Bowling Green Fraternity Hazing Death: What the $6.5 Million Judgment Against the PIKE President Means for Ohio Families
If you are reading this because your child was hurt or killed in a fraternity hazing event at Bowling Green State University or any Ohio campus, we want you to know three things before anything else: what happened was not an accident — it was a foreseeable, preventable catastrophe that the organization that ran it had every legal duty to stop; the law in Ohio gives families real power to hold every layer of the machine accountable, from the student who handed your child the bottle to the national fraternity that collected dues and looked the other way; and the single most important thing you can do right now, today, is freeze the evidence before the people who built this culture erase it. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We take hazing wrongful death cases in Ohio, and right now our managing partner Ralph Manginello is lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a major fraternity and university. What happened to Stone Foltz in Bowling Green on March 7, 2021 is the same machinery we have been fighting in courtrooms for years, and this page is built to tell you exactly how the law works, what the evidence clock is, and what to do in the first hours and days after a hazing death. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, and we do not get paid unless we win your case.
What Happened at Bowling Green State University
On March 7, 2021, a 20-year-old student from Delaware, Ohio attended a Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity event at Bowling Green State University in Wood County. During that event, he was made to consume the equivalent of approximately 40 shots of liquor — roughly an entire 750-milliliter bottle of high-proof alcohol — in a short period of time as part of what was described as a “big brother” ritual. He was found unconscious by a roommate and transported to ProMedica Toledo Hospital, the region’s primary Level I trauma center, where he remained on life support for three days before dying of acute alcohol poisoning on March 10, 2021.
The fraternity’s then-president — a Cleveland Heights man who held the position of leadership in the chapter — was identified as a key organizer who facilitated the hazing ritual. He was later criminally convicted of reckless homicide, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, obstructing official business, eight counts of misdemeanor hazing, and seven counts regarding providing alcohol to underage persons. His criminal sentence was 21 days in jail, 28 days of house arrest, and three years of probation. Bowling Green State University expelled the fraternity from campus in April 2021.
In the civil case that followed, the family originally sought $225 million. A magistrate recommended that the former fraternity president pay $6.5 million — $175,000 for survivorship (the conscious pain and suffering endured between ingestion and death), $6 million for wrongful death, and $350,000 for punitive damages. The Franklin County Court of Common Pleas judge signed off on the recommendation. The former president never responded to the lawsuit, and the ruling was made by default — meaning the damages figure was set without a contested trial. Fourteen other defendants settled for a total of $11.4 million, including Bowling Green State University at $2.9 million and the national fraternity at $2.1 million.
The family’s attorney acknowledged that the family will likely never receive the $6.5 million from the individual. But the purpose was never about the money from one student. As the family’s lawyer stated publicly:
“The reality is no amount of money could replace Stone to his family anyway. This has never been about money to the Foltz family. This has been about stopping hazing in this country.”
That statement is the spine of every hazing wrongful death case we build. The judgment against the individual president is a moral and legal validation — a public record that says: this person did this, and it was worth $6.5 million. But the real recovery, the money that actually funds a family’s rebuilding and forces institutional change, comes from the defendants with assets and insurance: the national fraternity, the university, the property owners, the adults who built and tolerated the system.
Ohio Hazing Law: The Legal Framework That Governs Your Case
Ohio has a wrongful death statute and a survival statute that together create two separate paths to recovery after a hazing death. Understanding both — and understanding how Ohio’s comparative-fault rule and damages-cap rules interact — is the difference between a case that captures the full value of what was lost and one that leaves money on the table.
Wrongful Death Under Ohio Law
Ohio’s wrongful death statute gives the family of a person killed by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another the right to recover. The claim is brought by the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate, and the damages belong to the beneficiaries — the spouse, children, parents, and other next of kin who suffered the loss. In a hazing death, the parents of a 20-year-old student are the primary beneficiaries, and the damages they recover include the loss of their child’s companionship, the loss of financial support he would have provided over his expected lifetime, the mental anguish of the loss, and the destruction of the parent-child relationship that Ohio law recognizes as having its own independent value.
