When a Scholarship Celebration Becomes a Hazing Tragedy: Your Family’s Rights Under Ohio Law
Your child earned a scholarship. That is not a small thing — it means a room full of people celebrated what your child had built, the years of work, the grades, the potential. And then, in the span of days or weeks, that celebration turned into the worst phone call a parent can receive. A hazing incident. A freshman. A family that was planning a future now planning something else entirely.
We are not going to pretend we know exactly what happened to your child, because the specific details of this case have not been made public in full. What we know is this: a Toledo college freshman’s family has filed a hazing lawsuit after an incident that turned a scholarship celebration into tragedy. And what we know from years of doing this work is that what happened to your child is not an accident, not a rite of passage, and not something the law treats as a misunderstanding. It is a civil wrong — and in Ohio, it may also be a crime.
We are Attorney911, and we handle hazing cases. Right now, our managing partner Ralph Manginello is lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit against a university and a national fraternity — a case that has taught us exactly how these institutions defend themselves, exactly what evidence disappears fastest, and exactly how to build a case that holds every layer of the system accountable. We are writing this page for you, the family sitting at a kitchen table at 2 a.m. trying to understand what just happened to your child and what you can do about it.
What Happened to Your Child Is Not a Rite of Passage — It Is a Civil Wrong
Hazing is not tradition. It is not bonding. It is not “what everyone goes through.” The law in Ohio has a specific word for what happened, and that word is not “initiation” — it is a violation of a civil statute that gives your family the right to hold people accountable in court.
Ohio maintains a specific civil anti-hazing statute that provides a cause of action for persons injured by hazing — and for the families of those who did not survive. This is not a generic negligence claim dressed up to look like something more. It is a dedicated legal pathway built by the Ohio legislature specifically because families like yours kept losing children and the ordinary laws were not enough.
The most important thing to understand — and the thing the other side will try hardest to make you forget — is that consent is not a defense to hazing under Ohio’s statutory framework. What does that mean in plain English? It means that any suggestion your child “chose to participate” or “could have walked away” is a defense tactic, not a legal bar to your recovery. The law recognizes what every parent knows: a freshman surrounded by upperclassmen in a fraternity house, at night, under social pressure, is not genuinely free to say no. The power imbalance is the whole point of hazing, and the law accounts for it.
If the tragedy resulted in death, Ohio’s wrongful death statute allows the estate to recover for the benefit of next of kin — including loss of support, companionship, and prospective inheritance. Ohio does not impose a statutory cap on wrongful death compensatory damages, which means a jury can value what was lost without an artificial ceiling cutting the number in half. A survival action may also capture your child’s pre-death pain, suffering, and medical expenses — the hours or days between the hazing and the end, measured in full.
If your child survived with catastrophic injury, the damages include past and future medical treatment, rehabilitation, loss of future earnings, and pain and suffering. The scholarship context matters here in a way that is central to the case — and we will explain why in the damages section.
Ohio’s Collin’s Law: The Statutory Framework That Changed Everything
To understand what happened to your child in Toledo, you need to understand a name: Collin Wiant. In 2018, Collin was a freshman at Bowling Green State University — roughly two hours south of Toledo on I-75. He died during a hazing incident at the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. His family’s grief became a movement, and that movement became a law.
Collin’s Law, enacted in 2021, is the most significant anti-hazing legislation in Ohio’s history. It did several things that directly affect your family’s case:
First, it elevated certain hazing offenses to felonies. Before Collin’s Law, hazing that killed someone was often charged as a misdemeanor. Now, hazing that involves forced consumption of drugs or alcohol and causes serious harm can be prosecuted as a felony.
Second, it expanded the legal definition of hazing to include coerced consumption of drugs and alcohol. This matters because the most common defense to a hazing death is “he chose to drink” — and the law now specifically says that coerced consumption is hazing, not a personal choice.
