Baton Rouge LSU Hazing Lawyer — TKE Battery, the Max Gruver Act, and Your Family’s Rights
You are reading this at a hour when nobody should have to be awake. Maybe your son called you from his dorm room, voice shaking, trying to explain what happened to him at the hands of people who called themselves his brothers. Maybe you are the student yourself, sitting in the dark, scrolling through your phone, trying to decide whether what happened to you was “enough” to call a lawyer about — whether you are allowed to call it what it was when the whole fraternity is already circling you, when the group chat has gone quiet in a way that feels like a warning. Maybe you saw the news that two members of the Tau Kappa Epsilon chapter at Louisiana State University were arrested on criminal hazing charges, and you recognized the date, the chapter, the locations, and your stomach dropped because you know your son was there.
We want you to hear something right now, before anything else: what happened to you or your child is a crime. Not a prank, not a tradition, not “boys being boys,” not something that happens at every fraternity and you should just get over. Two members of that chapter were arrested and charged with criminal hazing and simple battery because law enforcement looked at what happened and concluded it crossed the line from initiation into assault. The LSU Police Department is still investigating, and they have said more arrests may come. You are not a snitch for talking about what happened. You are the victim of a crime, and the law of this state was rewritten in the blood of a student who died on this very campus to make sure what happened to you is treated as exactly that.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that takes Louisiana hazing and fraternity injury cases, and right now we are lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a national fraternity and a university — a case built on the same legal architecture we would build for your family. The call is free. The consultation is confidential. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And the first thing we do, the day you call, is start freezing the evidence that is disappearing right now — evidence that the fraternity and its members are already working to make go away.
What Happened at LSU — The TKE Arrests
Here is what the public record shows, as of the arrests made on October 29, 2025. Two active members of the Tau Kappa Epsilon chapter at Louisiana State University were arrested and each charged with one count of criminal hazing and one count of simple battery. One of those two was additionally charged with one count of being a principal to theft. The arrests followed a report made on October 13, 2025, detailing incidents that occurred on October 9, 2025, at two separate on-campus locations. The report described active fraternity members hitting pledges — physical strikes against students who wanted nothing more than to belong to the organization that was hurting them.
The LSU Police Department has confirmed the investigation is ongoing, and authorities have indicated that additional arrests are possible as more evidence of the initiation ritual comes to light. That word — “ritual” — matters. It tells you this was not a fight that broke out at a party. It was organized. It was planned. It happened at two different locations, which means it was not a single lapse in judgment by one person. It was a process, and the pledges were put through it because the chapter’s culture permitted it, the chapter’s leadership either directed or tolerated it, and the national organization’s oversight did not stop it.
This happened on the campus where the Max Gruver Act was born — a law named for an 18-year-old LSU freshman who died in 2017 during a hazing ritual at a fraternity on this campus. That tragedy is why Louisiana criminalized this conduct. That tragedy is why “consent” is not a defense. And that tragedy is why an East Baton Rouge Parish jury, sitting in a courthouse a few miles from where your son was hit, has less patience for the phrase “frat tradition” than any jury in America.
What Is the Max Gruver Act and How Does It Protect Hazing Victims?
Louisiana Revised Statute 17:1801 — known as the Max Gruver Act — is the statute that criminalizes hazing in this state. It is the legal foundation of every civil hazing case filed in Louisiana, because it establishes the standard of care that the fraternity, its members, and the university were required to meet.
The Max Gruver Act criminalizes hazing and mandates that any organization that “knowingly” allows hazing loses its right to exist on campus.
That is the doctrine in one sentence, and it does more work than most people realize. It means three things for your case:
First, hazing is a crime in Louisiana — not just a disciplinary violation, not just a conduct code issue, a crime. The two TKE members were arrested and charged under this statute. Criminal charges create a public record, and that record becomes leverage in civil discovery because the defendants have already been charged with the conduct you are suing them for.
Second, the statute strips the fraternity of its most powerful defense. In an ordinary battery case, the defense will argue that the victim consented to the contact — that a pledge who agreed to join a fraternity accepted what came with it. The Max Gruver Act makes that argument legally invalid in Louisiana. Consent is not a defense to hazing. Assumption of risk is not a defense to hazing. A pledge who said “yes” to joining was not saying “yes” to being hit, and even if they did, the law says it does not matter. This is the single biggest difference between a hazing case in Louisiana and a hazing case in a state without this statute, and it is the thing the fraternity’s lawyers hope you never learn.
