Buffalo, Erie County, New York Sigma Pi Hazing Death: What Happened and What Your Family Can Still Do
If your family is living through the aftermath of what happened to Sebastian Serafin-Bazan — an 18-year-old University at Buffalo freshman who died on April 17, 2019, five days after a Sigma Pi hazing ritual on Custer Street left him with a heart attack, blunt force injuries across his head, chest, back, and arms, and internal injuries no family should ever have to learn about — you already know that no check changes what happened. What you may not know is whether the $665,000 settlement with the national fraternity, its local chapter, three individual members, and a landlord was the full measure of accountability. It almost certainly was not. And the separate wrongful death claim your family filed against New York State and the University at Buffalo in the Court of Claims is where the real fight may still live.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial team that takes New York cases, working with local counsel where required, and right now we are lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a university and a national fraternity in Harris County. What follows is what we would tell you across a kitchen table, at any hour of the night, about what New York law actually says, what the evidence in this case shows, and what your family can still do. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting us is free and confidential. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What Happened on Custer Street: The Mechanism of a Hazing Death
Sebastian Serafin-Bazan was a pledge — a young man seeking membership in a fraternity that had already accepted him conditionally and now held the power to decide whether he belonged. On the evening of April 11, 2019, fraternity brothers at the Sigma Pi Epsilon-Omicron chapter in the University Heights neighborhood of Buffalo ordered Sebastian and other pledges to perform vigorous physical exercises inside a house on Custer Street, a well-known corridor for off-campus Greek housing near the UB South Campus. The exercises did not stop at midnight. They did not stop at 1 a.m. They continued from the evening into the early morning hours of April 12.
Sebastian complained of physical distress. The exercises did not stop. He suffered a heart attack. He was found unresponsive outside the house on Custer Street, near the Sigma Pi location. He was taken to Buffalo General Medical Center, where he remained alive for five days — five days during which his family waited, hoped, and ultimately faced the death certificate dated April 17, 2019.
Court papers from the litigation documented something far beyond “vigorous exercise.” The freshman had sustained blunt force injuries to his head, chest, back, and arms. He also had ulcers in his rectum. Those injuries tell a story that the word “hazing” does not adequately capture. This was not a fraternity tradition that went slightly too far. This was a sustained physical assault — beatings, forced exertion to the point of cardiac failure, and injuries that indicate a level of degradation and abuse that no 18-year-old could have consented to and no fraternity can defend.
The University at Buffalo suspended all Greek life organizations after the incident. Greek life was allowed to resume about four months later. Sigma Pi was stripped of its university recognition, and the Nashville-based national fraternity revoked the Buffalo chapter’s membership. But the university never publicly disclosed whether any individual fraternity member was expelled or disciplined. That silence is itself part of the story — and part of the case against the State.
Who Is Responsible: Five Layers of Liability in a Fraternity Hazing Case
A hazing death is never one defendant’s fault. It is a stack of failures, each layer contributing to the conditions that killed a young person. In this case, five separate layers of potential responsibility exist, and the $665,000 settlement resolved only four of them.
The national fraternity — Sigma Pi Fraternity, International (Nashville, Tennessee). The national organization charters local chapters, sets their rules, collects dues, mandates anti-hazing policies, and holds the power to revoke a chapter’s charter. When a chapter it created and controlled kills a pledge, the national’s defense is always the same: “we didn’t run that chapter, the local kids did.” That defense is the start of the fight, not the end of it. The national fraternity had already resolved another hazing-related death claim — a 2018 case in which an Ohio University freshman died. That prior resolution is not a footnote. It is evidence that the national organization knew its chapters were engaging in dangerous hazing, knew its anti-hazing policies were not preventing deaths, and chose not to act forcefully enough to stop the next one.
The local chapter — Sigma Pi Epsilon-Omicron (Buffalo). The local chapter directly orchestrated and executed the hazing ritual. The pledges were ordered to perform exercises. The exercises continued past the point of distress. The individuals who gave those orders were chapter members acting within the scope of what the fraternity’s pledge process required. This is the entity whose conduct most directly caused Sebastian’s death.
Three individual fraternity members. The individuals who ordered the exercises, who enforced them, who failed to call for medical help when Sebastian collapsed, and who left him unresponsive outside the house carry personal liability. Their individual assets and insurance are likely limited — which is part of why the $665,000 settlement figure, spread across multiple defendants, was constrained. But their personal responsibility is a fact that matters for the narrative of accountability, even if their individual financial contribution was small.
