Noteworthy Cases

UM pledge's parents awarded $14 million

By J. Christopher Hain, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 7, 2004

MIAMI -- In a case widely viewed as an attack on college fraternity hazing, a Miami-Dade County jury awarded $14 million Friday to the parents of a University of Miami freshman who drowned in a fraternity stunt.

The jury found two former fraternity brothers 90 percent at fault in the November 2001 death of 18-year-old Chad Meredith, a Kappa Sigma pledge who was drunk when he attempted a pre-dawn swim across a campus lake.

The size of the award hopefully will send a message to fraternities and sororities that engage in hazing, said David Bianchi, attorney for the Meredith family.

"The jury concluded what we have known all along: that Chad Meredith died needlessly as a result of hazing," Bianchi said. "There is too much of this that goes on under the name of having fun, and it needs to stop."

Attorneys for the defendants, former Kappa Sigma fraternity President Travis Montgomery and former fraternity member David May, argued that the swim had nothing to do with the fraternity, that no hazing was involved.

Montgomery and May were swimming in the lake with Meredith when he drowned. Defense attorney Donald Hardeman said the defendants will appeal.

"Presidents of fraternities don't haze themselves," Hardeman said. "He didn't swim the lake because he was a pledge. Nobody made him do it."

But the jury determined Montgomery and May were acting on behalf of the fraternity. And Meredith's family will attempt to collect at least some of the $14 million from the $20 million insurance policy of the national Kappa Sigma fraternity. But Meredith's family also could try to collect from homeowner policies of the parents of Montgomery and May, worth a combined $800,000.

The verdict could reinforce a trend toward anti-fraternity lawsuits targeting homeowners policies of parents of frat members. Some parents may think twice before letting their children join an organization that could bring financial trouble to the family.

Two years after Meredith's death, his parents still visit his grave every day. "Hopefully, it will give them some peace," Bianchi said.

Since 1970, at least one student has died every year while pledging or rushing a fraternity or sorority at a U.S. college.

Highly publicized attempts to curb hazing in the past decade have been largely ineffective, said Hank Nuwer, a hazing expert and assistant professor at Franklin College in Indiana.

Although national fraternities have tried to reform, he said, alumni often push students to keep hazing traditions alive. The problem is compounded by weak anti-hazing laws and university administrators trying to avoid bad publicity, said Nuwer, author of two books on college hazing. Civil suits like the one in Miami are often the only way the truth about hazing emerges, he said.

On the night of Meredith's death, he attended an outdoor concert by rapper Ludacris Then he ran into Montgomery. They stayed at an off-campus party until about 4:30 a.m.

Meredith was drinking, but fraternity members said he didn't seem drunk. He drank more beer at the fraternity house. That's when Montgomery suggested going for a swim. Montgomery told Meredith he'd done it when he was a pledge.

It wasn't an initiation rite, defense attorneys claim. Another pledge had been asked to swim and declined. And on the walk to the lake, another fraternity member, Timothy Williamson, supposedly told Meredith he didn't have to swim if he didn't want to.

Meredith's family contends that he always avoided swimming in lakes -- even on yearly vacations to a lakeside cabin.

But shortly after 5 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2001, amid a hurricane warning that forced cancelation of school that day, Meredith began a 437-foot swim -- that is almost the length of 1 1/2 football fields -- across Lake Osceola.

Fraternity members said Meredith left a 32-ounce bottle of beer at the lake's edge, stripped to his boxers and followed Montgomery and May into the water.

Not even halfway into the swim, Meredith screamed for help. May said in a deposition that he was 15 or 20 feet from Meredith, but didn't have the energy to save him. He said he swam to shore, hoping Montgomery would rescue Meredith.

Five hours later, police divers fished out his body 34 feet from shore. He had a blood-alcohol level of 0.13 percent.

Meredith became one of 24 fraternity or sorority members to die in 2001 while engaging in some type of risky behavior: hazing, alcohol or drug bingeing, partying and driving, said Nuwer, who chronicles deaths at the nation's fraternities and sororities.

State law prohibits hazing, defined as endangering a student for the purpose of initiation. But penalties are left up to the colleges.

The University of Miami has a zero-tolerance anti-hazing policy and strict regulations for alcohol consumption.

Kappa Sigma had gotten into trouble twice in the months before Meredith's death. In April 2001, its chapter president resigned after making comments to a UM group supporting hazing. Under its next president, Montgomery, the fraternity was cited for bringing a beer keg into the house.

And on the night of Meredith's death, fraternity members broke more rules by allowing underage drinking and putting a pledge in harm's way, Bianchi said in the trial's opening statements.

It was the president's "duty and obligation to enforce the rules, not break them," Bianchi said.

Meredith had told his father just days before he died that some fraternity activities came with unspoken pressure: "He said, 'They tell you, you don't have to do it, but you know that you've got to do it. You're supposed to do it,' " William Meredith said in a deposition. State Rep. Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach, a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, says part of the solution is filing criminal charges against hazing participants. He said Thursday he plans to file legislation making hazing a third-degree felony if someone is injured. It would be a first-degree misdemeanor if even the potential for injury exists.

"What was once considered to be a right-of-passage into brotherhood has now become what most people would consider heinous acts of brutality, physical assault, and degradation," Hasner said.

Meredith's death initially caused a stir at UM, but resulted in no changes to the university's policies.

There has been no crackdown on fraternity hazing and certainly no ban on the frats themselves, said university representative Margot Winick.

The only ban that seems to apply is posted on neatly painted signs along the banks of Lake Osceola: Swimming in the Lake Prohibited.

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