Hazing Allegations Dismissed: Ohio University Not Liable For Collin Wiant’s Death

Timothy M. Burke, Fraternal Law Partners, tburke@manleyburke.com

“Collin Wiant (Collin), an 18-year-old freshman attending Ohio University (OU) in fall 2018, died as a result of asphyxiation from ingesting nitrous oxide with members of the Sigma Pi Fraternity, Epsilon Chapter (Sigma Pi) at a privately-owned property located off campus.”^[1]

Following Collin’s death, his estate initiated litigation against the Sigma Pi Fraternity and some of its individual members. That litigation ultimately settled. But in Ohio, lawsuits seeking financial damages against state institutions, such as public universities, must be brought in the Court of Claims of Ohio. The estate’s lawsuit against OU in the Court of Claims was stayed during the pendency of the litigation against the Fraternity and its individual members. That stay was lifted in December 2022.

After a “voluminous amount of discovery,”^[2] both parties, the Wiant interests and OU, filed motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs’ Complaint claimed two causes of action against OU: “(1) Defendant’s negligence resulted in Collin’s wrongful death on November 12, 2018, and (2) Defendant violated R.C. 2307.44—Ohio’s civil hazing statute.”^[3] On the eve of trial, Plaintiffs sought to dismiss the negligence claim and try only the violation of Ohio’s hazing statute. OU objected. Ultimately, the court proceeded to consider summary judgement offered by both sides related to both causes of action.

While “Plaintiffs complaint alleges that Collin’s death was caused by a cumulation of hazing that could have been prevented if Defendant had taken steps to reasonably address Sigma Pi’s history of hazing,”^[4] the Court’s decision carefully details OU’s efforts to prevent hazing in OU fraternities and specifically tracks Sigma Pi’s history of alleged hazing from 2014 through the time of Collin’s death. According to the Court, “the evidence shows that… Defendant has explicitly prohibited misconduct that endangered students’ health and safety through OU’s formal written policies.”^[5]The Court devoted several pages to detailing OU’s anti-hazing policies, procedures for investigating hazing allegations, and disciplinary procedures when hazing is found, noting that OU’s Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility “handled roughly 2,500 cases concerning various types of misconduct per year.”^[6] 

With regard to Sigma Pi, the Court noted, “the record is void of any reported misconduct involving Sigma Pi until several complaints of potential hazing were reported during the 2013-2014 school year.”^[7] Some reports were dismissed for lack of evidence, but one issue involving an incident at “Burr Oak State Park regarding an event sponsored by Sigma Pi that involved alcohol, illegal drugs, and other inappropriate behavior” ultimately led to Sigma Pi being placed on probation until May 3, 2015.^[8] The Court acknowledged that in late December of 2015, a property rented by members of Sigma Pi received numerous code violations from the City of Athens. While the property involved was not always occupied by Sigma Pi members, it had a history as a party house. But ultimately the University determined it “could not take action because 45 Mill St. was not officially registered with OU as a fraternity-affiliated property.”^[9]

In September 2016, OU’s staff learned that conduct during what may have been Sigma Pi’s “rush week” might have required students to do menial work such as cleaning the fraternity house. OU’s staff made clear to the Sigma Pi chapter president what kinds of activities OU would view as hazing, and the investigation led to no charges against Sigma Pi.

“After the 2016 investigation closed, Defendant did not receive any reports of hazing involving Sigma Pi for the remainder of 2016. Likewise, Defendant did not receive any reports of hazing involving Sigma Pi in 2017 or 2018 until after Collin’s death.”^[10]

Using information that was filed with the Court, the Judge took the time to describe “Collin at OU.”  Collin received his informal bid to join the Fraternity and “bragged to family that he was ‘first to get a bid.’”^[11] Collin eventually became his pledge class’s President. He described via text message to his ex-girlfriend a trip he took with some members of the Fraternity to Gatlinburg, Tennessee as the “greatest weekend” because he “got to do free coke weed and aderal [sic] constantly mixed with moonshine and endless alcohol constantly blacked out.”^[12] According to the Court, “by mid-October, Collin was encouraging his fellow initiates to endure the hazing” they were experiencing.^[13]

A female student reported to OU’s police department that, after meeting at a party hosted by Sigma Pi at the 45 Mill Street property, Collin sexually assaulted her on October 19, 2018. The Court noted that OUPD initiated a criminal investigation into Collin for sexual assault, and subsequently, “Sigma Pi members were also informed that Collin was suspended from the pledge class due to the criminal investigation and that he could not be affiliated with any Sigma Pi activity.”^[14]

Despite that restriction, in the early morning hours of November 12, 2018, Collin attended an event at 45 Mill Street with some members of Sigma Pi and others where one hundred (100) cannisters of nitrous oxide, which a Sigma Pi member had purchased earlier, were present. “Uncontroverted deposition testimony establishes that the whippets were available to anyone, fraternity and non-fraternity members alike, who wanted to participate…. Those in the room with Collin also deponed that they were not engaged in an official or unofficial fraternity event and that Collin was neither being hazed nor did anyone force, coerce, or otherwise instruct Collin to take the whippet.”^[15]

Upon taking the nitrous oxide, Collin began gasping for air and turned “purple and blue.”^[16] Collin later died that night at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, and the Athens County Coroner’s Officer determined Collin’s cause of death to be asphyxiation due to nitrous oxide ingestion. Later, individual Fraternity members were charged with—and pleaded guilty to—various criminal offenses related to the events leading to Collin’s death.