The Constitutional Protection Against Caps
Ohio is one of the few states where the state constitution directly addresses damages caps in wrongful death cases. Article I, Section 19a of the Ohio Constitution prohibits the legislature from placing statutory caps on damages in wrongful death actions. This is the single most powerful fact in an Ohio hazing wrongful death case. It means a jury in Wood County or Franklin County — twelve people from the community where the fraternity operated — can award the full measure of what a family lost without a statute reaching in and cutting the number down.
That constitutional protection does not extend to every category of damages. Non-economic damages in a survival action — the claim for the conscious pain and suffering the victim endured between the injury and death — may still be subject to caps. And punitive damages in Ohio are generally capped at two times the compensatory damages or a statutory maximum for individuals, which is exactly what we see in the $350,000 punitive award against the fraternity president in this case.
Survival Action: The Three Days on Life Support
The survival claim is the second track, and in a hazing alcohol-poisoning death, it is uniquely powerful. The victim in this case survived for three days at ProMedica Toledo Hospital on life support. That means there is a documented period of conscious pain and suffering — the terror of realizing what was happening, the physical agony of alcohol poisoning, the medical interventions, and the knowledge that death was coming. The survival statute lets the estate recover for that suffering as a separate category from the wrongful death damages the family recovers.
The $175,000 survivorship award in this case reflects that claim. We believe that number, entered by default against an individual who never appeared, is a floor — not a ceiling — for what a contested survival claim is worth in a hazing alcohol-poisoning death, where the victim was conscious and suffering for days.
Ohio’s Comparative-Fault Rule and the Hazing Defense
Ohio follows a modified comparative-negligence rule with a 51 percent bar. That means if the deceased person is found to be 51 percent or more at fault for their own death, the family cannot recover. If the deceased is found to be 50 percent or less at fault, the recovery is reduced by that percentage. In hazing cases, the defense will try to assign fault to the victim — he chose to drink, he could have stopped, he voluntarily participated. This is the first and most predictable attack, and it is increasingly disfavored by courts because of the coercive nature of fraternity pledging.
The reality of a fraternity “big brother” ritual is that a 20-year-old pledge is not freely choosing to drink a bottle of liquor. He is responding to a command from the person who controls whether he will be accepted into the group. The power imbalance is total, and the law is beginning to recognize it. Ohio’s anti-hazing statutes — strengthened by Collin’s Law, which was enacted partly in response to this very death — establish that hazing is a criminal act, and a violation of an anti-hazing statute is evidence of negligence that a jury can weigh against the fraternity and its officers.
The Statute of Limitations: Two Years From Death
In Ohio, a wrongful death action must be filed within two years of the date of death. For a hazing death on March 10, 2021, that clock ran out on March 10, 2023. If you are reading this because a different family member died — recently or months ago — the two-year clock started on the date they died, not the date of the hazing event, not the date you learned the death was caused by hazing. That deadline is real and unforgiving. But the evidence that proves your case dies far faster than two years — which is why the day you call a lawyer matters more than the year.
The Defendant Structure: Who Actually Pays in a Fraternity Hazing Death
The $6.5 million judgment against the individual fraternity president is a moral victory and a legal precedent. But the family’s own lawyer acknowledged they will likely never collect it. The individual student — however responsible — does not have $6.5 million. He probably does not have liability insurance that covers intentional or criminal acts. The judgment is what lawyers call a “paper judgment” — real on paper, enforceable in theory, but unlikely to produce a check.
The money that actually funds recovery in a fraternity hazing death comes from the institutions that built, tolerated, and profited from the system. In this case, $11.4 million was recovered from 14 defendants who settled before the case went to verdict. The two largest were Bowling Green State University at $2.9 million and the national Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at $2.1 million.
The National Fraternity as Defendant
National fraternities like Pi Kappa Alpha are not social clubs — they are national organizations with corporate structures, insurance towers, and legal obligations to control the conduct of their chapters. Pi Kappa Alpha operates as a national entity with local chapters at universities across the country. The national organization sets the rules, collects dues, determines which chapters are recognized, and has the power to revoke a chapter’s charter. With that control comes legal responsibility for what happens inside the chapters it sanctions.
