suit during arbitration.

It will be interesting to see how this DST matter turns out.