New Orleans Fraternity Hazing Injury Lawyer — When the Tradition Is a Crime and the Cover-Up Is the Proof
If you are reading this at 2 a.m. with a headache that will not stop, or a parent sitting across from a child who came home from a fraternity event changed — quieter, angrier, forgetting words they used to know — you are in the right place. What happened to that student was not an accident, and it was not a tradition. Under Louisiana law, it was a crime. The fact that someone called the next morning to tell your child to lie about where it happened proves they knew exactly what they had done.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We are trial attorneys who take catastrophic injury and hazing cases in Louisiana, and we are currently lead counsel in an active multi-million-dollar fraternity hazing lawsuit. The page you are reading is built to tell you the truth about what happened, what the law says about it, what the evidence looks like, what it is worth, and what to do in the next 72 hours — because in Louisiana, the clock on your right to sue is shorter than almost anywhere else in America.
Can You Sue If You “Voluntarily Participated” in Hazing? — Yes, and Here Is Why
The first thing every hazing victim hears, from the fraternity, from the university, and sometimes from their own doubts, is the same line: you chose to be there. That argument is designed to make you feel like the injury was your fault. It is not — and Louisiana law does not accept it.
Voluntary attendance at an initiation event is not legal consent to be struck in the face with a metal beer can. It is not consent to be pelted with objects, spit on, or left unconscious on a floor while no one calls for help. Under Louisiana law, a person cannot consent to a battery. The act of showing up to a pledge event — even one you knew would be difficult — does not sign away your right to bodily safety. The fraternity members who threw the objects, the ones who placed a dazed, bleeding freshman on a barstool instead of calling 911, and the president who called the next day with a cover story — each of them made a choice. You did not make that choice for them.
Louisiana’s comparative negligence rule (Civil Code Art. 2323) means your own share of fault, if any, reduces your recovery — but it does not erase it. And in hazing cases specifically, courts and juries treat “assumption of risk” defenses with deep skepticism. The entire purpose of anti-hazing law is to protect people who feel pressure to participate. If “he knew it might be rough” were a real defense, no hazing case would ever succeed — and the legislature would not have made hazing a felony.
How Long Do You Have to File a Hazing Lawsuit in Louisiana? — One Year, and That Clock Is Already Running
Louisiana has one of the shortest deadlines to file a personal injury lawsuit in the entire United States. Under Louisiana Civil Code Article 3492, delictual actions — the category that covers hazing injuries — are subject to a prescriptive period of one year from the day the injury was sustained. Not two years. Not three. One year.
For a student injured in late January 2025, that deadline is already close. If you are reading this months after the event, you may have weeks. If the injury happened more than a year ago and no lawsuit has been filed, the right to recover may already be lost — though exceptions exist for minors (the clock is tolled until age 18) and for injuries whose full extent was not immediately known.
This is not a soft deadline. It is a hard wall. Once the year passes, the court will not hear the case, no matter how strong the evidence is, no matter how badly you were hurt, no matter how clear the cover-up. This is why the first thing we do when a family calls is confirm the date of injury and calculate the remaining window. Everything else — the evidence, the medical records, the strategy — depends on whether there is still time to file.
What Is the Max Gruver Act? — Louisiana’s Felony Anti-Hazing Statute
In 2017, an LSU freshman named Max Gruver died of alcohol poisoning and aspiration during a hazing ritual at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house in Baton Rouge. His death changed Louisiana law. The legislature reclassified criminal hazing as a felony, with penalties of up to five years in prison when the hazing results in serious bodily injury or death. That statute — the Max Gruver Act — is codified at Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:102.8.
The statute does more than criminalize the act of hazing. It imposes a specific duty to seek assistance: a person who is present during hazing and knows that a victim is in a state of emergency has a legal obligation to seek medical help. Failure to do so is itself a criminal act.
In this case, three fraternity members were booked with “failure to seek assistance” — the very duty the Max Gruver Act created. The fraternity president was additionally booked with criminal hazing, a felony. The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue the charges, citing an incomplete police investigation, but stated the office could still seek to prosecute if more evidence emerges. That door is not closed.