Third, the statute gives the university a powerful tool — and a corresponding duty. Any organization that “knowingly” allows hazing loses its right to exist on campus. That means LSU has both the authority and the obligation to act when it learns of hazing, and LSU Policy Statement 108 defines the standard of care the university requires of its student organizations. If LSU had prior notice of TKE misconduct and failed to act, that failure is its own potential liability — and it is a question we pursue in discovery.
Louisiana also operates under a pure comparative fault system, codified at Civil Code Article 2323. In most injury cases, this means your recovery is reduced by your share of fault. But in a hazing case, the Max Gruver Act removes the defense that would create that fault allocation — you cannot be comparatively at fault for consenting to something the law says you cannot legally consent to. The fraternity cannot point at the pledge and say “he chose to be there” when the statute says that choice does not matter.
Can I Sue a Fraternity for Hazing in Louisiana?
Yes. You can sue the individual members who struck the pledges, the local chapter that organized or tolerated the hazing, the national fraternity organization that failed to supervise its chapter, and — under certain circumstances — the university itself. Each defendant is a different source of accountability, a different insurance policy, and a different theory of liability. A generalist lawyer files a complaint naming the two arrested students and stops there. That is not how a hazing case is built.
Louisiana Civil Code Article 2315 provides the broad basis for tort liability — every act that causes damage to another obliges the person by whose fault it occurred to repair it. Article 2320 establishes the master-servant relationship — the doctrine of vicarious liability that lets you reach the national fraternity organization for the acts of its local chapter members. And the Max Gruver Act, as a criminal statute, can serve as the foundation for a negligence-per-se argument: the defendants violated a specific law designed to protect a specific class of people (students), and the harm that followed is the exact harm the statute was written to prevent.
The theories of liability in a Louisiana hazing case stack like this:
Battery — the intentional, harmful, offensive contact of striking a pledge. This is the direct tort, committed by the individual members, and it carries the full weight of Louisiana’s tort damages including pain and suffering, emotional distress, and moral damages for the violation of human dignity.
Negligence Per Se — the violation of the Max Gruver Act itself. The statute establishes a clear standard of conduct, the pledges are in the class of people the statute was designed to protect, and the injury — being hit — is the exact harm the statute prohibits. When a defendant violates a criminal statute and causes the harm the statute was written to prevent, that violation is evidence of negligence — and in some circumstances, negligence per se.
Negligent Supervision — the local chapter and the national organization failed to monitor the actions of their members during a known high-risk period. Pledge season is the most dangerous time in any fraternity’s calendar. The national organization knows this. The local chapter knows this. The university knows this. When hazing happens during pledge season, the argument that “we didn’t know this was going on” is not credible — and discovery is where you prove it.
Premises Liability — the university or the chapter house failed to maintain a safe environment for students who were invited onto the property for organization activities. The incidents occurred at two separate on-campus locations, which means LSU’s own facilities were the sites of the battery.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress — if the hazing conduct was outrageous enough — and hitting someone who wants to belong to your organization, in a context engineered to make them feel they cannot refuse, qualifies — Louisiana law recognizes a claim for the deliberate infliction of psychological harm.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for LSU Fraternity Hazing?
This is the section where most hazing cases are won or lost, because the defendant structure in a fraternity hazing case is deliberately opaque — built like a corporate shell game to protect the national organization from the acts of its local chapters. Here is who can be held responsible, and why naming each one matters.
The individual members who struck the pledges. These are the direct tortfeasors — the two students who were arrested, and anyone else who participated. They committed the battery. They are liable for the physical and emotional harm they caused. But here is the hard truth: individual college students typically have no assets and no insurance. A judgment against a 20-year-old is often uncollectible. You name them because they are the actors, because their conduct is the predicate for the claims against the organizations above them, and because their depositions and criminal cases are where the evidence lives. But the money is not here.