Third — and this is the provision that gives your civil case its sharpest weapon — Collin’s Law imposed mandatory reporting and anti-hazing education requirements on every Ohio college and university.
Collin’s Law imposes mandatory anti-hazing policies, incident reporting, and education requirements on all Ohio institutions of higher education, creating a regulatory floor that can serve as a negligence per se or duty-of-care benchmark in civil litigation.
What that means for your case is profound. The university your child attended was not free to set its own standard for hazing prevention. It was required by Ohio law to have specific policies, to report specific incidents, and to educate its community. If the university failed in any of those duties — if it had prior hazing reports it did not act on, if its anti-hazing education was a brochure nobody read, if its enforcement was a fiction — that failure is not just institutional negligence. It is a violation of a statutory mandate, and that violation can serve as the benchmark for the standard of care your civil case is built on.
At the federal level, the Stop Campus Hazing Act, signed into law in late 2024, amended the Clery Act to require institutions to include hazing incidents in their annual campus safety reports and to implement hazing prevention programs. This federal layer reinforces the Ohio framework and creates another standard the university can be measured against.
The intersection of FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and your case is something to understand early. FERPA protects student disciplinary records — but it contains litigation exceptions that allow plaintiff counsel to obtain those records through subpoena or court order. The university may tell you it “cannot release” disciplinary records because of FERPA. That is not the end of the conversation. It is the beginning of a discovery fight, and it is a fight we know how to win.
Who Can Be Held Responsible in a Hazing Lawsuit
A hazing case is never one defendant. It is a stack — and naming only the obvious one leaves money and accountability on the table. Here is the full map of who can be held responsible, and why each layer matters.
The University / Institutional Defendant. The entity that controls the campus environment where your child was a student owes a duty to supervise, enforce anti-hazing policies, and intervene. Under Collin’s Law, that duty is not discretionary — it is statutory. If the university had prior notice of hazing at this organization and failed to act, the failure is not just negligence; it is deliberate indifference. If a public university is named, Ohio’s Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act may provide immunity defenses, and claims may need to be filed in the Ohio Court of Claims rather than in Lucas County Common Pleas Court. This is a threshold question that must be analyzed early — but immunity is not absolute, and the exceptions are where the case lives.
The Local Chapter of the Fraternity or Student Organization. The local chapter is where the hazing actually happened. Its members participated, its officers knew or should have known, and its culture either fostered or tolerated the conduct. Organizational liability attaches for activities of members acting within the scope of organizational events — and a “pledge event” or “initiation” is the definition of an organizational event.
The National Fraternity or Organization Headquarters. The national organization licensed its name, set its standards, and collected dues from the local chapter. If it failed to enforce its own anti-hazing policies at this chapter, if it had knowledge of a hazing culture and did not revoke the charter, if its oversight was a rubber stamp — it can be held responsible for negligent supervision, negligent retention of the chapter, and in some cases for the culture it created. National organizations carry insurance towers that are often far larger than the local chapter’s, which makes this defendant central to the recovery.
Individual Student Members Who Directed, Participated in, or Facilitated the Hazing. The students who planned it, who carried it out, who stood by and did nothing — each can face individual civil liability under Ohio’s anti-hazing statute. Some may carry renters insurance or be covered under parents’ homeowners policies. Others may have limited assets. But naming individuals serves two purposes beyond recovery: it forces testimony under oath, and it prevents the organizational defendants from blaming nameless, faceless “members.”
University Officials, Greek Life Advisors, or Coaches. If identifiable individuals at the university knew about hazing reports and did nothing — or knew about this specific organization’s culture and looked away — they may face personal liability for failure to act on a known risk. This is the layer where deliberate indifference becomes more than a theory and becomes a named person’s documented choice.
The Evidence That Proves a Hazing Case — and How Fast It Disappears
This is the section that decides whether your case is strong or impossible. Hazing evidence is uniquely perishable — it exists in systems designed to erase it, held by people who have every reason to let it disappear. The window to lock it down is measured in days, not months.