In considering Plaintiffs’ claim that OU was liable in negligence for the cause of Collin’s death, the Court identified that Plaintiffs needed to show that: (1) Defendant owed a duty, (2) Defendant breached its duty, (3) Defendant’s breach proximately caused Plaintiffs’ injury—in this case, Collin’s death. 

OU acknowledged that since Collin was one of its students, he had a special relationship with OU as a business invitee during University activities or while located on premises under OU’s possession and control. But OU disputed it had a “duty of care to warn or protect students from the criminal acts of a third party once they leave campus or a premises that is under the institution’s possession or control.”^[17]  Because Colin was not located on the premises under Defendant’s control or possession at the time he ingested the nitrous oxide, OU “had no duty to shield him from the harmful off-campus activity of others.”^[18]

While the Court could have stopped there, given what the Court identified as unique circumstances, the Court went on to address the issues of foreseeability and breach. On the issue of foreseeability, the Court noted that a criminal act is not foreseeable as a matter of law if the evidence shows (1) spatial separation between previous crimes and the crime at issue; (2) difference in degree and form between previous crimes and the crime at issue; and (3) lack of evidence reviewing Defendant’s actual knowledge of violence. The evidence must demonstrate something greater than the general knowledge of potential crimes.

The Court pointed out that the Plaintiffs did not argue that OU had actual knowledge that Collin was being hazed, and while others close to Collin knew of the hazing, no one reported that to any OU employee or law enforcement. The Court rejected Plaintiffs’ claim that Sigma Pi had a “deeply ingrained culture” of hazing because of “insufficient evidence to support this conclusion.”^[19] And again, the Court relied on the fact that there was a “two-year lapse in time from 2016 to 2018 without any reports of hazing involving Sigma Pi whatsoever,” noting, “the record is also void of any evidence that shows that any member of Sigma Pi who was involved in the hazing in 2014 continued to be a member into 2018 to be able to carry forward such a culture of hazing.”^[20] “Given the limited number of prior reports and the spatial separation between them, as well as the discrete nature of the allegations, and variation in the type of misconduct reported, the Court found that prior complaints involving the Fraternity did not prove it reasonably foreseeable that Collin or any other initiate would be hazed in 2018.

The Court went on to find that Defendant acted in accordance with any required standard of care under the circumstances:

Within two months of his death, the undisputed evidence shows that Defendant warned Collin of the dangers of hazing by educating him about OU’s formal anti-hazing policy as well as requiring him to attend anti-hazing presentations and providing resources to report hazing or otherwise seek help.^[21]

The Court therefore found that OU was entitled to judgement as a matter of law on Plaintiffs’ negligence claim.

Regarding the second cause of action—the violation of Ohio’s hazing statute, R.C.2307.44—the Court noted that the claim involved questions of law regarding statutory construction that had not previously been addressed by the courts. Ohio’s hazing statute specifically authorizes claims against a university or any administrator, employee, or faculty member of the university who knew or reasonably should have known of the hazing and who did not make reasonable attempts to prevent it. The statute goes on to specifically provide that “in an action against a school, university, college or other educational institution, it is an affirmative defense that the school, university, college, or other institution was actively enforcing a policy against hazing at the time the cause of action arose.”^[22] 

OU had its own anti-hazing policy that it actively communicated to students in a variety of ways, specifically required fraternity and sorority student leaders to attend specialized workshops about hazing, and mandated that all students wanting to join Greek life attend anti-hazing presentations before becoming official members. As a result, the Court did not appear to have any difficulty in determining that OU was ““actively enforcing” its anti-hazing policy by informing students about its policy against hazing, providing information about the dangers of hazing, and offering access to resources for students to report hazing or protect themselves from hazing.”^[23]

Judge Lisa L. Sadler of the Ohio Court of Claims concluded her 38-page decision as follows: “Having reviewed all the evidence in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs and for the reasons stated above, the Court finds that Defendant is entitled to judgement as a matter of law pursuant to Civ. R. 56.”^[24]

Due to the language of the statute, fraternities and sororities do not benefit from the same kind of direct (affirmative) defense that OU did under Ohio’s anti-hazing law.  Fraternal groups therefore cannot escape liability by simply establishing that they were “actively enforcing a policy against hazing at the time a cause of action arose.” Nonetheless, proving that a national fraternity or sorority has an anti-hazing policy in place clearly promotes and enforces that policy, and actively investigating reports of hazing and, where found, disciplining those who engage in it, often greatly assists in defending the organization.    

[1] Wiant v. Ohio Univ., 2024-Ohio-4571 (Ohio Ct. Cl.), at ¶ 2.

[2] Id. at ¶ 5.

[3] Id. at ¶ 4.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. at ¶ 20.

[6] Id. at ¶ 21.

[7] Id. at ¶ 34.

[8] Id. at ¶¶ 37–38.

[9] Id. at ¶ 41.

[10] Id. at ¶ 46.

[11] Id. at ¶ 48.

[12] Id. at ¶ 49.

[13] Id.

[14] Id. at ¶ 50.

[15] Id. at ¶ 52.

[16] Id. at ¶ 53.

[17] Id. at ¶ 59.

[18] Id. at ¶ 61.

[19] Id. at ¶ 66.

[20] Id. at ¶¶ 66–67.

[21] Id. at ¶ 71.

[22] Id. at ¶ 76 (citing Ohio Rev. C. 2307.44).

[23] Id. at ¶ 87.

[24] Id. at ¶ 97.