The Tau Kappa Epsilon Beta-Phi Chapter (the local LSU chapter). This is the organizational defendant that ran the pledge process, organized the events on October 9, and tolerated or directed the culture that made hitting pledges acceptable. The chapter is liable for negligent supervision — it failed to monitor its own members during the highest-risk period of the fraternity calendar. In Louisiana, a local chapter may carry its own insurance or may be covered under the national’s policy, but either way, the chapter is the entity that hosted the harm. The chapter’s internal records — meeting minutes, pledge education plans, risk management filings, disciplinary records — are where the “rogue member” defense goes to die, because those records show whether the chapter’s leadership knew what was happening and whether anything was done about it.
Tau Kappa Epsilon International (the national fraternity organization). This is where the real coverage lives. National fraternities typically carry multi-million-dollar liability policies — sometimes $5 million, $10 million, or more — because they know hazing cases are the single largest exposure in their industry. The national organization is liable on two theories. First, vicarious liability through the agency relationship — under Louisiana Civil Code Article 2320, a principal is liable for the acts of its agent, and the local chapter is the national’s agent. Second, direct negligence — the national failed to enforce its own safety protocols, failed to audit or inspect the chapter’s pledge practices, and failed to respond to prior warning signs. This is where the trial strategy comes alive: we use a 30(b)(6) deposition of the TKE International risk manager to expose the gap between the national’s written safety policies and what actually happened on the ground at LSU. We ask: when was the last audit? What did it find? Was this chapter on probation? What prior complaints existed? What training was required, and who actually completed it? The answers — or the absence of records — are the case.
The LSU Board of Supervisors. The university is a potential defendant, but its liability is conditional. If LSU had prior notice of TKE misconduct — prior hazing complaints, prior disciplinary actions, prior Clery Act reports involving this chapter — and failed to act on that notice, the university can be held liable for negligent security or failure to protect its students. The Clery Act (20 U.S.C. § 1092(f)) requires LSU to maintain detailed crime logs and security records for on-campus incidents, and those records are discoverable. If the crime log shows prior incidents at TKE events that LSU knew about and did not address, that prior-notice evidence is the foundation of a university liability claim. Louisiana’s government-tort-claims rules apply to claims against the university, and those rules have their own notice deadlines that can be shorter than the one-year prescription period — which is why involving counsel early is not optional, it is survival.
The Evidence Is Disappearing Right Now — What to Preserve
This is the most urgent section on this page, because the evidence that proves your case is on a clock, and the clock is already running. Every day that passes, the fraternity is taking steps to protect itself. Group chats get deleted. Social media posts come down. Members coordinate their stories. The physical evidence of battery — bruises, welts, marks — heals. And the institutional records that prove the chapter knew what was happening get “cleaned up” before anyone outside the fraternity ever sees them.
Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can die.
GroupMe, Signal, and social media logs — EXTREME urgency. The digital footprint of a hazing ritual lives in the messaging apps the pledges and active members use to communicate. GroupMe is the standard for fraternity pledge classes. Signal is used when members want deniability. Snapchat messages vanish by design. Instagram posts and stories disappear. These logs are the single most important evidence in a hazing case because they prove the hitting was part of an organized, sanctioned ritual — not a rogue act by two individuals. They show who planned it, who directed it, who participated, and who knew. And they are being deleted right now, by fraternity members who understand that their criminal charges make these messages dangerous. Digital footprints vanish in days, sometimes hours. The preservation letter we send the day you call demands that these communications be frozen — and if they are deleted after that letter is on file, a jury can be told the fraternity destroyed evidence it knew was damaging.
LSUPD bodycam footage and police reports — HIGH urgency. The LSU Police Department responded to this incident, and their officers carry body cameras. The bodycam footage from the night of October 9, the response on October 13, and the arrests on October 29 contains initial witness statements, suspect admissions, and observations made before “frat loyalty” sets in and witnesses start recanting or clamming up. LSUPD’s bodycam retention cycles typically run 60 to 90 days, though the exact period is set by department policy. Once that cycle runs, the footage can be lawfully overwritten. We demand it immediately — not next month, not after the criminal case resolves, now.
TKE National risk management records — MEDIUM urgency (requires subpoena power). The national fraternity organization keeps records on every chapter: risk management audits, disciplinary history, probation status, prior hazing complaints, member training completion rates, and insurance claims. These records are the proof that the national knew or should have known about the culture at its LSU chapter. They require subpoena power to obtain — you cannot ask for them, you have to compel them — which means a lawsuit has to be filed before these records can be reached. But they do not disappear quickly, because the national has its own document-retention obligations. The risk is not that they will be destroyed; the risk is that the longer you wait to file, the more time the national has to review its files and prepare its defense.