Fraternity Internal Communications — Group Chats, Text Messages, Emails, Social Media Posts. These are the direct evidence of hazing planning, culture, and individual participation. They show who organized it, who knew about it, who joked about it afterward. They may show organizational knowledge and ratification — members congratulating each other, older members instructing younger ones on “tradition.” Messages can be deleted in days. A single group chat can be wiped by one member in seconds. Immediate preservation demand and forensic imaging of devices are critical — not next week, not after the funeral, but now.
University Disciplinary Records and Prior Hazing Complaint Files. These establish notice and constructive knowledge of hazing culture. If the university had prior complaints about this organization and did nothing, those records prove deliberate indifference and support punitive damages. FERPA-protected records may be subject to retention policies — and those policies may allow destruction on a timeline shorter than you think. Litigation hold and subpoena must issue immediately.
University Anti-Hazing Policy Documents, Training Materials, and Enforcement Records. These establish the duty the university assumed and whether it breached that duty through inadequate enforcement. Policy revisions can occur after an incident — and they often do, as institutions scramble to make their paperwork look better than their practice. The baseline version — the policy as it existed on the day your child was hazed — must be captured immediately, before it is quietly updated and the old version “cannot be located.”
Collin’s Law Compliance Records. The mandatory hazing reports the university was required to file under Collin’s Law. Statutory reporting failures can establish negligence per se and show a pattern of hazing incidents the university knew about and did not address. State retention schedules apply. Requests under Ohio public records law should issue promptly.
Police Investigation Reports, Autopsy Report, and Toxicology Results. If the tragedy resulted in death, these establish cause and mechanism, connecting the hazing conduct to the fatal outcome. Autopsy and toxicology are typically completed within weeks. Counsel should obtain copies and engage an independent forensic pathologist who can review the findings and identify what the official report may have missed or understated.
Surveillance Footage from University Buildings, Fraternity Houses, and Surrounding Areas. Footage may capture hazing activities, participant identities, and the timeline of events. CCTV systems typically overwrite within 7 to 30 days. This is the fastest-dying evidence in the entire case. Immediate preservation demand is essential — and it must go to the university, the fraternity house (or its landlord), and any nearby businesses with cameras. Once the footage is overwritten, it is gone forever, and the people who were recorded participating in what happened to your child walk away unnamed.
Pledge / New Member Education Materials and Pledge Period Schedules. These show the organized structure within which hazing occurred and identify all participants in the pledge class. They may be destroyed or revised after an incident. A preservation letter to the national organization is critical — the national may have copies the local chapter has already destroyed.
National Fraternity Risk Management Policies and Prior Incident Files for the Local Chapter. These establish the national organization’s knowledge of hazing at this chapter and its failure to intervene. National organizations may revise or purge files. Immediate litigation hold and discovery requests are necessary.
The destruction of evidence after notice has a legal consequence. When a defendant lets required evidence die after a preservation demand is on file, the law answers — an adverse-inference instruction, where the jury may assume the lost record was as bad as the plaintiff says it was. The bar for the harshest sanctions is high, but the leverage begins the moment the letter is on file. That is why the preservation letter goes out the day you call, not the month you file suit.
What a Hazing Case Is Worth: Damages and the Scholarship Factor
Hazing wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases against universities and national fraternities — with their deep insurance coverage and endowment assets, backed by Collin’s Law’s statutory framework and potential prior-notice evidence — command multi-million-dollar recoveries. The range, based on comparable cases nationally and the specific factors we can see in this case, runs from approximately $2,000,000 on the low end to $10,000,000 or more on the high end.
Those numbers are not a prediction for your case. They are a frame — a way to understand what is at stake so you can make decisions with your eyes open. The actual value of your case depends on facts we do not yet have: the mechanism of injury, the number and depth of defendants, the prior-notice evidence, the jurisdiction, and whether the conduct rises to the level that opens punitive damages.