The civil case does not depend on the criminal case. A civil lawsuit can proceed regardless of whether the DA files charges, wins a conviction, or drops the matter entirely. The criminal standard — beyond a reasonable doubt — is higher than the civil standard, which is a preponderance of the evidence. What the DA cannot or will not prove in a criminal courtroom can still be proven in a civil one.
Louisiana also requires every postsecondary institution to adopt a uniform anti-hazing policy and provide mandatory anti-hazing education under R.S. 17:1801. After the death of Southern University student Caleb Wilson in a hazing-related incident in early 2025, the legislature passed a new law requiring all college students to take an annual anti-hazing course. At Tulane itself, a different fraternity was found responsible for hazing in 2024 and suspended for the fall semester — meaning the university had actual, documented notice that hazing was occurring within its Greek system before this incident happened.
Who Is Responsible When a Fraternity Hurts a Student? — The Defendant Stack
A hazing injury is never one defendant’s fault on paper. The system is built in layers, and each layer is designed to point at the others when someone gets hurt. Understanding that structure is the first step in building a case that reaches every pocket of money and every share of responsibility.
Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity. The national organization sets the policies, collects the dues, and licenses the local chapter to use its name, its rituals, and its brand. Its executive director publicly stated that the fraternity “does not tolerate hazing or hazing like behaviors.” Yet the initiation night happened under its flag, in a house bearing its letters, using its pledge process. The international organization will argue that the local chapter acted without authorization — but vicarious liability and negligent oversight theories reach past that defense, especially when the national organization’s own policies prove it knew hazing was a foreseeable risk within its system.
Tulane University. The university recognized the fraternity, permitted it to operate on or near campus, and was legally required to maintain and enforce anti-hazing policies. A university spokesperson said Tulane “has mandatory anti-hazing training for all students and enhanced training for members of fraternities and other student organizations” and that the university works “daily to foster a safe and respectful environment for all students.” But a different Tulane fraternity was found responsible for hazing and suspended the same year — proof that the university knew the danger was real and that its training was not working. Negligent supervision and failure to enforce anti-hazing mandates are the core claims against the university.
Phi Kappa Sigma — Tulane Chapter. The local chapter ran the house, organized the initiation night, and controlled the event where the injury occurred. Premises liability attaches to the chapter for allowing a dangerous, unsanctioned event on its property. Gross negligence applies to the conduct of the event itself — pelting pledges with heavy objects, failing to call for medical help, and orchestrating a cover-up the next morning.
Individual Fraternity Members (12+ named in the lawsuit). The members who threw the eggs and beer cans committed battery. The ones who placed a visibly dazed, bleeding student on a barstool instead of calling 911 violated Louisiana’s duty-to-seek-assistance law. The president who called the next day with a false cover story committed an independent wrong — intentional infliction of emotional distress, and evidence of consciousness of guilt that a jury will hear.
The coverage reality in a hazing case is layered and contested. National fraternities typically carry commercial general liability insurance, but those policies frequently include assault-and-battery exclusions — meaning the insurer’s first move is to argue the hazing was an intentional act the policy does not cover. The university carries its own liability tower. Individual members may have homeowners insurance, but those policies often exclude intentional acts as well. The coverage fight is its own battle, and it is where experience with the insurance industry matters most.
What a 24-Ounce Beer Can Does to a Brain — The Medicine of a Hazing Concussion
The injury in this case started with a 24-ounce metal beer can thrown between the eyes of a freshman who was already being subjected to a degrading ritual. A 24-ounce aluminum can, thrown with force, is a heavy, rigid projectile. It struck the face — the frontal bone, the bridge of the nose, the orbital margins — and caused immediate bleeding and disorientation.
But the first blow was not the whole injury. The lawsuit alleges that fraternity members placed this visibly dazed student on a barstool — a piece of furniture that requires active balance, which a person with an acute concussion cannot maintain — and he fell, striking his head a second time and losing consciousness. That is a second-impact event layered on top of a primary concussion, and it is one of the most dangerous patterns in head-injury medicine.