National fraternities typically carry substantial liability insurance — often through specialty insurers or Lloyd’s syndicates, with limits frequently reaching $5 million to $10 million per occurrence. But these policies frequently contain hazing exclusions — clauses that say the insurer will not pay for harm arising out of hazing conduct. When a hazing death occurs, the first fight is often between the fraternity and its own insurer over whether the policy even applies. The $2.1 million settlement in this case suggests a compromise — perhaps based on policy limits, perhaps on coverage defenses, likely on the practical reality that fighting the coverage litigation would cost more than settling.
The University as Defendant
Bowling Green State University settled for $2.9 million. A public university in Ohio has its own legal exposure when it recognizes a fraternity as a sanctioned student organization, permits it to operate on or near campus, and fails to supervise the conduct of its Greek life. The university has a duty to protect students from foreseeable harm — and hazing at fraternities is about as foreseeable as danger gets on a college campus. Federal law, including the Higher Education Act and Title IX, provides frameworks for campus safety. University codes of conduct, while not statutes, establish the standard of care the university owes to students it has invited into recognized organizations.
The $2.9 million figure reflects the university’s share of a system that failed. It is not an admission of fault — settlements never are — but it is a number that tells you the university’s own lawyers concluded a jury would hold the institution accountable for what happened under its watch.
The Individual Members as Defendants
Other fraternity members — beyond the president — also settled. The legal theory here is joint and several liability for concerted action. When multiple people participate in a hazing ritual, each one who contributed to the dangerous conduct can be held responsible for the full harm. The text messages organizing the event, the social media posts, the physical presence at the ritual — each is a piece of a coordinated activity that the law treats as a single wrong with multiple wrongdoers.
The Evidence Clock: What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Dies
Every hazing case is won or lost on evidence that has an expiration date. The records that prove what happened — who organized the event, who bought the alcohol, who handed the bottle to the victim, who watched him drink, who failed to call 911 — exist right now, in specific places, held by specific people. Each of those records can be legally destroyed on a timeline that is shorter than you think.
Social Media and Text Message Logs — High Urgency
The first and most perishable evidence in a hazing case is digital communication. Group chats, text messages, Snapchat threads, Instagram direct messages — these are where the ritual was organized, where the “big brother” assignments were made, where the invitation to drink was issued, and where the panic after the victim collapsed was texted among the members. Digital data is easily deleted. A single person hitting “delete chat” can erase the organizing communication. We send a preservation letter — a formal demand that all digital communications be frozen and produced — the day a family calls us. Not the week. Not the month. The day. Because the defense’s first move after a hazing death is always the same: make the evidence disappear.
Fraternity Ritual Manuals and Internal Documents — Medium Urgency
National fraternities maintain ritual manuals, pledge education guides, risk management policies, and anti-hazing training materials. These documents establish what the national organization knew about hazing traditions in its chapters, what rules it had in place, and what enforcement it actually conducted. They are usually secured during discovery — the formal evidence-exchange phase of a lawsuit — but they can be requested earlier through a preservation demand. These documents are the backbone of the case against the national fraternity: they show the gap between what the organization promised on paper and what it tolerated in practice.
Toxicology Reports and Medical Records — Low Urgency But Critical
The toxicology report from the hospital confirms the blood alcohol concentration and the speed of consumption. In this case, the equivalent of 40 shots of liquor consumed in a short period produces a blood alcohol concentration that is lethal — a level at which the brain’s autonomic functions, including the drive to breathe, are suppressed. The medical records from the three days on life support at ProMedica Toledo Hospital document the progression of the injury and the suffering the victim experienced. These records are preserved in hospital archives and are relatively stable — but they must be requested formally, and the hospital’s records department moves on its own timeline.