The Scholarship Factor — Why It Amplifies the Economic Damages. Your child was a scholarship recipient. That is not just a narrative detail — it is a forensic economics multiplier. A scholarship signals academic achievement, demonstrated potential, and a high-probability career trajectory. A forensic economist can model that trajectory with real data: scholarship students statistically earn more, graduate at higher rates, and enter higher-paying professions. The lost-earnings projection for a scholarship-winning freshman is substantially larger than for an average student, because the baseline from which the projection starts is higher and the probability of achieving it is stronger.
In a wrongful death case, the family’s claim encompasses loss of the student’s future earning capacity — and Ohio does not cap wrongful death compensatory damages. That means the full economic model, from the scholarship through the projected career, goes to the jury without an artificial ceiling. In a survival action, the student’s pre-death pain and suffering is recoverable — the hours or days between the hazing and the end, measured in full human terms.
Punitive Damages. Ohio allows punitive damages for reckless or intentional conduct. In a hazing case, punitive damages are particularly warranted where the university or organization had prior notice of hazing and failed to act — because that failure transforms the case from an accident into a choice. Ohio may cap punitive damages at a multiple of compensatory damages — the specific cap should be confirmed against current Ohio law at the time of filing — but the existence of punitive exposure is what pushes a case from a settlement into the range that changes how institutions operate.
The Deflators. Honest assessment requires naming what can reduce value. If a public university is the primary defendant, sovereign immunity under Ohio’s Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act may limit recovery. Comparative fault arguments — the defense claiming the student “chose to participate” — can reduce the award by a percentage, though consent is not a defense to hazing under the statute. Some individual defendants may have limited assets. These are real factors, and a lawyer who does not name them is not being straight with you.
The Insurance and Institutional Playbook: What They Will Try
In a hazing case, the “adjuster” is not a single person with a clipboard. It is a coordinated defense machine — the university’s general counsel and risk management office, the fraternity’s insurance carrier, the national organization’s legal team, and the individual members’ parents’ homeowners carriers. They have done this before. They have a playbook. Here are the plays, and here is how each one is countered.
Play 1: “The student chose to participate.” This is the oldest and most predictable move. The defense will frame your child as a willing participant who understood the risks. The counter is the statute itself: consent is not a defense to hazing under Ohio law. The law recognizes what the defense wants the jury to forget — that a freshman surrounded by upperclassmen, desperate to belong, under social and organizational pressure, is not genuinely free to consent. Every time the defense says “he chose to be there,” the answer is the same: the law says that does not matter.
Play 2: “We had anti-hazing policies in place.” The university will produce a binder of policies, a link to a website, and a signed acknowledgment form. The counter is enforcement, not existence. Having a policy that nobody enforced is not a defense — it is an admission that the university knew the danger existed and chose paperwork over protection. The discovery target is the enforcement record: how many hazing complaints were filed, how many were investigated, how many resulted in actual sanctions, and how many were quietly closed. The gap between the policy and the practice is the case.
Play 3: “This was an off-campus event we did not control.” If the hazing occurred at a fraternity house or an off-campus location, the university will argue it lacked control. The counter is Collin’s Law’s broad jurisdiction — the mandatory reporting and education requirements reach off-campus hazing involving university students and recognized organizations. And the national fraternity cannot disclaim control of its own chapter’s activities at a house it approved, at an event its pledge structure created.
Play 4: The fast settlement check. In the weeks after a hazing death or catastrophic injury, someone from the university’s risk management office or the fraternity’s carrier may reach out to the family with a settlement offer — a check, a release, and a request to “put this behind us.” That check will arrive before the medical bills are finalized, before the toxicology is complete, before the group chats have been preserved, and before the family understands what the case is actually worth. It is designed to close the case at its cheapest moment. The counter is simple: do not sign anything, do not accept anything, and do not have a conversation with anyone from the university or the fraternity without a lawyer present. Every offer made before evidence is preserved is an offer made from fear — their fear of what the evidence will show.