Physical medical evidence — EXTREME urgency. If the pledges who were hit have bruises, welts, cuts, or any visible marks, those marks are the most objective proof of battery that exists in this case. They do not depend on a witness’s memory. They do not change with the story. They are the body’s own record of what happened. And they heal. A bruise that is dark purple today is green and yellow in a week and gone in two. Photograph every injury immediately — in good lighting, with a ruler or coin for scale, from multiple angles, and have the photographs taken by someone other than the victim when possible. Seek medical attention at an urgent care or emergency department, not because every hazing injury requires a hospital, but because a medical record created while the marks are still visible is evidence that no defense lawyer can explain away.
How Much Is a Fraternity Hazing Case Worth?
We are going to be honest with you about money, because honesty is the only thing that builds trust with a family in crisis, and trust is the only thing that lets us do our job.
Hazing cases involving battery in Louisiana carry a case value range of approximately $150,000 on the low end to $750,000 or more on the high end, depending on the severity of the injuries, the scope of the conspiracy, and the defendant’s prior record. Here is why.
The physical injuries in a hazing battery case may be modest — bruising, soreness, perhaps a minor laceration. The defense will seize on this to argue the case is worth little. But the physical injuries are not where the value of a hazing case lives. The value lives in three places the defense cannot reach:
First, the psychological impact. Being struck by people you trusted, in a context engineered to make you feel you cannot refuse, is a recognized cause of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and a cascade of psychological consequences that can follow a student for years. In the largest study of its kind, rape was found to be the single most PTSD-causing event measured — and the mechanism is the same: a violation of trust, a stripping of autonomy, a physical act of power. Hazing is not identical to sexual assault, but the psychological architecture — the deliberate use of physical force to humiliate and control, the social pressure to remain silent, the institutional protection of the perpetrators — produces the same kinds of harm. That harm is real, it is diagnosable, and it is compensable.
Second, the clear statutory violation. The Max Gruver Act is not ambiguous. It criminalizes exactly what happened here. When a defendant violates a criminal statute designed to protect students from hazing, and a student is harmed by the conduct the statute prohibits, the moral weight of that violation is something an East Baton Rouge Parish jury takes seriously — especially on the campus where the law was born.
Third, the national fraternity’s coverage. This is where the money actually is. National fraternities carry multi-million-dollar liability policies because their own risk managers know hazing is the single most predictable and most expensive claim in their industry. The $750,000 ceiling in our range reflects exposure to the national organization’s insurance tower — not the individual students, not the local chapter alone, but the entity that collected dues from these members, that licensed the LSU chapter to use its name, that was responsible for ensuring its safety protocols were followed, and that failed.
Louisiana allows recovery of both economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages include medical expenses for physical and psychological treatment, and potential tuition loss if the student must withdraw from the semester. Non-economic damages cover physical pain, psychological trauma, the stigma associated with social exclusion or retaliation after reporting, and — under Louisiana’s recognition of moral damages — the violation of human dignity that hazing represents. Punitive damages are rare in Louisiana but may be pursued through creative pleading where specific statutory violations are shown, and the exposure ladder from negligence to gross negligence to willful misconduct is where the facts of a hazing case push the value upward.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is different, and the range we describe is an honest assessment based on the characteristics of hazing battery litigation in Louisiana, not a promise.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook — What They’ll Try
The fraternity’s insurance carrier has a playbook, and it is already running. Here is what to expect, and here is how each play is countered.
Play 1: The “rogue member” defense. The carrier will argue that two individual members acted on their own, that the hitting was not authorized by the chapter or the national, and that the organization cannot be responsible for the unpredictable misconduct of individuals. This is the defense that kills the most hazing cases, because it works when the plaintiff’s lawyer does not have the records to prove otherwise. The counter is discovery: we demand the chapter’s pledge education plan, its risk management filings, its meeting minutes, its prior disciplinary records, and the national’s audit history. Hazing is almost never a rogue act — it is a practice, and the records show the practice. If the chapter’s own documents describe a pledge process that included physical contact, if prior complaints were filed and ignored, if the national’s audit identified this chapter as a risk and nothing was done, the “rogue member” defense collapses under its own weight. The 30(b)(6) deposition of the national’s risk manager — where their own designated representative answers questions under oath about what they knew and when — is the single most effective tool for piercing this defense.