University Disciplinary Files — High Urgency With FERPA Hurdles
Bowling Green State University’s disciplinary files — the records of prior hazing complaints against this specific chapter, the investigations that were or were not conducted, the warnings that were or were not issued — are among the most powerful evidence in the case. They show the university knew or should have known about the danger. But university disciplinary records involving students are protected by FERPA — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — which creates a legal hurdle to obtaining them. A lawyer who knows how to frame a discovery request that survives FERPA objections is essential. These records exist, they are held by the university, and they can be obtained — but it takes the right legal approach, and it takes time.
The Insurance Reality: Where the Money Actually Comes From
In a hazing wrongful death case, the money comes from insurance towers that stack in layers — and the first fight is often not with the other side but with the insurer about whether the policy even covers hazing.
The Fraternity’s Coverage Tower
Pi Kappa Alpha, as a national fraternity, carries liability insurance. The coverage tower typically starts with a primary layer — the first dollars that pay out — and stacks excess layers above it. The total available coverage for a hazing death at a national fraternity can reach $5 million to $10 million or more per occurrence. But the policy almost certainly contains a hazing exclusion — a clause that says the insurer will not pay for harm “arising out of” hazing conduct. When the exclusion is triggered, the fraternity’s national office and its insurer fight each other over whether coverage exists. That fight can take months and can determine whether there is any insurance money to recover at all.
The $2.1 million settlement in this case is consistent with a compromise at or near the primary policy limits — the insurer and the fraternity agreed to pay a fraction of the full death claim to avoid the coverage fight and the public trial. For the family, $2.1 million was real money. For the fraternity’s insurer, it was a business decision.
The University’s Coverage
Bowling Green State University, as a public university in Ohio, has its own risk-management structure. Public universities in Ohio may be self-insured, may participate in a state risk-pool, or may carry commercial coverage. The $2.9 million settlement reflects the university’s assessment of its exposure — what a jury in Wood County or Franklin County would likely award against the institution that sanctioned the fraternity and failed to supervise it.
The Individual’s Coverage — Or Lack of It
The fraternity president who faces the $6.5 million judgment almost certainly has no insurance that covers this. A standard homeowner’s policy may have a personal liability provision, but it almost certainly excludes intentional acts and criminal conduct — and hazing, providing alcohol to a minor, and reckless homicide are all criminal acts. A parent’s umbrella policy might theoretically apply, but the same exclusions would likely void it. The $6.5 million judgment is a real legal obligation, enforceable for decades, but the practical reality is that there is likely no insurance behind it. It is a paper judgment — valid, enforceable, and a powerful statement — but unlikely to produce a check in the near term.
The Medicine: How 40 Shots of Liquor Kills a 20-Year-Old
The mechanism of death in this case is acute alcohol poisoning — a lethal blood alcohol concentration that suppresses the brainstem’s autonomic functions, including the respiratory drive. Understanding the medicine is essential to proving the survival claim and defeating the defense’s predictable minimization.
The Lethal Dose and the Speed of Consumption
Forty shots of liquor is approximately 60 ounces of 80-proof alcohol — nearly two full 750-milliliter bottles. Consumed in a short period, this produces a blood alcohol concentration well above 0.40 percent — a level at which most people lose consciousness, and at which the brainstem’s drive to breathe begins to fail. The lethal threshold varies by person, but the medical literature is clear: a BAC above 0.40 is life-threatening, and above 0.50 is frequently fatal. The speed of consumption matters as much as the total amount — the liver metabolizes alcohol at roughly one standard drink per hour, so drinking 40 shots in a short window means the BAC climbs faster than the body can process it, and the concentration in the blood reaches levels the brain cannot survive.
The Three-Day Progression
The victim was found unconscious by a roommate and transported to ProMedica Toledo Hospital, where he remained on life support for three days. This progression — from ingestion to collapse to hospitalization to death — is the survival claim. The victim was not killed instantly. He was poisoned, lost consciousness, was discovered, was transported, was placed on a ventilator, and died three days later. During those three days, his body was shutting down. The medical records from ProMedica document every intervention, every failed organ, every hour of suffering. Those records are the evidence that the survival claim is built on.