Play 5: “The individual members acted outside the scope.” The organization will try to characterize the hazing as rogue behavior by a few bad apples, not an organizational practice. The counter is the evidence of pattern — prior incidents, group chat planning, organizational culture, the pledge structure itself. Hazing is not an individual act; it is an organizational ritual. The proof is in the communications, the witness statements, and the history.
How a Hazing Case Is Actually Built: The Proof Story
Here is how a case like this is actually won — not in the abstract, but step by step, from the day you call to the day a jury hears what happened.
Week One: The Preservation Letter. The first thing that happens is a preservation demand — not one letter, but several, sent simultaneously to the university, the local chapter, the national organization, and any third-party vendors (security companies, camera-system providers). Each letter names the specific records that must be frozen: the group chats, the disciplinary files, the Collin’s Law compliance reports, the surveillance footage, the pledge materials, the policy documents as they existed on the date of the incident. The letter is the legal instrument that converts routine deletion into sanctionable spoliation. Once it is on file, if evidence disappears, the jury can be told to assume the worst.
Weeks Two Through Four: The Records Pull. Police reports, autopsy and toxicology results, the university’s public records under Ohio’s open records law, the initial witness identification. An independent forensic pathologist is engaged to review the official findings. The forensic pathologist looks for what the official report understated — the timeline, the mechanism, the connection between the hazing conduct and the harm.
Months One Through Three: Discovery. The complaint is filed. Written discovery goes out — interrogatories, requests for production, requests for admission. The targets are the records the preservation letter froze: the disciplinary files, the prior hazing complaints, the Collin’s Law compliance filings, the internal communications. Depositions follow — the fraternity members who were present, the university officials who were responsible, the national organization’s risk management staff. Under oath, the story that was told in press releases and the story that was told in group chats are laid side by side, and the gap between them is the case.
The Expert Build. A hazing-prevention expert is engaged to testify about industry standards for fraternity risk management — what a responsible national organization does to prevent hazing at its chapters, and what this one did not do. A forensic economist builds the lost-earning-capacity model, starting from the scholarship and projecting forward through the career your child would have had. If the case involves a public university, sovereign immunity challenges are anticipated and the Ohio Court of Claims jurisdictional framework is prepared.
The Trial Narrative. The story the jury hears is built from two pillars. The first is Collin’s Law — the codified standard of care that the defendants violated. The law was written because a student died, and the university and the fraternity failed to follow it, and another student died. The second is the scholarship celebration — the life trajectory the hazing extinguished. Your child was celebrated for achievement. That achievement was the evidence of what was lost — not in the abstract, but in the specific, documented, earned terms of a scholarship that proved what your child was becoming.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What Not to Do
If you are reading this in the days after the incident, here is what matters most right now.
Do get medical documentation for everything. If your child survived, every symptom, every appointment, every diagnostic test is evidence. Symptoms lie — a person who seems “okay” in the first hours may have internal injuries, a brain injury, or psychological trauma that declares itself days later. The medical record is the baseline. If your child did not survive, the autopsy and toxicology reports are the foundation of the causation case. Request copies. Engage an independent forensic pathologist.
Do identify and preserve evidence immediately. The surveillance footage from the fraternity house, the group chats on the members’ phones, the university’s disciplinary records — every one of these is on a clock. The fastest-dying evidence is the CCTV, which can overwrite in 7 to 30 days. The preservation letter is the single most time-sensitive step in the entire case.
Do not sign anything from the university or the fraternity. No release, no acknowledgment, no settlement offer, no “memorandum of understanding.” If someone hands you a document and says “this is just a formality,” do not sign it. Everything is not a formality. Some of it is a trap designed to close your case before it opens.
Do not give a recorded statement. Someone — from the university’s risk management office, from the fraternity’s insurance carrier, from a “neutral investigator” the university hired — may ask you to “just tell us what happened” on the record. That recording is being built to be quoted against you. The rule is simple: no recorded statements without a lawyer present.