Play 2: “The pledge consented.” The fraternity will argue that your son chose to join, chose to participate in the pledge process, and therefore assumed the risk of what happened. This defense is legally invalid in Louisiana under the Max Gruver Act, which specifically eliminates consent and assumption of risk as defenses to hazing. The counter is the statute itself: we put the law in front of the jury and let the judge instruct them that consent is not a defense. The fraternity’s lawyers know this — they are counting on you not knowing it.
Play 3: The fast settlement check. A check may arrive early, with a release buried under it, offered before the full extent of the psychological harm is diagnosed and before more arrests come to light. The purpose of this check is not to compensate your family — it is to make the case go away cheaply, before discovery exposes the chapter’s records and the national’s knowledge. The counter is simple: never sign anything from the fraternity, its carrier, or any representative of the organization without your own lawyer reviewing it. A release signed in the first weeks after the incident can permanently extinguish your right to recover — even after the full harm becomes clear.
Play 4: The social pressure campaign. This is not an insurance play — it is a fraternity play, and it is the one that hurts families the most. The pledge who reports hazing faces social retaliation: being “blackballed” from the fraternity, being ostracized by friends, being labeled a snitch, facing whispers and exclusion across the Greek system. The fraternity counts on this pressure to keep victims silent. The counter is privacy and process: we communicate with the fraternity and its carrier through legal channels only, we do not let your son sit in a room with fraternity members or university administrators without counsel present, and we frame the legal action as the necessary step to ensure he can continue his education safely and without fear.
Play 5: Minimizing the conduct. “It was just a few swats.” “Nobody was seriously hurt.” “This happens everywhere.” The defense will try to normalize the conduct and minimize the harm. The counter is the medicine — documented injuries, diagnosed psychological harm, and the testimony of treating providers who can describe, in clinical terms, what happened to a young person who was hit by people he trusted. The defense’s minimization argument sounds different when a therapist or psychiatrist is describing the anxiety, the sleep disruption, the hypervigilance, and the loss of trust that follow a hazing battery.
The First 72 Hours After LSU Hazing — A Roadmap
If your son was one of the pledges who was hit — or if you are the student yourself — here is what the next 72 hours should look like. This is not legal advice for your specific case; it is a roadmap for the decisions that matter most in the hours after a hazing incident, when the evidence is freshest and the pressure is highest.
First: get medical attention. Even if the injuries seem minor, see a doctor. Bruises and marks need to be documented by a medical professional while they are still visible. If there is any head impact, a concussion evaluation is essential — traumatic brain injuries from hazing are routinely missed because the student “feels fine” in the adrenaline of the moment, and the symptoms emerge days later. Go to an urgent care, the student health center, or an emergency department. Tell them what happened. The medical record created at this visit is the objective, contemporaneous proof of the battery — it cannot be rewritten by the fraternity later.
Second: photograph everything. Every bruise, every mark, every piece of physical evidence. Use good lighting. Place a ruler or a coin next to the injury for scale. Take multiple photos from multiple angles. Have someone else take the photos when possible — a roommate, a friend, a parent. Save the photos in a location the fraternity cannot access — not on a phone that a “big brother” in the chapter has the passcode to.
Third: preserve all digital communications. Do not delete anything. Do not let anyone else delete anything. Screenshots of GroupMe messages, text threads, Snapchat conversations, Instagram DMs — all of it. If the fraternity has a group chat for the pledge class, screenshot every message. If active members sent individual messages directing pledges where to be and when, save them. These messages prove the hitting was organized and sanctioned, and they are the evidence the fraternity is most desperate to erase.
Fourth: do not speak to fraternity members, chapter leaders, or university administrators without counsel. The fraternity will send someone — a “brother,” an alumnus, a chapter advisor — to talk to your son, to “check on him,” to ask what happened, to suggest that maybe this does not need to go any further. That conversation is not a wellness check. It is evidence gathering for the defense. Every word your son says to a fraternity member or administrator can and will be used to undermine the case. The same goes for university disciplinary proceedings — LSU may convene a conduct board, and the university’s process is not designed to protect your son’s legal rights. Never sit for a university interview or a fraternity “investigation” without a lawyer.