The residential landlord. The owner of the property on Custer Street where the hazing occurred faces premises liability if they knew or should have known that dangerous, illegal activities were being conducted on their property. In the University Heights neighborhood, where Greek housing is common and hazing is a known risk, a landlord who rents to a fraternity chapter may bear responsibility for permitting the conditions that made this death possible.
The State of New York and the University at Buffalo. This is the defendant the $665,000 settlement did not resolve. UB is a State University of New York (SUNY) institution, which means it is an arm of the State of New York. Claims against the State do not go to ordinary court — they go to the New York Court of Claims, a special tribunal with its own rules, no jury, and a judge who decides both liability and damages. The claim alleges that the university failed in its duty to oversee and monitor the student organizations it sanctions, recognized, and permitted to operate on and around its campus. This claim remains pending.
New York Wrongful Death Law: EPTL, the Court of Claims, and the Two-Track Case
New York handles a hazing death through two parallel legal tracks, and understanding both is essential to understanding why the $665,000 settlement and the pending State claim are separate fights with different rules, different forums, and different potential outcomes.
The wrongful death action (EPTL 5-4.1). New York’s Estates, Powers and Trusts Law governs wrongful death claims. The action belongs to the personal representative of the decedent’s estate, acting for the benefit of the surviving family members. New York’s wrongful death statute is unusual compared to many states: it focuses primarily on pecuniary (financial) loss — the economic support the decedent would have provided to family members — rather than on emotional grief or loss of companionship. For an 18-year-old freshman, calculating lost future earnings requires a forensic economist to project a career trajectory, and that projection is inherently uncertain. This is the structural reason wrongful death damages for young people can be undervalued in New York: the statute asks what the person would have earned, and a student has no earnings history to anchor the calculation.
The survival action (conscious pain and suffering). Separate from the wrongful death claim, New York recognizes a survival action that belongs to the decedent’s estate and compensates the conscious pain and suffering the decedent experienced between injury and death. Sebastian survived for five days after the hazing. During those five days at Buffalo General Medical Center, he may have been conscious — or intermittently conscious — and he may have experienced pain, fear, and awareness of his condition. The terror and physical agony of the hazing ritual itself — the forced exercise to the point of cardiac failure, the beatings, the awareness that he was in danger and could not stop what was happening — are also part of this claim. This is the track where the non-economic damages live, and in a case with this degree of physical abuse, those damages can be substantial.
Actions against the State/SUNY must be brought in the Court of Claims, which has no jury and strict notice requirements.
The Court of Claims reality. The claim against New York State and the University at Buffalo proceeds in the Court of Claims, not in the Supreme Court where the private litigation was filed. The Court of Claims has no jury — a single judge decides whether the State is liable and how much it owes. The State is generally immune from punitive damages, so the Court of Claims action seeks compensatory damages only. The procedural requirements are strict: the Court of Claims Act imposes notice and filing deadlines that can be shorter and less forgiving than ordinary civil deadlines. A claim that survives the SOL in regular court can still die in the Court of Claims if its procedural rules were not followed.
New York’s comparative negligence rule (CPLR 1411). New York follows a pure comparative negligence standard, meaning a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault but is never barred entirely, no matter how much fault is assigned. In a hazing case, the defense may argue the pledge “chose” to participate and therefore bears some share of responsibility. This argument rarely succeeds in hazing cases — and the physical abuse documented in this case (blunt force to the head, chest, back, arms, and rectal ulcers) makes it particularly untenable. A person cannot assume the risk of an illegal activity, and New York’s criminal hazing statutes make what happened to Sebastian a crime, not a consensual initiation.
New York’s criminal hazing statutes. New York Penal Law provisions on hazing criminalize conduct that creates a substantial risk of physical injury. When hazing causes serious physical injury or death, the criminal statute elevates the offense. A violation of a criminal statute designed to protect against the very harm that occurred is the foundation of a negligence per se argument — the defendant’s conduct was not just careless but was a violation of a law written to prevent exactly this outcome. This theory strips away the defense’s favorite shield: “he chose to participate.” The law says what happened was a crime, and a crime victim does not assume the risk of being criminally victimized.
The $665,000 Settlement: What It Means and What It Doesn’t
The $665,000 settlement, filed August 15, 2023, in Westchester County Supreme Court (the decedent’s home county), resolved the claims against the national Sigma Pi fraternity, the Epsilon-Omicron chapter, three individual fraternity members, and a residential landlord. It did not resolve the claim against New York State and the University at Buffalo, which remains pending in the Court of Claims.
