Ohio Hazing Wrongful Death: Collin’s Law, the Law That Came Too Late, and the Fight That Has Only Begun
If you are reading this at 2 a.m. — if your child is in the ground because a fraternity poured alcohol down a pledge’s throat until he stopped breathing, and the university that was supposed to protect him is already circling the wagons — then you are in the exact moment this page was written for. We are not going to give you a brochure. We are going to tell you, in plain language, exactly what the law is, who is responsible, what the evidence looks like, how fast it disappears, and what a case like yours is actually worth. Then we are going to tell you what to do in the next 72 hours, because the clock on the proof is already running.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We are a trial firm that takes hazing wrongful death cases. Ralph Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like your family — and now sits on your side of the table. We are actively litigating a hazing case right now — a $10 million lawsuit against a national fraternity and a major university. We know how these defendants operate because we are fighting them today.
What happened on July 6, 2021, when Governor DeWine signed Senate Bill 126 — Collin’s Law — was a legislative answer to two families’ grief. Collin Wiant died at Ohio University in 2018 after hazing involving the Epsilon Rho chapter of Sigma Pi. Stone Foltz died at Bowling Green State University in 2021 after a Pi Kappa Alpha initiation that involved forced consumption of toxic quantities of alcohol. Two young men. Two university campuses. Two national fraternities that had every opportunity to stop what was happening and did not. The law is named for one of them. It came too late for both.
“Simply put — we cannot tolerate hazing. I believe Collin’s Law will help change the culture surrounding hazing and save lives.”
— Governor Mike DeWine, July 6, 2021
That statement is true. But a law does not bring your child back. A law does not hold the fraternity accountable by itself. A law does not force the university to answer for what it knew and what it ignored. Only a lawsuit does that. Only a family with lawyers who understand hazing litigation — who know the fraternity insurance structure, who know how to freeze Snapchat evidence before it disappears, who know how to break the “he consented” defense that Collin’s Law was specifically written to destroy — only that family gets accountability. That is what we do.
Who Is Responsible When a Student Dies From Hazing
A hazing death is never one person’s fault on paper, because the system that produced it is built like a maze of separate entities — each ready to blame the others. Understanding that maze is the first step to holding the right people accountable.
The National Fraternity Organization
The national fraternity — whether that is Sigma Pi’s national headquarters, Pi Kappa Alpha’s national office, or any other national Greek organization — sets the policies, collects the dues, controls the branding, and claims to supervise its chapters. When a pledge dies, the national organization will say the same thing every time: “The local chapter violated our policies. We prohibit hazing. This is not who we are.”
That statement is the start of the fight, not the end of it. The national fraternity’s own risk-management policies — which every national organization has, and which every chapter is required to follow — are the standard of care they set for themselves. When the local chapter ignored those policies and the national organization failed to detect or stop it, the national is liable for negligent supervision. The question is never just “did the chapter haze?” It is “did the national fraternity know or should it have known that this chapter was a hazard, and what did it do about it?” National fraternities receive incident reports, conduct chapter reviews, and maintain audit logs of safety violations. Those records — if they still exist — are the spine of the case against the national entity.
National fraternities carry insurance through specialized markets — typically Lloyd’s of London syndicates or specialized risk retention groups that write coverage for Greek organizations. These policies are structured differently from ordinary commercial general liability and frequently contain unique provisions regarding hazing, alcohol, and organizational conduct. The coverage tower behind a national fraternity is the deepest pocket in the case, which is exactly why the national organization fights hardest to get out of it.
The University Administration
The university — whether Ohio University in Athens, Bowling Green State University in Wood County, or any other Ohio public or private institution — owes its students a duty of reasonable care. That duty extends to oversight of recognized student organizations, including fraternities. When a university has received prior notice that a fraternity is a “bad actor” — through conduct violations, student complaints, police calls, or its own disciplinary records — and fails to act, it is negligent. The Clery Act requires universities to disclose campus crime statistics, including hazing-related incidents. Title IX mandates that institutions receiving federal funds must address environments that are hostile to students — applicable in hazing cases involving sexualized rituals. A university that let a fraternity operate on its campus, recognized it as an official student organization, and turned a blind eye to years of hazing culture is not an innocent bystander.
University conduct records are among the most important evidence in a hazing case because they establish “notice” — proof that the university knew this fraternity was a problem before your child died. But those records are protected by FERPA, the federal education privacy law, which means obtaining them requires formal FERPA requests and potentially subpoenas. The university knows this, and university record-retention policies can quietly purge conduct files on defined schedules unless a litigation hold stops the clock.