Do not post on social media. Not about the incident, not about your grief, not about the university, not about the fraternity. Everything you post is discoverable and will be used by the defense to minimize what happened. Grieve privately. Let your lawyer speak publicly.
Do call a lawyer. Not next month. Not after the funeral. Now — because the evidence that proves what happened to your child is being erased on a schedule, and the only thing that stops the clock is a preservation demand from someone with the authority to send it.
The Medicine of Hazing: What Happens to the Body
Hazing is not a single mechanism. It is a category of harm that includes multiple pathways, each with its own physics, its own medical timeline, and its own proof problem. We do not know the specific mechanism in this case, but we know the landscape — and the family watching a loved one suffer needs to understand what the medicine shows.
Coerced Alcohol Consumption. The most common cause of hazing death in the United States is acute alcohol poisoning. A blood alcohol concentration above 0.30 is life-threatening; above 0.40 is potentially lethal. The body’s respiratory drive is suppressed by alcohol — the person simply stops breathing. Aspiration of vomit while unconscious is a parallel killer. The defense will argue the student “chose to drink.” The law, under Collin’s Law’s expanded definition, says coerced consumption is hazing. The medicine says a freshman forced to consume a lethal quantity of alcohol in a fraternity basement did not “choose” anything — the dose was the weapon, and the people who administered it are responsible for the outcome.
Physical Trauma. Beatings, “paddle sessions,” forced exercise to exhaustion, falls during blindfolded activities. The injuries range from contusions and fractures to traumatic brain injury and internal organ rupture. Rhabdomyolysis — the breakdown of muscle tissue that floods the kidneys with myoglobin and causes acute kidney failure — can follow severe physical abuse or forced extreme exertion. The proof problem is that bruises heal and the defense will argue the injuries were minor. The counter is the medical record: every emergency department note, every imaging study, every laboratory value documented in the hours and days after the hazing.
Psychological Trauma. PTSD is not a mood. It is a formal medical diagnosis with eight separate diagnostic criteria, and a person must meet every one of them: the traumatic event, the intrusive memories, the avoidance, the negative alterations in cognition and mood, the changes in arousal and reactivity, the duration beyond one month, the functional impairment. Hazing is specifically the kind of event — involving humiliation, powerlessness, physical danger, and loss of autonomy — that produces PTSD at high rates. The defense will call it “hurt feelings.” The medicine calls it a recognized psychiatric injury with a diagnostic code, validated assessment instruments, and a treatment literature.
The Long Arc. If your child survived, the harm does not end at discharge. Traumatic brain injuries progress over months. PTSD symptoms can persist for years. Substance use disorders can develop as self-medication. The life-care plan — the document that prices out every treatment, every therapy session, every medication, every follow-up appointment across the injured person’s expected lifespan — is what converts “lifetime care” from a phrase into a figure a jury can trust.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we sue if our child “agreed” to participate in the hazing?
Yes. Under Ohio’s anti-hazing statutory framework, consent is not a defense to hazing. The law recognizes that a freshman under social pressure, surrounded by upperclassmen, in an organization whose acceptance the student desperately wants, is not genuinely free to consent. Any argument that your child “chose to participate” is a defense tactic, not a legal barrier to your recovery.
How long do we have to file a hazing lawsuit in Ohio?
Ohio’s statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death is generally two years. This deadline should be confirmed against current Ohio law at the time of filing, as statutes can be amended and tolling provisions may apply. The critical point is that the evidence preservation window is far shorter than the legal filing window — the surveillance footage that proves your case can be gone in 30 days, even though you have two years to file. The day you call a lawyer is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
Can we sue the university if it is a public school?