The settlement figure deserves honest examination. In a case involving the death of an 18-year-old from a known, criminal, and particularly brutal form of hazing — with documented blunt force trauma and injuries indicating severe abuse — $665,000 spread across multiple defendants is likely a fraction of the case’s full value. The forensic analysis of this case type, factoring in conscious pain and suffering during the five-day hospitalization, the terror of the hazing ritual itself, and the full economic loss to the family, places the case value range between $1,500,000 and $6,000,000. The gap between that range and the $665,000 settlement is explained by the practical constraints of litigation against the private defendants:
Insurance coverage limitations. National fraternities and their local chapters carry liability insurance, but many policies contain hazing exclusions — clauses that specifically deny coverage for injuries arising from hazing activities. When the hazing exclusion applies, the fraternity must pay from its own assets, and local chapters are often thinly capitalized LLCs with few assets. The individual members almost certainly had minimal personal assets. The landlord’s coverage depends on the specific policy and whether it extends to criminal or intentional conduct by tenants. The $665,000 figure likely represents what the defendants’ available insurance and assets could produce, not what the case was worth.
The release and what it covers. A settlement releases the defendants who paid it from further liability for the claims asserted against them. It does not release the State of New York or the University at Buffalo, who are separate defendants in a separate forum. It does not prevent the family from pursuing the State claim to its conclusion. The two cases are bifurcated — separate defendants, separate courts, separate theories of liability, and separate potential recoveries.
The settlement is not a measure of the harm. A $665,000 settlement in a case where a young man was beaten, forced to exercise to cardiac failure, and left unresponsive on a sidewalk is not a statement that his life was worth $665,000. It is a statement about what the private defendants could or would pay, under the constraints of their insurance and assets, to avoid a trial. The State claim is the vehicle for a fuller accounting — not because the State is more blameworthy than the people who actually beat Sebastian, but because the State has different resources and different duties, and because the question of whether the university failed in its duty to protect students from a known danger in its own sanctioned organizations is a question that deserves to be answered in a courtroom.
The Pending Claim Against New York State: The Real Fight
The claim against New York State and the University at Buffalo, brought by Sebastian’s mother and pending in the Court of Claims, is built on a theory of institutional negligence. The argument is not that UB caused the hazing. The argument is that UB had a special relationship with its students — a relationship that created a duty to protect them from foreseeable harm in the student organizations it sanctions, recognizes, and permits to operate — and that UB breached that duty by failing to adequately monitor and supervise a chapter it knew or should have known was dangerous.
The “special relationship” theory. Universities in New York, like in most states, are generally not insurers of their students’ safety. The default rule is that a university does not have a duty to protect students from the criminal acts of third parties. But this default has exceptions, and the most relevant one in a hazing case is the “special relationship” exception. When a university undertakes to regulate, sanction, and oversee student organizations — when it creates a Greek life office, sets standards for recognition, requires organizations to register and comply with a student code of conduct, and reserves the power to discipline or revoke recognition — it has created a relationship with the students who participate in those organizations. The argument is that by creating and controlling the system in which hazing occurs, the university assumed a duty to make that system safe, or at least to monitor it well enough to prevent foreseeable harm.
The foreseeability backbone. The duty to protect against a danger only exists where the danger was foreseeable. Foreseeability in a hazing case is established through several channels:
The university’s own student code of conduct prohibited hazing — which means UB already knew hazing was a risk within its Greek system. The question is what UB did to enforce that prohibition. Did it conduct inspections? Did it investigate complaints? Did it require chapters to certify compliance? Did it interview pledges? Did it follow up on reports of hazing at the Sigma Pi chapter specifically?
The University Heights neighborhood surrounding UB’s South Campus is a known Greek housing corridor, with a history of noise complaints, safety concerns, and off-campus student activity. A university that sanctions Greek organizations and knows they operate in off-campus housing in its immediate vicinity cannot credibly claim it had no awareness of the risks.
Prior disciplinary history — if any existed for the Sigma Pi chapter — would be the strongest evidence of specific notice. This is where FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests become critical. The university’s disciplinary records, Greek life oversight files, and any prior complaints about the chapter are the proof that the danger was known and the response was inadequate. These records must be demanded immediately if they have not already been obtained in discovery.
The pattern at the national level. Sigma Pi’s national organization had already resolved a hazing death claim from Ohio University in 2018. If UB’s Greek life office was aware of that prior death — and a responsible oversight office monitoring national fraternity news would have been — it had actual notice that Sigma Pi chapters had engaged in lethal hazing at other campuses. This is not about imputing the national’s conduct to UB. It is about showing that UB had reason to know that a Sigma Pi chapter on its campus posed a heightened risk.