The Local Chapter and Its Officers
The local chapter — the Epsilon Rho chapter of Sigma Pi at Ohio University, the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter at Bowling Green State University — is the entity that actually conducted the hazing. Chapter officers, pledge educators, and active members who planned, participated in, or permitted the hazing are directly liable for negligence, assault, battery, and breach of the duty to provide a safe environment for pledges. Under Collin’s Law, those who participated in or permitted hazing resulting in serious harm face criminal liability — a third-degree felony — which is also the predicate for negligence per se in your civil case.
Local chapters are often thinly capitalized — a small LLC or unincorporated association with few assets. But the local chapter’s conduct is the bridge to the national organization’s deeper pockets, because the national is vicariously liable for the chapter’s acts and directly liable for its own failure to supervise.
The Individual Perpetrators
The individual students who forced, coerced, or encouraged your child to consume lethal quantities of alcohol — who planned the “hell week” activities, who stood by while he lost consciousness, who delayed calling 911 because they were afraid of getting in trouble — face intentional tort liability (assault, battery, false imprisonment) and negligence per se under Collin’s Law. Their homeowners’ insurance policies may or may not cover intentional acts — many exclude intentional torts — but the claims against them serve a critical strategic purpose: they establish the factual record, they create leverage, and they prevent the fraternity and university from shifting all blame to abstract entities while the real human beings who killed your child walk away.
The Evidence That Disappears — and How Fast
Every hazing death case turns on evidence that is actively dying from the moment your child stops breathing. The defendants know this. They have been through this before. Their risk-management teams are already at work — not to preserve evidence, but to manage the narrative. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it legally dies.
Digital Communications — The Fastest-Dying Evidence
Snapchat messages, GroupMe chats, Instagram direct messages, and text logs are the single most important evidence in a hazing case. They show the planning of the hazing event, the “encouragement” to consume alcohol, the real-time reactions as the situation deteriorated, and — most critically — the frantic messages after your child lost consciousness, before anyone called 911. These messages reveal who was in the room, who gave the orders, who watched, and who tried to cover it up.
How fast they die: Snapchat messages auto-delete by design, often within 24 hours unless saved. GroupMe messages can be deleted by the sender. Text messages survive on the device but can be factory-reset. Instagram DMs can be unsent. The window to preserve this evidence is measured in days, not months. A preservation letter — a formal demand that the defendants and third-party platforms retain all communications — has to go out the day you call us. Not the day you file suit. The day you call.
Who holds it: The individual students (on their phones), the platforms (Snapchat, GroupMe, Instagram — each with different retention policies and legal process requirements), and potentially the university (if university email or campus Wi-Fi logs captured communications).
University Conduct Records — The Notice Evidence
The university’s conduct records — disciplinary files on the fraternity, prior hazing complaints, student conduct violations, police call-for-service records, and any internal investigations — establish that the university knew this fraternity was a danger before your child died. This is the “notice” evidence that converts a “we had no idea” defense into a “you knew and did nothing” verdict.
How fast they die: University record-retention policies vary, and FERPA creates a complex legal framework around student conduct records. Some universities purge conduct files on defined schedules — commonly 5 to 7 years after the student graduates or leaves. But a fraternity chapter’s organizational conduct file may have a different retention schedule, and records of university disciplinary proceedings against a fraternity can disappear faster if no one demands them. Formal FERPA requests and subpoenas are the tools to get these records, and they must be sent before the university’s retention schedule allows destruction.
Who holds it: The university’s office of student conduct, the fraternity and sorority life office, the campus police department, and the university’s general counsel.
Toxicology and Autopsy Reports — The Medical Proof
The medical examiner’s autopsy report and toxicology findings prove the physiological cause of death and the level of intoxication forced upon your child. The BAC number — four to five times the legal limit — is the single most powerful piece of evidence in a hazing death case because it converts an abstract claim of “forced drinking” into a lethal, measurable fact.
How fast they die: Autopsy and toxicology reports are held by the county medical examiner’s office and are generally retained for a longer period — but the underlying biological samples (blood, tissue) are destroyed on a schedule that varies by jurisdiction. An independent forensic toxicologist should review the raw data as soon as possible, not just the final report, because the underlying lab work may contain additional information about the timeline and mechanism of death.
Who holds it: The county medical examiner or coroner’s office. In Athens County, that office holds the records for the Ohio University cases. In Wood County, the same for Bowling Green State University.
National Fraternity Audit Logs — The Corporate Knowledge
The national fraternity’s own records — chapter inspection reports, risk-management audits, incident reports from prior hazing allegations, insurance claim files, and internal communications about the chapter’s conduct — are the evidence that proves the national organization knew or should have known this chapter was a hazard. These records are central to piercing the corporate veil of the national entity and establishing direct negligent supervision.