Fifth: contact a lawyer before the one-year clock runs. Louisiana’s prescription period for personal injury is one year from the date of the incident. The incidents occurred on October 9, 2025. The clock is already running. There are exceptions and nuances — the discovery rule, the possibility of continuing conduct, the government-claims notice deadlines if the university is a defendant — but the safe assumption is that you have until approximately October 9, 2026, to file suit. That sounds like a long time. It is not. A hazing case requires investigation, evidence preservation, defendant identification, and pre-suit discovery planning before a complaint is ever filed. Waiting until September 2026 to call a lawyer is waiting too long.
The Medicine of Hazing — What the Body and Mind Go Through
We need to talk about what happens to a person who is hit by the members of a fraternity he is trying to join, because the defense will minimize it and the family often does not fully understand it.
The physical injuries from a hazing battery are what the defense points to: bruising, soreness, perhaps some swelling. These are real, and they should be documented, but they are not the injury that changes a life. The injury that changes a life is psychological, and it is the one the defense calls “made up.”
Post-traumatic stress disorder is not a mood. It is a formal medical diagnosis with eight separate diagnostic criteria under the DSM-5, and a person has to meet every one of them: the traumatic event itself, the intrusive memories and nightmares that follow, the avoidance of anything that triggers the memory, the negative changes in mood and cognition, the hyperarousal and exaggerated startle response, the sleep disruption, the concentration problems, and the functional impairment that makes it hard to go to class, be around people, or feel safe. A survivor of hazing battery does not need all eight to have a serious injury — but the diagnostic framework is what makes the harm visible to a jury that has never experienced it.
Here is what a family sees, across the dinner table or in a dorm room, that a scan cannot show: the student who stops sleeping through the night. The student who flinches when someone walks up behind him. The student who stops going to certain buildings on campus because they are too close to the fraternity house. The student who drops out of organizations, pulls away from friends, starts drinking more, or tells you he wants to come home. These are the signs of psychological trauma, and they are as real as a broken bone — they just require different proof.
The proof is built from the medical record: a first therapy intake, a clinical assessment using validated instruments, the treating clinician’s notes documenting the symptoms and their onset. The closer to the event these records are created, the more powerful they are — because they pre-date any “litigation motive” accusation the defense will raise. A student who walks into a counselor’s office two weeks after the hazing, before a lawsuit is ever filed, is a student whose psychological injury is documented by a neutral professional who has no stake in the case.
And there is one more dimension the defense never accounts for: moral damages. Louisiana law recognizes the violation of human dignity as its own compensable harm. Hazing is, by its nature, a degradation — it strips the pledge of autonomy, uses physical force to enforce a hierarchy, and tells the victim that his body is not his own. That violation has a dollar value in a Louisiana courtroom, and it is a value that an East Baton Rouge jury — sitting in the parish where Max Gruver died — is uniquely positioned to understand.
How We Build a Hazing Case — The Proof Story
Here is how a hazing case is actually built, from the first call to the resolution. This is not a summary — it is the walk, told the way someone who has lived it tells it.
Week one: the preservation letter goes out. The day you call, we send letters to the TKE chapter, the national organization, LSU, and any third-party platforms (GroupMe, etc.) ordering them to preserve all evidence related to the pledge process, the October 9 incidents, and the chapter’s disciplinary history. This letter does two things: it freezes the evidence, and it creates a spoliation record. If the fraternity deletes messages after receiving that letter, the jury can be told the fraternity destroyed evidence it knew was damaging — an adverse-inference instruction that can decide a case.
Weeks two through four: the investigation. We pull the LSUPD reports and bodycam footage before the retention cycle runs. We subpoena the Clery Act crime logs for the locations where the incidents occurred. We identify every witness — every pledge who was present, every active member who participated, every student who saw the aftermath. We get their statements before “frat loyalty” coordinates their stories.
The complaint: naming every defendant. We file in East Baton Rouge Parish, where a jury of this community will hear the case. The complaint names the individual members, the local chapter, the national organization, and — if the evidence supports prior notice — the university. Each defendant is a different insurance policy and a different theory. The complaint pleads battery, negligence per se under the Max Gruver Act, negligent supervision, premises liability, and — where the facts support it — intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Discovery: the records that break the defense. We demand the chapter’s pledge education plan, meeting minutes, risk management filings, prior complaint records, and disciplinary history. We demand the national’s audit reports, the chapter’s probation status, prior hazing incidents at this chapter and other TKE chapters nationally, and the national’s training records. We demand the university’s Clery Act reports, its disciplinary records for this chapter, and any prior complaints involving TKE.