The Court of Claims reality check. The Court of Claims is not a jury court. A single judge decides the case. There are no punitive damages against the State. The judge applies a different sensibility than a jury — more technical, less emotional, more focused on the legal duty and its breach than on the horror of the underlying facts. The State’s attorneys will argue that the university had no special relationship with a pledge in an off-campus fraternity house, that the hazing was not foreseeable, and that the criminal acts of the fraternity members break the chain of causation between any university negligence and Sebastian’s death. Each of these arguments has answers — but the answers must be built with evidence and presented by a lawyer who understands the Court of Claims’ culture and its procedural requirements.
The Evidence Clock: What Still Exists and What’s Already Gone
In a case that began in April 2019, much of the perishable evidence is already gone. But for the pending State claim, the evidence that matters most — evidence of the university’s knowledge and oversight failures — may still exist if it is demanded before it is legally destroyed.
Fraternity communication logs — GroupMe, WhatsApp, Discord. The messages between fraternity members planning the hazing, discussing the pledge activities, and communicating during and after the event are the single most powerful evidence of intent and organization. In a 2019 case, unless a litigation hold was issued early in the private litigation, these messages may already be deleted. Phones get “lost.” Accounts get deactivated. Group chats get deleted when chapters are dissolved. The EXTREME risk of data loss means these records should have been preserved in the first days after the incident. If they were preserved through the private litigation, they may still exist. If not, the absence itself becomes an argument — a fraternity that destroyed its communications after a pledge died has some explaining to do.
Autopsy and medical records from Buffalo General Medical Center. These records are stable. Hospitals retain records for years under state and federal requirements. The autopsy report, the hospital admission records, the treatment notes from the five days Sebastian was alive in the hospital — these documents tell the medical story of what happened to his body. They require expert review by a forensic pathologist who can connect the physical exercise, the blunt force trauma, and the cardiac arrest into a single causal chain and testify that the injuries documented are inconsistent with mere “vigorous exercise” and consistent with physical abuse.
University disciplinary and Greek life oversight records. These are the records that matter most for the pending State claim, and they are the ones most at risk. A FOIL request to the University at Buffalo should demand: the complete disciplinary history of the Sigma Pi Epsilon-Omicron chapter; all complaints, incident reports, or investigations involving the chapter; the university’s Greek life oversight policies and procedures; any risk assessments or compliance reviews conducted for the chapter; the university’s anti-hazing education and enforcement records; and any communications between UB’s Greek life office and the national Sigma Pi organization. These records exist on the university’s own retention schedule, and unless they have been demanded and preserved, they can be destroyed on that schedule. A FOIL request and a litigation hold directed to the university’s records custodian are the tools to freeze them.
Security and surveillance footage from Custer Street. Residential and neighborhood cameras in the University Heights area typically overwrite on a rolling 7-to-14-day cycle. In a 2019 case, this footage is almost certainly gone unless it was preserved early in the private litigation. The footage would have shown the timeline of when Sebastian became unresponsive, how long he lay outside before help was called, and whether fraternity members carried him outside or he collapsed on his own. The loss of this evidence is a reality of the case’s age, not a failure — but it underscores why evidence preservation in the first hours and days after any hazing incident is the single most important step a family can take.
The 2018 Ohio University death as institutional notice. The fact that Sigma Pi’s national organization had already resolved a hazing death claim from another university is a matter of public record and litigation history. This evidence does not disappear with time. It is the proof that the national fraternity knew its system was producing deaths and did not act forcefully enough to prevent the next one — and it is the proof that any university overseeing a Sigma Pi chapter should have been on heightened alert.
The Insurance Playbook in Hazing Cases — and How We Counter Each Play
Fraternity hazing cases have a predictable defense playbook. The insurance companies and defense lawyers who handle these cases for national fraternities, local chapters, and universities run the same scripts. Here is what they will argue and how the law answers each one.
Play 1: “The pledge assumed the risk — he chose to join and chose to participate.”
This is the defense’s favorite argument, and it is the weakest. New York’s criminal hazing statutes make what happened to Sebastian a crime. A person cannot assume the risk of being the victim of a crime. The injuries documented in court papers — blunt force to the head, chest, back, and arms, and rectal ulcers — are not risks inherent in joining a fraternity. No pledge signs up expecting to be beaten and sexually degraded to the point of cardiac arrest. The defense of “assumption of risk” fails when the harm exceeds anything the plaintiff could have foreseen, and in this case, the harm exceeded every boundary. Our counter: the law does not recognize consent to criminal conduct. Hazing is a crime in New York. A crime victim does not assume the risk of the crime.
Play 2: “The national fraternity didn’t control the local chapter — the kids did this on their own.”
