The Definitive Guide to Hazing Lawsuits and Fraternity Accountability for Families in Merkel, Texas

For parents in Merkel, Abilene, Tye, and across Taylor County, the journey from seeing your child off to a Texas university is filled with pride and hope. But that hope can turn to horror with a single late-night phone call or a visit to the emergency room. Right now, in Houston, we are actively litigating one of the most serious hazing cases in Texas—the $10 million lawsuit filed on behalf of Leonel Bermudez against the University of Houston and the Pi Kappa Phi Beta Nu chapter. This case, involving allegations of forced overconsumption, physical torture that led to rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure, and institutional failures, is a stark reminder that hazing is not a relic of the past. It is a present and violent reality on campuses where Merkel families send their children.

This comprehensive guide is written specifically for parents, students, and families in Merkel and throughout Taylor County. We will explain what modern hazing truly looks like, break down Texas law and your family’s rights, examine the national patterns that predict local tragedies, and provide a clear, actionable path forward if your child has been harmed.

Immediate Help for Hazing Emergencies

If your child is in danger RIGHT NOW:

• Call 911 for any medical emergency.
• Then call us, Attorney911, immediately: 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). We are the Legal Emergency Lawyers™ for a reason.

In the First 48 Hours – Critical Actions:

1. Get Medical Attention: Even if your child insists they are “fine,” hazing injuries like internal muscle breakdown (rhabdomyolysis), concussions, or psychological trauma require professional evaluation. Go to the ER.
2. Preserve Evidence BEFORE It’s Deleted:
   • Screenshot all group chats (GroupMe, WhatsApp, iMessage), text messages, and social media DMs related to the incident or the organization.
   • Photograph injuries from multiple angles with good lighting.
   • Save physical items (torn clothing, paddles, bottles, receipts for forced purchases).
3. Document Everything: Write down a detailed timeline of events while memories are fresh. Include names, dates, locations, and what was said or done.
4. DO NOT:
   • Confront the fraternity, sorority, or university directly.
   • Sign any documents from the university or an insurance company.
   • Allow your child to delete messages or “clean up” their social media.
   • Post details about the incident on public social media platforms.

Hazing in 2025: It’s More Than “Just Partying”

For families in Merkel, the image of hazing might be dated stereotypes. Today’s hazing is a calculated, often digitally-facilitated system of abuse designed to create loyalty through trauma. It exists in fraternities, sororities, athletic teams, spirit groups like the Corps of Cadets, marching bands, and other campus organizations. It is not “tradition” or “team-building”—it is illegal coercion.

Modern Hazing Takes Many Forms:

• Alcohol & Substance Hazing: The most common and deadly. This includes forced chugging, “lineup” drinking games, “Big/Little” nights with handles of liquor, and coerced consumption of drugs or unpalatable substances.
• Physical Hazing: Paddling, beatings, “smokings” (extreme calisthenics to the point of collapse), sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme elements, and dangerous physical rituals.
• Psychological & Sexualized Hazing: Forced nudity, simulated sexual acts, humiliating costumes, verbal abuse, isolation, and degradation often recorded and shared on social media.
• Digital Hazing: 24/7 control via group chats, forced participation in humiliating social media “challenges,” location tracking, and cyber-harassment for non-compliance.

The recent University of Houston Pi Kappa Phi case exemplifies this brutal evolution. According to the Click2Houston report and ABC13 coverage, pledges like Leonel Bermudez were subjected to a “pledge fanny pack” rule filled with humiliating items, forced to perform hundreds of squats and push-ups, sprayed in the face with a hose “similar to waterboarding,” made to lie in vomit-soaked grass, and compelled to overconsume food until vomiting. The result was not a hangover, but a life-threatening medical crisis.

Texas Hazing Law & Liability: What Merkel Families Need to Know

Texas has strong laws on the books, but they only work if families know how to use them. The Texas Education Code, Chapter 37, Subchapter F, is your starting point.

Key Provisions of Texas Hazing Law:

• Broad Definition: Hazing is any intentional, knowing, or reckless act that endangers the mental or physical health of a student for the purpose of initiation, affiliation, or membership in any organization.
• Location Doesn’t Matter: The law applies on-campus and off-campus. A retreat at a lake house or an Airbnb is not a legal loophole.
• “Consent” is NOT a Defense (Texas Education Code § 37.155): This is critical. Even if your child “agreed” to participate, the law recognizes that true consent is impossible under peer pressure and the threat of social exclusion. The fraternity cannot claim “he wanted to do it” as a legal shield.
• Criminal Penalties: Hazing is a Class B misdemeanor. If it causes serious bodily injury or death, it becomes a state jail felony. Individuals can also be charged for failing to report hazing.
• Organizational Liability: The fraternity or sorority itself can be fined up to $10,000 per violation and lose its university recognition.