The 30(b)(6) deposition: the national’s risk manager under oath. This is the deposition where the national organization’s designated representative answers questions about what they knew, what they required, what they audited, and what they did when they learned of problems. We ask: when was the last audit of the LSU chapter? What did it find? Was the chapter on probation? What prior hazing complaints existed? What training was required of members and officers? Who completed it? What was the national’s response to prior incidents at this chapter or others? The answers — or the absence of records — are the proof that the “rogue member” defense is a fiction.
The number: built from all of it. The settlement demand or the trial presentation is built from the medical records, the psychological evaluation, the lost tuition, the life-care plan if the psychological harm is lasting, the loss of the college experience the student came to LSU to have, and the moral dimension of being hit by people who called themselves brothers. The defense’s first offer will be a fraction of that number. The case resolves when the evidence makes the risk of trial greater than the cost of paying — and the evidence is what we spent the first months building.
Louisiana’s One-Year Clock — Why You Cannot Wait
Louisiana’s prescription period for personal injury — the state’s version of a statute of limitations — is one year from the date of the incident. This is not a guideline. It is a hard deadline. Miss it, and the case is dead, no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how clear the liability, no matter how serious the harm.
The incidents occurred on October 9, 2025. The one-year clock runs from that date. If the university is a defendant, there may be additional notice deadlines under Louisiana’s government-tort-claims rules that are shorter than the one-year period — deadlines measured in months, not years. This is why we tell families: the day you call is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
There are narrow exceptions — the discovery rule, which can extend the clock if the full extent of the harm was not immediately known, and the possibility of continuing conduct if the hazing was part of an ongoing pattern. But those exceptions are litigated, they are not automatic, and a family that relies on an exception instead of filing on time is a family that has handed the defense its strongest argument. The safe path is simple: act within the one-year window, and act early enough that the investigation, evidence preservation, and pre-suit work can be done before the deadline.
Why This Firm — Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
We are not a firm that discovered hazing cases last week. We are in the middle of one right now.
Ralph Manginello is the managing partner of this firm. He has been licensed and practicing law for more than 27 years, including in federal court. He is the lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a national fraternity and a university — a case that is built on the same legal architecture we would build for your family: negligent supervision by the chapter, failure of oversight by the national, and institutional accountability for a campus that failed to protect its students. Ralph was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the documents tell — and in a hazing case, the documents tell a very different story than the one the fraternity tells the police.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney, and he spent years on the other side of this fight — inside 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 carrier sets its reserve in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered to get the victim to say “I’m okay,” how the valuation software discounts the psychological harm it cannot quantify, and how the quick settlement check with the release on the back arrives before the medical results do. He uses that knowledge for injured clients now — in English or in Spanish, because Lupe is fluent and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We take fraternity and sorority hazing cases because we have seen what they do. We are a Houston-based firm that takes Louisiana cases, working with local counsel where required. The medicine does not change because the campus is across a state line. The corporate-accountability fight does not change because the fraternity is in Baton Rouge instead of Houston. And the catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death work that has defined this firm for more than two decades does not change because the mechanism is a hazing paddle instead of a truck.
If you want to know what happens when hazing goes beyond bruising — when a family loses a child — we handle those cases too. You can learn more about our wrongful death practice if your family’s situation has escalated to the worst outcome.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The $50 million-plus in aggregate recoveries we have achieved over more than 24 years in practice is a firm marketing figure, and the $10 million hazing lawsuit we are currently litigating is an active case, not a resolved result. What we can tell you with certainty is that we know how these cases are built, we know how the other side works, and we know how to make the evidence tell the truth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a fraternity for hazing in Louisiana?
Yes. You can sue the individual members who committed the battery, the local chapter that organized or tolerated the hazing, the national fraternity organization that failed to supervise its chapter, and — if the university had prior notice of misconduct — LSU itself. Louisiana’s Max Gruver Act criminalizes hazing and eliminates consent as a defense, which makes these cases more winnable here than in states without an anti-hazing statute.