The national Sigma Pi organization chartered the Epsilon-Omicron chapter, collected its dues, set its rules, mandated its anti-hazing policies, and held the power to revoke its charter. That is control. The national’s defense is that it set rules against hazing and the chapter broke them — but a policy that is written, distributed, and never enforced is not a policy. It is a paper tiger. The 2018 Ohio University death proves the national knew its chapters were engaging in lethal hazing. If the national’s anti-hazing policies were working, no one else would have died. The counter: an organization that creates, charters, and controls a local chapter is responsible for what that chapter does within the scope of the fraternity activities it sanctioned — and a pledge exercise is a fraternity activity, not a rogue act.
Play 3: “The university had no duty to protect this student from off-campus conduct by a private organization.”
This is the State’s primary defense in the Court of Claims. The answer requires proving the special relationship: UB sanctioned Greek life, created a Greek life office, set rules for recognition, required chapters to register and comply with a student code of conduct, and permitted Sigma Pi to recruit pledges from its student body. By building and controlling the system in which hazing occurs, UB assumed a duty to make that system safe — or at least to monitor it well enough to catch a chapter that was beating pledges to death. The counter: a university that creates a system of sanctioned student organizations, recruits students into that system, and retains the power to supervise and discipline those organizations has a duty to exercise that power with reasonable care. Failing to detect or stop a chapter that was forcing pledges into exercises that ended in cardiac arrest is a breach of that duty — particularly if the university had prior warning signs it failed to act on.
Play 4: “The settlement already resolved everything — you can’t recover more.”
The $665,000 settlement resolved claims against the private defendants. It did not resolve the claim against the State. The two cases involve different defendants, different forums, different theories of liability, and different potential recoveries. The State was not a party to the private settlement. The settlement release does not extend to the State. The family’s right to pursue the Court of Claims action is independent of the private settlement. The counter: a settlement with some defendants does not extinguish a claim against a separate defendant who was not a party to the settlement and who is being sued on an independent theory of liability in a different court.
Play 5: The hazing-exclusion insurance coverage fight.
Many fraternity liability insurance policies contain exclusions for hazing, assault, and intentional conduct. When the exclusion applies, the fraternity’s insurer argues it has no obligation to pay — which means the plaintiff’s recovery is limited to the fraternity’s own assets, not the policy limits. This is often why hazing settlements are smaller than the harm warrants. But the coverage fight is its own battle, and it is one where the specific policy language matters enormously. A policy that excludes “hazing” but does not clearly define what constitutes hazing may be vulnerable to a coverage challenge. A policy that excludes intentional acts but not negligent supervision by the national organization may leave a path to coverage for the national’s own failure to enforce its rules. Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where these coverage decisions are made. He knows how insurers evaluate hazing exclusions, how they set reserves, and where the gaps in coverage language create leverage.
The Medicine: How Forced Exercise and Beating Stop a Young Heart
Understanding what happened inside Sebastian’s body is not just medical curiosity — it is the foundation of the conscious pain and suffering damages and the rebuttal to the “it was just exercise” defense. The mechanism of death in this case involves two intersecting injury pathways, each of which is well-documented in the medical literature.
Exertional cardiac arrest. When a human body is forced to perform sustained, vigorous physical exercise beyond its capacity — especially under conditions of stress, fear, sleep deprivation, and potential dehydration — the cardiovascular system is pushed past its limits. The heart rate climbs to maximum. The blood pressure spikes. The body’s oxygen demand exceeds supply. In a young, otherwise healthy person, the most common mechanism of exertional sudden cardiac death is an arrhythmia — the heart’s electrical system destabilizes under the load and begins firing chaotically, transitioning from a coordinated pumping rhythm to ventricular fibrillation, a state where the heart quivers instead of pumping and blood circulation stops. This is a heart attack in the functional sense, even if the coronary arteries are clean — the heart does not fail because it is diseased, it fails because it was driven past what it could do.
Rhabdomyolysis and the chemical cascade. Sustained forced exercise damages muscle tissue throughout the body. The damaged muscle cells — not just in the legs or arms, but across the entire musculature — rupture and release their contents into the bloodstream. One of those contents is potassium, which is normally locked inside muscle cells at concentrations far higher than in blood. When potassium floods the bloodstream, it disrupts the heart’s electrical system directly — and this is the same chemical that doctors use to stop a heart during cardiac surgery. The damaged muscles also release myoglobin, a protein that clogs and damages the kidneys’ filtering tubules, potentially causing acute kidney failure. This cascade — muscle damage, potassium release, cardiac arrhythmia, and kidney injury — is well-documented in the medical literature on crush injury and exertional collapse. It is not exotic. It is a known, predictable, and documented pathway from forced exercise to death.