Civil Lawsuits: The Path to Accountability and Recovery
A criminal case punishes the perpetrators. A civil lawsuit, which we handle, seeks to recover damages for your family and force institutional change. Potential defendants in a hazing lawsuit include:

• The individual students who planned and carried out the acts.
• The local chapter as an entity.
• The National Fraternity or Sorority Headquarters. This is often where the deepest pockets and greatest leverage exist.
• The University (for negligent supervision, Title IX violations, or Clery Act failures).
• Property owners, landlords, or alcohol providers.

The Flagship Case: Leonel Bermudez vs. University of Houston & Pi Kappa Phi

To understand what a serious hazing lawsuit looks like, Merkel families need look no further than our current case in Houston. This is not a historical example; this is active, high-stakes litigation we are managing right now, and it demonstrates the systemic failures that endanger students.

The Facts (As Alleged in the Complaint):
Leonel Bermudez, a transfer student, accepted a bid to Pi Kappa Phi’s Beta Nu chapter at UH in Fall 2025. What followed was a campaign of abuse:

• Humiliation & Control: A mandatory “pledge fanny pack” containing condoms, a sex toy, and nicotine devices. Strict dress codes, overnight chauffeuring duties, and weekly interrogations.
• Physical Torture: Extreme workouts at Yellowstone Boulevard Park, including “bear crawls,” wheelbarrow races, and “save-your-brother” drills. Pledges were forced to lie in vomit, were sprayed with a hose in the face, and were threatened with actual waterboarding.
• Forced Consumption: Pledges were made to drink milk and eat hot dogs and peppercorns until vomiting, then forced to immediately sprint.
• The Breaking Point: On November 3, 2025, Bermudez was forced to do over 100 push-ups and 500 squats while reciting the fraternity creed under threat of expulsion. He could not stand without help afterward.

The Medical Catastrophe:
Days later, Bermudez’s urine turned brown—a classic sign of rhabdomyolysis, a severe muscle breakdown. He was hospitalized for four days with critically elevated creatine kinase levels and acute kidney failure. He faces an ongoing risk of permanent kidney damage.

The Institutional Response & Our Lawsuit:
Despite the severity, the system moved only after catastrophe. Pi Kappa Phi national suspended the chapter on November 6. Members voted to surrender their charter on November 14. The University of Houston called the conduct “deeply disturbing.” We filed a $10 million lawsuit against 13 individual members, the chapter, the Pi Kappa Phi national organization, the UH System Board of Regents, and the University of Houston itself.

Why This Matters for Merkel:
This case shows the blueprint of a modern hazing lawsuit. It involves:

1. Detailed Allegations of Specific, Brutal Acts.
2. Clear Medical Causation linking the hazing to life-threatening injury.
3. A Full Defendant Universe holding every responsible entity accountable, from the pledge master to the national headquarters.
4. A Data-Driven Approach to uncover the network of organizations behind the fraternity.

The Texas Hazing Intelligence Engine: Mapping the Greek Ecosystem for Merkel Families

When you send your child to Texas A&M, UT Austin, University of Houston, or another Texas campus, you are not just sending them to a school. You are connecting them to a vast, interconnected network of Greek organizations, each with its own legal identity, insurance policies, and history. Most parents—and most general practice lawyers—have no way to navigate this maze. We do.

We maintain what we call the Texas Hazing Intelligence Engine, built from thousands of public records. This allows us to immediately identify every potentially liable entity in a hazing case. For families in Merkel and Taylor County, this means we start your case with a map, not a blank page.

A Snapshot of the Greek Landscape Serving Texas Students:
Our database tracks over 1,400 Greek-related organizations across 25 Texas metropolitan areas. For example, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro has over 510 such entities, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land has 188, and Austin-Round Rock has 154. These aren’t just social clubs; they are registered legal entities with Employer Identification Numbers (EINs), mailing addresses, and often, insurance policies.

Public Records Directory: Examples from the Database
To illustrate the depth of our research, here are just a few examples of the types of organizations we track that are connected to campuses where Merkel students often enroll:

• Pi Kappa Phi Delta Omega Chapter Building Corporation, EIN 371768785, Missouri City, TX 77459 (IRS B83 filing).
• Beta Nu Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity Housing Corporation Inc, EIN 462267515, Frisco, TX 75035 (IRS B83 filing).
• Sigma Alpha Epsilon – Texas Rho Corp., Austin, TX (Cause IQ metro listing – University of Texas chapter house corporation).
• Kappa Sigma – Mu Camma Chapter Inc, EIN 133048786, College Station, TX 77845 (IRS B83 filing – Texas A&M).
• Texas Kappa Sigma Educational Foundation Inc, EIN 741380362, Fort Worth, TX 76147 (IRS B83 filing).
• Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, EIN 900293166, College Station, TX 77843 (IRS B83 filing – Texas A&M University chapter).