Yes, but the path is different. If a public university is named as a defendant, Ohio’s Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act may provide immunity defenses, and claims may need to be filed in the Ohio Court of Claims rather than in the county’s common pleas court. Immunity is not absolute — it has exceptions, and the exceptions are where the case lives. The Collin’s Law statutory duties create a framework that can pierce immunity arguments, because the university was not merely exercising discretion; it was violating a specific legislative mandate.
What if the hazing happened off-campus?
Off-campus hazing does not let the university off the hook. Collin’s Law’s mandatory reporting and education requirements reach hazing involving university students and recognized organizations, regardless of where the conduct occurred. The national fraternity certainly cannot disclaim responsibility for its own chapter’s activities at a location the pledge structure created. The off-campus argument is a defense the law has already anticipated.
How much is a hazing wrongful death case worth?
Hazing wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases against universities and national fraternities, with their deep insurance coverage and endowment assets, backed by Collin’s Law’s statutory framework and potential prior-notice evidence, command multi-million-dollar recoveries. Based on comparable cases nationally and the factors visible in this case, the range runs from approximately $2,000,000 to $10,000,000 or more. The scholarship context amplifies the economic damages because a forensic economist can model a high-probability career trajectory for a scholarship-recipient student. The actual value of your case depends on facts that will emerge in discovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What evidence disappears the fastest?
Surveillance footage is the fastest-dying evidence — CCTV systems at fraternity houses, university buildings, and nearby businesses typically overwrite within 7 to 30 days. Group chats and text messages can be deleted by any member in seconds. University disciplinary records may be subject to retention policies that allow destruction on a defined timeline. The preservation letter — sent the day you call a lawyer — is the only thing that stops the clock. Once evidence is destroyed after a preservation demand is on file, the court can instruct the jury to assume the missing evidence would have helped your case.
What if the fraternity says it was not an official event?
Fraternities routinely argue that hazing occurred at an “unofficial” gathering, outside the scope of organizational liability. The counter is the pledge structure itself — the hazing exists because of the organization’s membership process, whether the specific event was on the official calendar or not. Group chat evidence, witness testimony, and the pattern of “tradition” establish that the conduct was organizational in nature, not a random social event. The national organization’s own risk management policies and prior incident files frequently show that what was “unofficial” on paper was well-known in practice.
Should we talk to the university’s investigator or the fraternity’s insurance company?
No. Not without a lawyer present. The university’s investigator is building a record that protects the university. The fraternity’s insurance carrier is building a record that minimizes the payout. Both are trained to ask questions in ways that produce answers useful to the defense. Every conversation you have without your own advocate present is a conversation that can be used against you. The rule is absolute: no statements, no recordings, no signed documents without representation.
Can individual students be held personally responsible?
Yes. Individual student members who directed, participated in, or facilitated the hazing can face civil liability under Ohio’s anti-hazing statute, and under Collin’s Law, they may face criminal prosecution. Some may be covered under their parents’ homeowners insurance policies. Others may have limited personal assets. But naming individuals serves purposes beyond recovery — it forces testimony under oath, it prevents the organization from blaming unnamed “members,” and it creates personal accountability that organizational settlements alone cannot achieve.
Why This Firm: Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Attorney911 is The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that takes hazing cases, and we are not guessing about how to build one — we are doing it right now.
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is the lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit — Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston — a case that has put him inside the machinery of how universities and national fraternities defend themselves, what evidence they try to erase, and how to hold every layer accountable. Ralph was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the institution does not want told — and how to tell it to a jury in words that land.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He sat across the table from the claimants. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the quick check arrives with a release printed on the back. Now he sits on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We work on contingency. That means 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call is free. And the 24/7 line is staffed by live people, not an answering service.
Hablamos Español. We serve your family fully in Spanish.
If your child was harmed in a hazing incident in Toledo or anywhere in Ohio, the evidence that proves what happened is disappearing on a schedule measured in days. The preservation letter that stops the clock is the first thing we send — the day you call. The consultation costs nothing. The call costs nothing. What it costs to wait is everything.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win your case.
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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.