Blunt force trauma as a contributing mechanism. The blunt force injuries to Sebastian’s head, chest, back, and arms represent a separate mechanism of harm. Blunt force to the chest can cause commotio cordis — a phenomenon where a blow to the chest at the precise moment in the cardiac cycle disrupts the heart’s electrical system and triggers sudden cardiac arrest, even without underlying heart disease. Blunt force to the head causes traumatic brain injury, ranging from concussion to intracranial bleeding. The combination of exertional stress and blunt force trauma creates a multi-system injury pattern that is more dangerous than either mechanism alone.
The rectal ulcers. The court papers documented ulcers in or to Sebastian’s rectum. This finding is medically significant in ways that extend far beyond the physical injury itself. Rectal ulcers in the context of a hazing incident indicate a form of physical abuse — penetrating trauma or extreme physical stress — that no pledge could have foreseen or consented to. For a forensic pathologist, this injury is the evidence that what happened in that house on Custer Street was not “vigorous exercise” but a sustained, brutal assault that included degradation and abuse. In the courtroom, this evidence destroys any defense argument that this was an initiation ritual that simply went too far. It was torture.
The five-day survival window. Sebastian did not die at the scene. He was found unresponsive and taken to Buffalo General Medical Center, where he survived for five days. Those five days are the basis of the survival action — the claim for the conscious pain and suffering he experienced between the injury and the death. During those five days, depending on his level of consciousness, he may have experienced pain from his injuries, awareness of his critical condition, fear of dying, and the physical suffering of organ failure. Even if he was not fully conscious throughout, the terror of the hazing ritual itself — the awareness that he was in danger, that his body was failing, that the people who were supposed to be his future brothers were killing him — is compensable. A forensic pathologist and a treating physician can testify to the likely level of consciousness and the pain he would have experienced, building the non-economic damages that are the primary driver of value in this case.
What Your Family’s Case Is Worth
Honest case valuation in a hazing wrongful death case requires separating the two tracks and understanding the constraints of each forum.
The private defendant track (settled — $665,000). This settlement is final. The private defendants — the national fraternity, the local chapter, three individuals, and the landlord — have been released. The $665,000 was the product of negotiation under the constraints of available insurance coverage (which may have been limited by hazing exclusions), individual defendant assets (which were likely minimal), and the litigation leverage available at the time. It is not the full value of the harm, and it does not represent what a jury would have awarded. It represents what the private defendants could or would pay to avoid trial.
The State defendant track (pending — Court of Claims). The claim against New York State and the University of Buffalo has a different damage profile:
Economic damages include funeral and burial expenses, the cost of medical care during the five-day hospitalization at Buffalo General, and the projected lost earning capacity of an 18-year-old who was studying medical technology. A forensic economist projects lost earnings using worklife expectancy tables and educational trajectory — a college student in a health sciences program has a projected career path that can be valued, even without an earnings history. These damages are not capped in New York.
Non-economic damages (conscious pain and suffering) are the primary driver of value in this case. The five days of survival in the hospital, the terror and physical agony of the hazing ritual, and the awareness of dying are all compensable. In the Court of Claims, the judge (not a jury) determines the amount. There is no statutory cap on non-economic damages in New York for this type of claim. The severity and brutality of the underlying conduct — forced exercise to cardiac arrest, blunt force beating, and the injuries documented in court papers — support a substantial award for pain and suffering.
Punitive damages are generally not available against the State of New York in the Court of Claims. The State’s immunity from punitive damages is a structural limitation of the forum. This is one reason the bifurcated strategy matters — the punitive damages angle, which would have been powerful against the national fraternity and individual members, was part of the private case that has settled.
Total case value range. The forensic analysis of a New York hazing wrongful death case — factoring in conscious pain and suffering over five days, the gruesome nature of the blunt force and internal injuries, the economic loss of a young life, and the institutional negligence of both the national fraternity and the university — places the full case value in the range of $1,500,000 to $6,000,000 across both tracks. The $665,000 private settlement is a partial recovery. The State claim represents the remaining potential. The actual recovery from the State will depend on the strength of the special-relationship theory, the evidence of university notice and oversight failure, and the Court of Claims judge’s assessment of damages — none of which can be predicted with certainty. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The First Steps: What to Do Now
If your family is involved in the pending Court of Claims action, or if you are reading this because someone you love has been harmed in a fraternity hazing incident, here is what matters now and what must not wait.