The Defense’s Medical Argument and Our Answer
The defense in a hazing alcohol-poisoning death will argue two medical points. First, that the victim’s death was “unavoidable” by the time he reached the hospital — implying the hazing was not the proximate cause. Second, that the victim’s own alcohol tolerance or health condition contributed to the outcome — an attempt to assign comparative fault to the dead. Both arguments are beatable. The medical literature on acute alcohol poisoning is clear: the cause of death is the alcohol, and the quantity consumed was lethal. The three-day hospitalization was a direct consequence of the poisoning, not an independent medical event. And the quantity consumed was not a personal choice — it was a coerced act under the power structure of a fraternity ritual.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Will Try and How We Counter
The insurance companies and their lawyers have a predictable set of plays in hazing wrongful death cases. Naming them before they happen is how we protect your family.
Play 1: “He Chose to Drink”
The first and most predictable move is to blame the victim. The adjuster or defense lawyer will say: he was 20 years old, he was an adult, he could have stopped, he chose to participate. The counter is the reality of fraternity pledging: a “big brother” ritual is not a casual party. It is a structured event in which a pledge — a person seeking admission to a group that controls his social identity — is directed by the person who holds that power to consume a dangerous quantity of alcohol. The power imbalance is the coercion. A 20-year-old who is told by the fraternity president — the person who decides whether he will be accepted — to drink a bottle of liquor is not freely choosing. He is obeying. And the law, increasingly, recognizes that distinction.
Play 2: The Quick Settlement Check
Before the family has hired a lawyer, before the full scope of the harm is documented, before the toxicology is fully understood, an insurance adjuster may contact the family with a settlement offer. It will sound generous — hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a million or more. It will come with a release that, once signed, extinguishes every claim the family has against every defendant, forever. The adjuster’s goal is to close the file before the family understands what the case is actually worth. In the Stone Foltz case, the total recovery across all defendants was approximately $18 million — $11.4 million in settlements plus the $6.5 million judgment. An early offer of $500,000 or $1 million would have cost the family millions. The counter is simple: never sign anything from an insurance company before you have spoken to a lawyer who does this work.
Play 3: The Hazing Exclusion Coverage Denial
When the claim is filed against the national fraternity, the fraternity’s insurer will assert the hazing exclusion — the clause in the policy that says hazing conduct is not covered. The insurer will file a declaratory judgment action asking a court to rule that the policy does not apply. This is not a defense of the hazing — it is a fight between the fraternity and its own insurer about who pays. The family is caught in the middle. The counter is to name both the fraternity and the insurer in the litigation, to argue that the exclusion does not apply or is ambiguous, and to pursue the fraternity’s own assets directly if the insurer wins the coverage fight. The $2.1 million settlement in this case is consistent with a resolution of exactly this dynamic — the insurer and the fraternity compromised rather than fight the coverage battle in public.
Play 4: Delay Aimed at the Statute of Limitations
The defense will use every procedural tool to slow the case down — extensions, motions, discovery disputes, scheduling conflicts — all aimed at running the two-year statute of limitations clock to zero. The counter is to file early, to move fast on discovery, and to send the preservation letter the day the family calls, not the month. We work against the clock, not with it.
How a Hazing Wrongful Death Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a case like this is constructed, from the first call to resolution.
Week One: Preservation
The day a family calls us, we send a litigation-hold and evidence-preservation letter to every potential defendant — the individual fraternity members, the local chapter, the national fraternity, the university, the property owner. The letter demands that all text messages, group chats, social media posts, emails, ritual manuals, risk-management files, disciplinary records, alcohol-purchase receipts, security camera footage, phone records, and any other evidence related to the event be preserved and produced. This letter converts routine data-deletion into sanctionable spoliation — if the evidence disappears after the letter, a judge can instruct the jury to assume the missing evidence would have hurt the defense.