This investigative head start is invaluable. When a hazing incident occurs, national fraternities and their insurers often try to distance themselves, claiming the local chapter was “rogue.” Our directory helps us immediately establish the financial and legal connections between the local actors and the deep-pocketed national organizations, preventing them from escaping responsibility.

Where Merkel Families Send Their Kids: Campus-Specific Risks

Merkel students attend universities across Texas. Understanding the specific Greek ecosystems and historical problems at these schools is crucial.

Local & Regional Campuses for Taylor County:

• Abilene Christian University (Abilene, Taylor County)
• Hardin-Simmons University (Abilene, Taylor County)
• McMurry University (Abilene, Taylor County)
• Texas A&M University-Central Texas (Killeen, Bell County)
• Tarleton State University (Stephenville, Erath County)

Major Statewide University Hubs:
Merkel families also commonly send students to large flagship universities with extensive Greek systems, including:

• Texas A&M University (College Station)
• University of Texas at Austin (Austin)
• University of Houston (Houston)
• Texas Tech University (Lubbock)
• Baylor University (Waco)
• Southern Methodist University (Dallas)

Campus-Specific Hazing Histories & Patterns:

Texas A&M University: Beyond fraternities, the Corps of Cadets has faced serious allegations. In a 2023 lawsuit, a cadet alleged being subjected to degrading hazing, including being bound in a “roasted pig” position with an apple in his mouth. Sigma Alpha Epsilon at A&M was also sued in 2021 after pledges suffered severe chemical burns from being doused with industrial cleaner during a hazing ritual.

University of Texas at Austin: UT maintains a public hazing violations log. Recent entries include Pi Kappa Alpha (2023) for forcing new members to consume milk and perform strenuous calisthenics, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon (2024) being sued by an exchange student who alleged a brutal assault at a party.

University of Houston: As detailed in the Bermudez case, severe physical hazing persists. Prior incidents include a 2016 Pi Kappa Alpha case where a pledge suffered a lacerated spleen.

Baylor University & Southern Methodist University: These private institutions have had their share of scandals, from baseball team hazing suspensions at Baylor to Kappa Alpha Order paddling incidents at SMU. Their private status often means less public transparency, making aggressive legal discovery essential.

National Hazing Histories: Why a Fraternity’s Past Predicts Your Child’s Future

The organizations on Texas campuses are chapters of national brands. When a Pi Kappa Phi chapter at UH hazes, it follows a national pattern established by Pi Kappa Phi chapters elsewhere. This “pattern evidence” is powerful in court. It proves the national headquarters knew or should have known the risks because the same tragedies have occurred before.

The Deadly Patterns:

• Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike): Stone Foltz died at Bowling Green State in 2021 from forced alcohol consumption, leading to a $10 million settlement. This “Big/Little” drinking script is repeated nationwide.
• Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE): Dozens of deaths and injuries nationwide led SAE to famously ban pledging in 2014, yet problems persist, including the chemical burn case at Texas A&M.
• Phi Delta Theta: Max Gruver died at LSU in 2017 from a “Bible study” drinking game, leading to Louisiana’s felony hazing “Max Gruver Act.”
• Beta Theta Pi: Timothy Piazza died at Penn State in 2017 after a bid-night drinking session, captured on chapter house cameras, leading to the Timothy J. Piazza Anti-Hazing Law.

For a Merkel family, this means if your child is hazed by a chapter of one of these organizations, we don’t start from zero. We have a library of prior incidents, internal national risk-management memos, and settlement documents that show a foreseeable pattern of conduct. This defeats the national organization’s classic defense: “We didn’t know. This was a rogue chapter.”

Building a Hazing Case with Attorney911: From Evidence to Accountability

If your family is facing this crisis, you need more than a lawyer; you need a strategic ally with specific expertise. Here is how we build a hazing case.

1. Immediate Evidence Preservation:
We guide you through securing the digital crime scene: recovering deleted GroupMe messages, preserving social media stories, obtaining geo-location data, and securing phone records. We work with digital forensics experts when necessary. As we explain in our evidence preservation video, this step cannot wait.

2. The Full-Scope Investigation:
Our work goes far beyond the incident:

• Subpoenaing National Fraternity Records: We demand prior incident reports, risk-management files, and communications about the chapter.
• Obtaining University Files: Through discovery and public records requests, we get the chapter’s conduct history, any prior warnings, and internal emails about the organization.
• Identifying All Liable Entities: Using our Texas Hazing Intelligence Engine, we find every housing corporation, alumni association, and related entity that may hold insurance or assets.