How long do I have to file a hazing lawsuit in Louisiana?
Louisiana’s prescription period for personal injury is one year from the date of the incident. The incidents at LSU occurred on October 9, 2025, which means the one-year clock runs through approximately October 9, 2026. If the university is a defendant, additional and shorter notice deadlines may apply under Louisiana’s government-tort-claims rules. Do not wait — the evidence preservation and investigation process takes months, and it has to happen before the deadline.
My son “consented” to the pledge process — does that hurt his case?
No. Under the Max Gruver Act, consent and assumption of risk are not valid defenses to hazing in Louisiana. The fraternity cannot argue that your son agreed to be hit, because the law says that agreement is legally meaningless. This is one of the most important protections the Max Gruver Act provides, and it is the thing the fraternity’s lawyers hope you never learn.
The fraternity is pressuring my son to stay quiet — what should we do?
This is common, and it is not legal advice you should ignore. Do not let your son speak to fraternity members, chapter leaders, alumni, or university administrators without a lawyer present. The “check-in” from a brother is not a wellness visit — it is evidence gathering. Contact a lawyer immediately, and from that point forward, all communication with the fraternity goes through legal channels.
What evidence disappears fastest in a hazing case?
GroupMe and messaging app logs disappear fastest — sometimes within hours or days, because fraternity members understand their criminal charges make those messages dangerous. LSUPD bodycam footage has a retention cycle of approximately 60 to 90 days. Physical evidence of battery — bruises, welts, marks — heals within days to weeks. The preservation letter we send the day you call is what freezes this evidence before it is gone.
How much is a hazing battery case worth in Louisiana?
Hazing cases involving battery in Louisiana carry a case value range of approximately $150,000 to $750,000 or more, depending on the severity of injuries, the scope of the conspiracy, and the national organization’s insurance coverage. The physical injuries may be modest, but the psychological harm, the clear Max Gruver Act violation, and the national fraternity’s multi-million-dollar liability policies create significant exposure. Every case is different, and this range is an honest assessment, not a promise.
Can the national fraternity organization be held responsible for what a local chapter did?
Yes. The national can be held liable on two theories: vicarious liability through the agency relationship under Louisiana Civil Code Article 2320, and direct negligence for failing to enforce its own safety protocols and audit its chapter’s practices. The national typically carries the largest insurance policy in the defendant stack, which is why reaching it is the difference between a case that fully compensates and one that does not.
What if LSU knew about prior hazing at this TKE chapter?
If LSU had prior notice of TKE misconduct — through prior Clery Act reports, disciplinary actions, student complaints, or police calls — and failed to act, the university can be held liable for negligent security or failure to protect its students. The Clery Act requires LSU to maintain detailed crime logs that are discoverable in civil litigation. We pull those logs to establish whether the university had notice and what it did — or did not do — about it.
Do I need a lawyer if the criminal charges are already pending?
Yes. Criminal charges punish the individuals. They do not compensate the victim. The criminal case does not pay for medical treatment, psychological counseling, lost tuition, or the harm your son suffered. And the criminal case does not reach the national fraternity’s insurance policy or the university’s liability. The civil case is how your family recovers — and it runs on its own timeline, with its own evidence-preservation deadlines, independent of the criminal prosecution.
What does it cost to hire Attorney911 for a hazing case?
Nothing upfront. We work on contingency — 33.33% of the recovery before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free, confidential, and available 24/7. You can call right now and speak to a live person, not an answering service.
Contact Us — Free Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win
The call is free. The consultation is confidential. And the conversation that starts with “My son was hit at his fraternity” is one we know how to have, because we are having it — in an active case, right now, against a national fraternity and a university that failed to protect its students.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. Our live staff answers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not an answering service — our team. If your family speaks Spanish, ask for Lupe. Hablamos Español, and Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
You can also reach us at our contact page, or email Ralph directly at ralph@atty911.com.
We do not get paid unless we win your case. The first letter — the preservation demand that freezes the evidence before it disappears — goes out the day you call. In a hazing case, that letter is the difference between a case that can be proven and a case where the proof was deleted while the family was still deciding whether to act.
The Max Gruver Act was written because a student died on this campus. Your son survived. The law that was written to protect him is real, and it is powerful, and the fraternity that broke it is counting on you not to use it. Call us. Let us show you what it can do.
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.