Weeks Two Through Four: The Investigation
We begin building the record. We request the toxicology report and the complete medical chart from ProMedica Toledo Hospital. We pull the police report and the coroner’s investigation. We identify every person who was at the event — through social media, through university records, through witness interviews. We pull the fraternity’s national risk-management file and any prior hazing complaints against this chapter. We request the university’s disciplinary records through the legal channels that survive FERPA objections. We engage a forensic toxicologist to reconstruct the blood alcohol concentration timeline and a life-care planner to project the economic loss.
Months Two Through Six: Discovery and Depositions
Once the lawsuit is filed, we use the formal discovery process to force the production of documents and the testimony of the people who were there. We depose the fraternity members who participated, the officers who organized the event, the national fraternity’s risk-management staff, and the university’s Greek-life administrators. Under oath, in a room with a court reporter, the people who built the culture answer for it. The depositions are where the case is won — the moment when the defense’s narrative of “an unfortunate accident” collapses under the weight of what actually happened.
Months Six Through Resolution: The Number
The case resolves through settlement or verdict. In this case, the family recovered $11.4 million from 14 settling defendants and obtained a $6.5 million judgment against the non-responding individual. The total theoretical value approached $18 million. The case-value range in hazing wrongful death cases, based on our analysis of comparable recoveries and the damages framework, runs from approximately $11 million on the low end to $20 million or more on the high end — depending on the number of defendants, the insurance available, the strength of the evidence, and the jurisdiction.
First 72 Hours: What to Do After a Hazing Death
If your child has died or been seriously injured in a fraternity event, the first 72 hours are critical. Here is the practical roadmap.
Hour 1 through 24: Get medical records started. If your child is still alive, make sure the hospital is documenting everything — the blood alcohol concentration, the timeline of ingestion, the neurological status. If your child has died, request the complete medical chart and the coroner’s report. Do not sign anything from anyone — not the hospital, not the university, not the fraternity, not an insurance company.
Hour 24 through 48: Do not speak to the fraternity, the university, or any insurance representative. Do not post on social media. Do not respond to text messages from fraternity members. If someone contacts you “to check on you” or “to express condolences,” understand that anything you say may be recorded and used against your family’s claim. Call a lawyer. That call is free, it is confidential, and it is the single most protective thing you can do.
Hour 48 through 72: The lawyer sends the preservation letter. Every text message, every group chat, every social media post, every ritual manual, every disciplinary file is frozen. The clock on evidence destruction stops. The investigation begins. The personal representative is identified — the person Ohio law authorizes to bring the wrongful death claim on behalf of the family. We handle that appointment. The medical examiner’s investigation is monitored. The toxicology is preserved.
Case Value: What a Hazing Wrongful Death Is Worth in Ohio
The damages in a hazing wrongful death case are built from multiple categories. The total recovery in this case — approximately $18 million across all defendants — illustrates how those categories stack.
Wrongful death damages compensate the family for the loss of their child’s life: the companionship, the guidance, the love, the financial support he would have provided, the milestones he will never reach. In Ohio, these damages are not capped by statute — the state constitution forbids it. A jury in Wood County or Franklin County can award the full measure of what a family lost.
Survival damages compensate the estate for what the victim endured before death: the conscious pain and suffering, the terror, the physical agony of alcohol poisoning. The $175,000 award in this case was entered by default and is a floor, not a ceiling, for what a contested survival claim can produce in a case with three days of documented hospitalization.
Punitive damages are intended to punish and deter. The $350,000 punitive award against the individual president reflects Ohio’s cap on punitive damages for individuals. Against institutional defendants — the national fraternity, the university — the punitive exposure can be substantially higher, and the settlement figures in this case reflect that the institutions paid more because they faced more.
Economic damages include medical expenses from the hospital stay and the loss of future earnings and earning capacity. A 20-year-old college student has a lifetime of earning capacity ahead of him — decades of wages, benefits, and productivity. A forensic economist projects that loss, reduced to present value, and it alone can run into the millions.