3. Leveraging Our Unique Firm Advantages:

• Insurance Insider Knowledge: Mr. Lupe Peña spent years as an insurance defense attorney for a national firm. He knows exactly how fraternity and university insurers undervalue claims, fight coverage, and use delay tactics. We know their playbook because we used to run it.
• Complex Institutional Litigation: Managing Partner Ralph Manginello was one of the few plaintiff attorneys involved in the multi-billion dollar BP Texas City explosion litigation. We are not intimidated by national fraternities, university regents, or their high-priced defense teams. We have faced Goliaths before.
• Dual Civil & Criminal Expertise: Ralph’s membership in the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association (HCCLA) means we understand the interplay between criminal hazing charges and civil lawsuits. We can adeptly advise families and witnesses navigating both systems.

4. Calculating True Damages:
Hazing causes profound harm. We fight to recover:

• Economic Damages: All medical bills (ER, hospital, surgery, therapy), future medical care, lost educational costs, and lost future earning capacity.
• Non-Economic Damages: Compensation for physical pain, emotional trauma, PTSD, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life.
• Wrongful Death Damages: In the ultimate tragedy, we seek compensation for funeral costs, loss of companionship, and the family’s profound grief.

Practical Guides & FAQs for Merkel Parents and Students

For Parents – Warning Signs:

• Unexplained injuries, bruises, or burns.
• Extreme fatigue, sleep deprivation, or drastic weight changes.
• Sudden secrecy about organizational activities.
• Personality changes: anxiety, depression, withdrawal.
• Constant, anxious phone use related to group chats.
• Requests for large sums of money with vague explanations.

For Students – How to Exit Safely:

• Your safety comes first. If you are in danger, call 911.
• You have the right to quit. Send a clear, written resignation (email/text) to the chapter president.
• Do not attend “one last meeting.” That is where pressure and retaliation happen.
• Tell a trusted adult—a parent, a dean, a counselor—immediately.
• Preserve all evidence before you quit.

Critical Mistakes That Can Ruin a Case:
We detail this in our video on client mistakes that can ruin an injury case. Top errors include:

• Deleting evidence (messages, photos) out of shame or fear.
• Confronting the fraternity/sorority before consulting a lawyer, which triggers evidence destruction.
• Signing university-offered resolutions without legal advice, often for minimal sums that waive your rights.
• Waiting too long. Evidence vanishes, witnesses graduate, and the Texas statute of limitations, which we explain in our video on statutes of limitation, can bar your claim.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• “Can we sue the university?” Yes, under theories of negligent supervision or violation of federal statutes like Title IX. Public universities have some immunity, but exceptions exist, especially for gross negligence.
• “What if it happened off-campus?” Location is irrelevant under Texas hazing law and for civil negligence claims. Liability is based on duty and foreseeability, not property lines.
• “How much does this cost?” We work on a contingency fee basis. You pay no upfront fees or costs. We only get paid if we recover money for you. We explain this clearly in our video on how contingency fees work.
• “Will my child’s name be public?” Most cases settle confidentially. We aggressively pursue protective orders and sealed filings to safeguard your family’s privacy throughout the litigation process.

Why Merkel Families Choose Attorney911 for Hazing Cases

When your child has been betrayed by an organization they trusted, you need advocates who understand the complexity of institutional litigation and the profound human toll it takes. The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC (Attorney911) is not a high-volume personal injury mill. We are a Houston-based complex litigation firm that selects serious, impactful cases.

Our Texas Roots & Commitment: While our offices are in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, we serve families across Texas, including those in Merkel, Abilene, and throughout Taylor County. We understand Texas values, Texas courts, and the specific challenges of holding Texas institutions accountable.

A Proven Record of Taking on Power: Our experience in the BP Texas City explosion litigation proves we have the resources, tenacity, and skill to face corporations and institutions with limitless legal budgets. National fraternities and large universities use the same defense tactics—we know how to counter them.

Spanish-Language Services Available: Mr. Lupe Peña speaks fluent Spanish. If your family is more comfortable communicating in Spanish, we are here to help. Hablamos Español.

Your Next Step: A Confidential, No-Obligation Consultation

If hazing has impacted your family, you do not have to navigate this alone. The university and the fraternity will have their lawyers from day one. Your family deserves the same dedicated, expert advocacy.

We invite you to contact us for a free, completely confidential consultation. In this meeting, we will:

1. Listen carefully to your story.
2. Review any evidence you have gathered.
3. Explain your legal rights and options under Texas law.
4. Outline a potential strategy for investigation and action.
5. Answer all your questions about the process, timeline, and what to expect.

There is no pressure to hire us. Our goal is to ensure you have the information needed to make the best decision for your family.

Contact The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC (Attorney911) Today:
Call: 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911)
Direct: (713) 528-9070
Website: https://attorney911.com
Email Ralph Manginello: ralph@atty911.com
Email Lupe Peña (Se habla Español): lupe@atty911.com

Legal Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship. The outcome of any legal matter depends on the specific facts and applicable law. If you have a legal issue, consult with a licensed attorney.