How fast they die: Corporate records are retained according to the national organization’s own policies, which are not public. A litigation hold letter is the only thing that freezes these records. Without it, the national fraternity’s document-retention policy — which exists, though they will not show it to you — can legally destroy audit logs, prior incident reports, and internal communications on a schedule the organization controls.
Who holds it: The national fraternity headquarters, its risk-management contractor, and its insurance carrier. Obtaining these records requires formal discovery in litigation — but the preservation letter must go out before suit is filed, because the retention clock runs regardless of whether a lawsuit exists.
The Insurance Reality: Where the Money Actually Is
The coverage tower in a hazing death case is nothing like a car accident. There is no single auto policy with a printed limit on the declarations page. The money is stacked across multiple entities, each with its own insurer, each with its own exclusions, and each with its own incentives to point at the others.
National fraternity insurance is typically written through Lloyd’s of London syndicates or specialized risk retention groups that write coverage specifically for Greek organizations. These policies are not standard commercial general liability. They contain unique provisions regarding hazing, alcohol, organizational conduct, and member behavior. Some contain exclusions for hazing — which means the fraternity may be uninsured for the very conduct that killed your child, forcing the organization to pay from its own assets. Others contain coverage but with sublimits or conditions. The structure of the national fraternity’s insurance is one of the first things discovery must uncover, and it is not something the fraternity will volunteer.
University self-insurance is a different animal entirely. Public universities in Ohio — Ohio University, Bowling Green State University, and the other state institutions — typically carry layers of self-insured retention and excess coverage through state insurance pools or commercial carriers. The Ohio Attorney General’s office often defends public university claims, which means your family is up against the state’s lawyers, not just the school’s. The coverage available from a public university can be substantial, but accessing it requires navigating sovereign immunity issues unique to Ohio public institutions. Private universities carry commercial general liability and may have additional coverage through educational institutional insurers.
Individual perpetrators’ coverage is the weakest layer. Most homeowners’ policies exclude intentional acts, which means the individual students who forced your child to drink may have no insurance coverage at all. But naming them in the lawsuit is essential, because their conduct — proven through their own testimony and communications — is the factual foundation for the claims against the fraternity and the university. And some homeowners’ policies do cover negligence claims even when intentional torts are excluded, which means negligent supervision or failure to call 911 may trigger coverage that assault and battery would not.
The bottom line: the real money in a hazing death case is in the national fraternity’s insurance tower and the university’s coverage. Reaching both requires proving that the national failed to supervise and the university failed to act on notice — and that proof lives in the records we described in the evidence section above. Find the money, then build the case to reach it.
How We Build a Hazing Wrongful Death Case
Here is how a case like yours is actually built, from the first phone call through resolution. This is the process, not a promise of outcome — every case is different, and past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Week one: The day you call, the preservation letters go out — to the national fraternity, to the local chapter, to the university, to every individual we can identify, and to every digital platform involved. These letters freeze the evidence. They put the defendants on notice that destruction of records after receiving the letter is spoliation — and spoliation carries its own legal consequences, including an adverse-inference instruction that lets the jury assume the lost evidence was as bad as we say it was. The preservation letter is the most important document in the case, and it goes out before the funeral, not after the insurance company calls.
Weeks two through four: We pull the public records — the county medical examiner’s autopsy and toxicology report, the university’s Clery Act disclosures, the police incident reports, the local court records for any criminal charges. We engage a forensic toxicologist to independently review the toxicology and reconstruct the BAC timeline. We begin mapping the defendant structure — identifying the exact national fraternity entity, the local chapter entity, the university entity, and the individual actors.
Months one through three: We file the wrongful death and survival action. A personal representative is appointed — the person Ohio law authorizes to bring the family’s case. We handle that appointment. The complaint is drafted to plead every viable theory: negligence per se under Collin’s Law, negligent supervision against the national fraternity, negligent oversight against the university, assault and battery against the individual perpetrators, and wrongful death and survival under Ohio law.
Months three through twelve: Discovery. This is where the case is won. We serve document demands on every defendant — the national fraternity’s audit logs, the university’s conduct records, the individual students’ communications. We take depositions: the chapter president, the pledge educator, the members who were in the room, the university’s Greek-life advisor, the national fraternity’s risk-management director. Under oath, the culture of silence starts to crack. The person who texted “is he breathing?” at 2 a.m. has to explain why he did not call 911. The university official who received three prior complaints about this fraternity has to explain why it was still recognized. The national fraternity’s executive has to explain what its audit showed and what was done about it.
Year one and beyond: The number at the end is built from all of it — the frozen evidence, the toxicology, the conduct records, the depositions, the expert reports, and the life-care/economic-loss analysis. The defense’s exposure to a jury — twelve people from the community, looking at a photograph of your child and a toxicology report showing a BAC five times the legal limit — is what drives the resolution. Some cases settle. Some go to trial. The decision is always the family’s, made with full information about the risks and the value, never under pressure from an adjuster or a deadline.