The case-value range we see in Ohio hazing wrongful death cases, based on the recovery in this case and comparable litigation, runs from approximately $11 million to $20 million or more, depending on the defendants involved, the insurance available, and the strength of the evidence. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Collin’s Law: How Ohio Changed After This Death
The death at Bowling Green State University was one of the events that drove the enactment of Collin’s Law in Ohio — legislation that significantly increased the criminal penalties for hazing and expanded the definition of what constitutes hazing under Ohio law. The law was enacted after this incident, which means it did not govern the criminal prosecution of the fraternity president in this case — but it governs every hazing case that follows.
Collin’s Law matters to a civil wrongful death case in two ways. First, it establishes a stronger legislative standard of care — the state of Ohio has declared, more forcefully than before, that hazing is a serious criminal act. A violation of the anti-hazing statute is evidence of negligence that a jury can weigh. Second, it increases the criminal consequences for hazing conduct, which means the threat of criminal prosecution is a more powerful lever in civil settlement negotiations — a defendant facing serious criminal exposure is more motivated to resolve the civil case.
Why This Firm: Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
We are not a firm that stumbled into a hazing case. We are a firm that chose to fight this fight.
Ralph Manginello is the managing partner of Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he learned to investigate, to ask the question nobody else is asking, to follow the paper trail to the truth. Right now, Ralph is lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a major national fraternity and a university — a case that is built on the same machinery of hazing culture, institutional failure, and preventable death that took Stone Foltz’s life at Bowling Green. Ralph does not settle for the first number an adjuster puts on the table. He works until the evidence is frozen, the depositions are taken, and the full value of what was lost is on the record.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney and a former insurance-defense lawyer. He spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the other side values a file, when they set the reserve, what they look for in a recorded statement, and which doctor they pick for an independent medical examination. Now he sits on your side of the table. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. If your family prays in Spanish, we serve you in Spanish.
We operate on contingency. The fee is 33.33 percent before trial and 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free, and it is confidential. Our emergency hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — by live people, not an answering service. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
We take cases in Ohio working with local counsel where required. We do not claim an office in Ohio. We do claim the experience, the resources, and the will to fight a national fraternity, a public university, and every insurer behind them — because that is the fight your family deserves.
For more information about our wrongful death practice, visit our wrongful death claim lawyer page. For our dedicated fraternity and sorority hazing practice, including our current active litigation, visit our hazing lawsuit attorney page. To speak with us directly, visit our contact page or call the hotline now.
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish — your family does not need an interpreter to tell us what happened.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a fraternity for a hazing death in Ohio?
Yes. A national fraternity can be held legally responsible for the hazing conduct of its chapters and members when the organization knew or should have known about the dangerous traditions and failed to stop them. In the Stone Foltz case, the national Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity settled for $2.1 million. The legal theories include vicarious liability for the actions of chapter officers, direct negligence in failing to enforce anti-hazing policies, and negligent supervision of sanctioned student organizations.
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Ohio?
Ohio’s wrongful death statute of limitations requires the claim to be filed within two years of the date of death. The clock starts on the day your family member died, not the day of the hazing event and not the day you learned hazing was the cause. Missing this deadline extinguishes the claim entirely — no matter how strong the evidence is. However, the evidence that proves your case disappears far faster than two years, which is why calling a lawyer immediately matters more than waiting to see if the deadline approaches.
What damages can a family recover in a hazing wrongful death case?
Ohio families can recover wrongful death damages (loss of companionship, support, mental anguish — not capped by the state constitution), survival damages (the conscious pain and suffering the victim endured before death), punitive damages (intended to punish and deter, generally capped for individuals but potentially higher for institutions), and economic damages (medical expenses, funeral costs, and lost future earning capacity). In the Stone Foltz case, the total recovery across all defendants approached $18 million.
Will the individual fraternity member who caused the death actually pay?
In most cases, an individual student convicted of hazing does not have the personal assets or insurance to satisfy a multi-million-dollar judgment. The $6.5 million judgment against the former Pi Kappa Alpha president in this case is a valid, enforceable legal obligation — but the family’s own lawyer acknowledged they will likely never collect it. The practical recovery comes from the institutional defendants: the national fraternity, the university, and any other defendants with assets or insurance. The individual judgment serves a different purpose: it creates a public record of personal accountability and establishes a precedent that fraternity presidents can be held individually liable.