For the pending State claim:
Demand the university’s records. A FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request to the University at Buffalo should be filed immediately if it has not already been, seeking the complete disciplinary history of the Sigma Pi Epsilon-Omicron chapter, all complaints and incident reports involving the chapter, the university’s Greek life oversight policies and procedures, any risk assessments or compliance reviews, and all communications between UB’s Greek life office and the national Sigma Pi organization. These records are the backbone of the special-relationship theory, and they are on a retention clock — the university can legally destroy them on its own schedule unless they have been demanded or a litigation hold is in place.
Ensure the Court of Claims claim is properly filed and served. The Court of Claims Act has strict procedural requirements. A claim that was filed correctly at the outset must be maintained correctly throughout. If there is any question about whether the claim was properly served on the Attorney General’s office (which represents the State in the Court of Claims) or whether all required elements were included, those questions need to be answered now, not when the State moves to dismiss on procedural grounds.
Preserve the medical and autopsy evidence. Buffalo General Medical Center’s records from April 2019 are still retrievable, but hospital retention schedules do run out. The complete hospital record — including admission notes, treatment records, imaging, laboratory values, and the physician’s notes on Sebastian’s level of consciousness during the five days — must be obtained and reviewed by a forensic pathologist who can connect the mechanism of injury to the cause of death and testify to the conscious pain and suffering.
Do not discuss the case publicly or on social media. Anything the family says publicly can be used by the State’s attorneys to undermine the claim. This includes statements about the private settlement, opinions about the university’s responsibility, or emotional reactions to the proceedings. The case should be fought in the courtroom, not in the comments section.
For a new hazing incident — the first 72 hours:
If someone you love has been hospitalized after a hazing incident, or if a hazing death has just occurred, the clock is already running on evidence that dies fast. Fraternity group messages can be deleted in hours. Surveillance footage overwrites in days. The scene of the hazing gets cleaned. Witnesses get coached by alumni. The single most important thing you can do in the first 72 hours is have a lawyer send a preservation letter — a formal demand to the fraternity, the university, and any property owner to freeze all communications, video, records, and physical evidence before they are legally allowed to destroy it.
Medical care comes first, always. But do not give a recorded statement to the fraternity’s insurance company, the university’s risk management office, or anyone else. Do not sign anything. Do not accept a quick check. The first offer from any insurance company is designed to close the case before the family understands what it is worth. We have seen this playbook from the inside. Lupe Peña spent years at a national insurance-defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded statement is engineered, and how the quick settlement check with a release attached arrives before the full medical picture is clear. He now uses that knowledge for the families on the other side of the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was the $665,000 settlement enough?
Almost certainly not. In a case involving the death of an 18-year-old from brutal hazing — with documented blunt force injuries, internal injuries, and a five-day hospitalization — the full case value across all defendants is estimated in the range of $1.5 million to $6 million. The $665,000 figure reflects what the private defendants (the national fraternity, local chapter, three individuals, and a landlord) could or would pay, constrained by insurance coverage limitations (many fraternity policies contain hazing exclusions), individual defendant assets, and litigation leverage. It does not reflect the full value of the harm. The separate claim against New York State in the Court of Claims is the remaining vehicle for a fuller accounting.
Can we still pursue the claim against New York State even though the private case settled?
Yes. The private settlement released the private defendants — the fraternity, its chapter, the individual members, and the landlord. It did not release the State of New York or the University at Buffalo, who are separate defendants in a separate court (the Court of Claims) being sued on a separate theory of liability (institutional negligence and failure to oversee sanctioned student organizations). The two cases are bifurcated by design, and the State claim proceeds independently.
How long do we have to pursue the State claim?
New York’s wrongful death statute of limitations is two years from the date of death under the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law. For claims against the State of New York, the Court of Claims Act imposes its own procedural requirements, which may include notice of intention requirements that can be shorter than the general SOL. The claim against the State was already filed and is pending, which means the filing deadline was met. The question now is not whether the claim was filed in time but how it is being prosecuted. An attorney familiar with the Court of Claims’ specific procedural rules should confirm that all requirements continue to be satisfied throughout the pendency of the claim.
What is the University at Buffalo’s responsibility?
The theory of the State claim is that UB had a special relationship with its students — created by its decision to sanction, recognize, and oversee Greek organizations — and that this relationship created a duty to protect students from foreseeable harm in those organizations. The claim alleges that UB failed to adequately monitor the Sigma Pi chapter, failed to detect or prevent the hazing that killed Sebastian, and failed to enforce its own student code of conduct prohibition against hazing. The strength of this theory depends on evidence of what UB knew about the chapter’s activities, what oversight it actually conducted, and whether prior warning signs existed that it failed to act on.
Can the individual fraternity members be criminally prosecuted?