Ohio Law: The Statutes That Govern Your Case
Ohio’s legal framework for a hazing wrongful death case is built from three pillars: Collin’s Law (the anti-hazing statute), Ohio’s wrongful death statute, and Ohio’s modified comparative negligence rule.
Collin’s Law — Ohio’s Anti-Hazing Act
Collin’s Law, enacted as Senate Bill 126 and codified within Ohio’s criminal code, expanded the definition of hazing to include coercing another to consume alcohol or a drug of abuse, raised the penalty for hazing to a second-degree misdemeanor, made hazing resulting in serious physical harm a third-degree felony, expanded mandatory reporting, and tasked the Ohio Department of Higher Education with creating a statewide anti-hazing plan. For your civil case, the most powerful provision is the one that defines coerced alcohol consumption as hazing — because it destroys the “consent” defense at the statutory level. A violation of this statute is negligence per se — the jury can treat the statutory violation itself as proof of negligence, without needing to separately prove the defendant was careless.
Ohio’s Wrongful Death Statute
Ohio’s wrongful death statute allows the personal representative of the decedent’s estate to bring a claim for the benefit of the surviving family members. The recoverable damages include loss of financial support, loss of services, loss of society and companionship, and mental anguish. Ohio juries place a high value on the loss of society and companionship in cases involving young students, because the loss is total and permanent. The statute of limitations for wrongful death in Ohio is two years from the date of death — a hard deadline that, if missed, extinguishes the family’s right to sue forever.
Ohio’s Modified Comparative Negligence Rule
Ohio follows a modified comparative negligence rule, meaning a plaintiff can recover damages as long as their fault does not exceed 50 percent. The defendants in a hazing case will attempt to pin percentage points of fault on the decedent — arguing he “chose” to drink, “voluntarily” participated, or “could have left.” Collin’s Law neuters this defense by redefining coerced consumption as hazing, but the defense will still try. Every percentage point they can pin on your child reduces the recovery. That is why the trial strategy must reframe the narrative from “what did the pledge choose” to “what did the fraternity coerce” — the power imbalance between active members and pledges, the documented psychology of groupthink, and the statutory definition of hazing all point the jury away from the victim and toward the institution.
Why Our Firm Fights Hazing Cases
We did not stumble into hazing litigation. We chose it. Ralph Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. Before he was a lawyer, he was a journalist — trained to find the story the powerful do not want told. That instinct is exactly what a hazing case demands: the willingness to dig past the fraternity’s polished public statements, past the university’s carefully worded press releases, and past the insurance company’s settlement offers, to find the documents and the testimony that prove what really happened.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the fraternity’s insurer sets its reserve in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered to get your family to say something that can be used against you, how the quick settlement check arrives with a release printed on the back before the medical results are in. He sat in those rooms. Now he sits on your side of the table, and he knows every play before they run it. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. We serve your family fully in either language.
We are lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit — Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston — filed in Harris County, Texas, in November 2025. That case involves a national fraternity, a major university, and the same institutional failures that killed Collin Wiant and Stone Foltz: a culture of hazing that the national organization failed to supervise, a university that failed to act on warning signs, and a pledge who was put in danger by the very organization that promised him brotherhood. We are in that fight right now. We know the defendants’ playbook because we are watching them run it.
We take cases on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33 percent before trial and 40 percent if the case goes to trial — a standard contingency structure that means our interests and yours are aligned. The consultation is free. The call costs nothing. And the preservation letter — the most important document in the first 72 hours — goes out the day you call us, at no cost to your family.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is different. What we can tell you is that we know how to build these cases, we know how the defendants operate, and we know what is at stake — not just money, but accountability, cultural change, and the assurance that no other family sits where you are sitting because the fraternity that killed your child was finally forced to stop.
Call Now: 1-888-ATTY-911
The evidence is dying. The defendants are already at work. Your child’s phone, the Snapchat messages, the fraternity’s audit logs, the university’s conduct records — every piece of proof that someone killed your child and someone else let it happen is on a clock that started the moment your child stopped breathing. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The investigation begins the day you call. The fight begins the day you call.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. 24/7 — you will reach a live person, not an answering service. Hablamos Español. We take Ohio hazing wrongful death cases, and we work with local counsel and pro hac vice admission where required to appear in Ohio courts.
Your child was taken by people who promised him brotherhood and gave him poison. The law — Collin’s Law, written in your child’s name or in the name of someone exactly like him — gives your family a path. But the law does not walk itself. You have to walk it. And you do not have to walk it alone.
Call. Today. 1-888-ATTY-911.