Does Ohio have a specific anti-hazing law?
Yes. Ohio has anti-hazing statutes that were significantly strengthened by Collin’s Law, which was enacted partly in response to the Stone Foltz death. The law increased criminal penalties for hazing and expanded the definition of hazing conduct. A violation of Ohio’s anti-hazing statute is evidence of negligence in a civil lawsuit — a jury can be told that the defendant broke a law written to protect students from exactly this kind of harm.
What if my child was partly at fault for participating in the hazing?
Ohio follows a modified comparative-negligence rule with a 51 percent bar. If the victim is found to be 51 percent or more at fault, the family cannot recover. If the victim is 50 percent or less at fault, the recovery is reduced by that percentage. In hazing cases, the defense will argue the victim voluntarily participated — but the coercive power structure of fraternity pledging, where a student is directed by the person who controls his acceptance into the group, increasingly undermines that defense. Courts are recognizing that “he chose to drink” is not a meaningful description of a student obeying a command from his fraternity president in a ritual he was told he had to complete.
How fast does evidence disappear in a hazing case?
Digital evidence — group chats, text messages, social media posts — can be deleted in seconds by any individual who chooses to do so. Surveillance footage at fraternity houses or nearby properties is typically overwritten on a rolling cycle of days to weeks. University disciplinary files are subject to FERPA protections that create legal hurdles to obtaining them. Fraternity internal documents — ritual manuals, risk-management files, prior-complaint records — are held by the organization and can be “lost” if not demanded quickly. The single most important step is sending a formal preservation letter the day you hire a lawyer. That letter converts routine deletion into sanctionable evidence destruction.
Is a paper judgment against an individual student worth anything?
A paper judgment — a court order requiring an individual to pay money they do not have — is worth less than a collectible judgment in the short term, but it is not worthless. The judgment is enforceable for years, can be renewed, and follows the person as they acquire assets, income, or insurance over their lifetime. More importantly, the judgment creates a public record of accountability that serves the family’s broader goal of ending hazing. And the existence of the individual judgment strengthens the case against the institutional defendants, who must now contend with a record that says: your officer did this, and it was worth $6.5 million.
Can a university be held responsible for fraternity hazing?
Yes. A public university that recognizes a fraternity as a sanctioned student organization, permits it to operate on or near campus, and fails to supervise its conduct has its own legal exposure. The university has a duty to protect students from foreseeable harm — and hazing at fraternities is among the most foreseeable dangers on a college campus. In the Stone Foltz case, Bowling Green State University settled for $2.9 million, reflecting the institution’s assessment of its own liability for failing to prevent the hazing death of a student under its care.
What should I do if my child is still alive but was injured by hazing?
If your child survived a hazing event but suffered injury — alcohol poisoning requiring hospitalization, physical injury, psychological trauma — the legal claims are different but the urgency is the same. Medical records from the hospitalization are the foundation of the case. A survival claim for conscious pain and suffering may be available. The evidence clock runs the same way: digital communications disappear, surveillance footage overwrites, and the fraternity’s internal documents can be “lost.” Call a lawyer the day your child is stable enough for you to make the call. The consultation is free, and acting early protects both the legal claim and your child’s recovery.
Contact Attorney911 Today
If your family has been devastated by a fraternity hazing death or serious injury in Ohio — at Bowling Green State University, at any campus in the state, or anywhere in the country — we are ready to help. The consultation is free and confidential. We work on contingency — no fee unless we win your case. Our hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911) now.
We take Ohio hazing wrongful death cases. We fight national fraternities, public universities, and the insurance companies behind them. We send the preservation letter the day you call. We freeze the evidence before it disappears. We build the case from the ground up — the text messages, the toxicology, the ritual manuals, the disciplinary files, the depositions under oath — until the full value of what your family lost is on the record.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.
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