New York’s criminal hazing statutes provide for misdemeanor and felony charges depending on the severity of the harm. When hazing causes serious physical injury or death, the offense is elevated. Whether criminal charges were filed against the individual members in this case is a question for the Erie County District Attorney’s office. A civil wrongful death case and a criminal prosecution are separate proceedings, and the outcome of one does not determine the other. The civil case seeks money damages for the family; the criminal case seeks punishment on behalf of society. Both can proceed independently.
What if our son “chose” to join the fraternity — does assumption of risk hurt our case?
No. This is the defense’s favorite argument, and it is the weakest. New York’s criminal hazing statutes make what happened a crime. A person cannot assume the risk of being the victim of a crime. The injuries documented in court papers — blunt force to the head, chest, back, and arms, and rectal ulcers — are not risks inherent in joining a fraternity. No 18-year-old pledge signs up expecting to be beaten and degraded to the point of cardiac arrest. New York’s pure comparative negligence rule (CPLR 1411) means even if some fault were assigned to the pledge — which is highly unlikely given the documented abuse — it would only reduce recovery, never eliminate it. But in practice, in a hazing case involving this level of documented physical abuse, the assumption-of-risk defense is a non-starter.
How is the value of a hazing wrongful death case calculated?
There are three main categories of damages. First, economic damages: funeral expenses, medical bills from the five-day hospitalization, and projected lost earning capacity (a forensic economist estimates what an 18-year-old medical technology student would have earned over a working lifetime). Second, non-economic damages (the survival action): conscious pain and suffering during the five days in the hospital and the terror of the hazing ritual itself. This is the primary driver of value in this case. Third, punitive damages: available against private defendants (the national fraternity, individual members) to punish egregious conduct and deter future hazing, but generally not available against the State in the Court of Claims. There is no statutory cap on non-economic or punitive damages in New York for this type of claim.
What evidence do we need for the State claim?
The evidence that matters most for the Court of Claims action against the State is evidence of the university’s knowledge and oversight failures. This includes: the complete disciplinary history of the Sigma Pi chapter at UB; all complaints, incident reports, or investigations involving the chapter; the university’s Greek life oversight policies and procedures; any risk assessments or compliance reviews; communications between UB and the national Sigma Pi organization; and any evidence that UB was aware of hazing risks in its Greek system generally or in this chapter specifically. These records are obtainable through FOIL requests and discovery in the Court of Claims. The medical and autopsy evidence remains important as well, because it proves the severity of the harm and supports the conscious pain and suffering damages.
Is it too late to get a lawyer involved if the private case already settled?
It is not too late if the State claim is still pending. The Court of Claims action is a live case that requires legal representation to prosecute effectively. A lawyer who understands the Court of Claims’ unique procedural rules, the special-relationship theory of university liability, and the evidence demands needed to prove institutional negligence can step into the pending case and pursue it to resolution. The private settlement is closed, but the State claim is open. That is the door, and it is still open. You can learn more about our wrongful death practice and our specific fraternity and sorority hazing litigation experience on our site.
Why Our Firm
Ralph P. Manginello — Managing Partner. Ralph has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the evidence tells and present it to the people who need to hear it. He is lead counsel in the active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a university and a national fraternity — a case that is being fought right now, in a courtroom, on the same type of institutional-failure theories that the pending State claim in this case depends on. He does not just study hazing litigation. He litigates it.
Lupe Peña — Associate Attorney. Lupe is a former insurance-defense attorney. 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 reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered to get a grieving family to say something useful to the defense, and how the quick settlement check arrives before the full medical picture is clear. He now uses that insider knowledge for injured clients and their families. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
How fees work. We take cases on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% if the case resolves before trial and 40% if it goes to trial. The consultation is free. We do not charge you to sit down, tell us what happened, and learn what your rights are. You can reach us at 1-888-ATTY-911, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You will speak to a live person on our staff, not an answering service.
Sebastian’s story. Sebastian Serafin-Bazan came to the United States from Peru in 2008. He was ten years old. He learned English, grew up in Port Chester in Westchester County, graduated from Port Chester High School in 2018, and enrolled at the University at Buffalo to study medical technology. He was 18 years old. He wanted to belong to something. He wanted a brotherhood. What he got was a group of people who called themselves his future brothers and beat him, forced him to exercise until his heart stopped, and left him unresponsive on a sidewalk on Custer Street in Buffalo. He died five days later in a hospital bed. His family filed a lawsuit. The private defendants paid $665,000 to make the private case go away. The State of New York has not yet answered for its role. That fight is still open.
If your family is in that fight, or in a similar one, call us. Contact Attorney911. The consultation is free and confidential. We do not get paid unless we win. Hablamos Español — we serve your family fully in Spanish. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We are here.