Here is what the medical literature says about this kind of injury:
A “mild” traumatic brain injury — the term doctors use for a concussion — is anything but mild in its consequences. The Glasgow Coma Scale, which runs from 3 to 15, classifies scores of 13 to 15 as “mild.” But more than one-third of patients with a GCS score of 13 have potentially life-threatening intracranial lesions. The word “mild” is a triage category, not a promise about the future.
You do not have to lose consciousness to have a brain injury. The American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine diagnostic criteria recognize mild TBI on the basis of any alteration of mental status — confusion, disorientation, feeling dazed — without requiring a black-out. In this case, the victim was “visibly dazed and unsteady” before the second fall, and then lost consciousness. Both signs independently confirm a brain injury.
A standard CT scan comes back normal in about 90% of mild TBI cases — not because nothing is wrong, but because the damage is microscopic. The mechanism is called diffuse axonal injury: rapid rotational and deceleration forces stretch and shear the brain’s white-matter tracts — the wiring that connects regions of the brain to each other. The skull stops, the brain twists inside it, and the connections come apart fiber by fiber. A CT was designed to see bleeds and fractures, not torn axons. Advanced imaging — diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) — is built to detect exactly what a CT misses.
The diagnosis in this case — a chronic concussion, confirmed by a neurologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia — means the symptoms did not resolve in the days and weeks after the injury. Persistent post-concussion syndrome occurs when symptoms last beyond three months. At least 15% of mild TBI patients — and by some studies, far more — never fully recover. The headaches, the dizziness, the memory gaps, the personality changes, the inability to concentrate: for those people, “mild” becomes a life sentence.
“My academics, my job, my independence, and my sense of security were all taken from me.” — the injured student, in a public statement about the hazing that changed his life.
This is the proof problem the defense exploits. A brain injury is the easiest catastrophic injury for an insurance company to dispute — precisely because so much of the damage is invisible. The survivor “looks fine.” The CT was clean. There was no broken bone to point to on an X-ray. The defense will call it a headache, call it stress, call it pre-existing. The counter is in the medical literature, in the neuropsychological testing, in the testimony of people who knew the person before — and in the advanced imaging that can make the invisible visible. Learn more about how we prove traumatic brain injury cases — and watch our guide to brain injury lawsuits for the full picture.
The Evidence That Is Dying Right Now — The Clock on Your Proof
The evidence in a hazing case is more fragile than in almost any other type of injury claim. It lives on phones, in group chats, in the memories of witnesses who are being pressured to stay silent — and it disappears on schedules that no one will tell you about unless you ask.
GroupMe and text messages. Fraternity communications run on apps like GroupMe, GroupMe, and text threads. These messages prove the initiation night was planned, who was present, and — most critically — they may contain the cover-up instructions from the fraternity president the next day. But these messages are dying. GroupMe has auto-delete settings. Members replace their phones. Pledge class chat groups get dissolved. Every day that passes without a preservation demand, this evidence erodes. This is the fastest-dying and most important evidence in the case.
Tulane disciplinary records. The university’s own files may contain prior hazing complaints, investigations, and disciplinary actions against this fraternity or others. These records are protected by FERPA but are discoverable in litigation with the right legal process. They establish “notice” — proof that the university knew hazing was a problem and either failed to act or acted inadequately. The university will resist producing them. A targeted discovery demand is required.
Neurological imaging and cognitive testing. A baseline neuropsychological assessment must be established as early as possible. The defense will argue that any cognitive deficits existed before the injury. The only way to defeat that argument is with testing that shows the deficit is new — and the sooner the baseline is set, the stronger that proof is. MRI, DTI, and neuropsychological test results create objective medical evidence of the chronic concussion that a defense expert cannot wave away.
Fraternity insurance policies and national organization communications. The insurance tower — what policies exist, in what order they pay, and whether the assault-and-battery exclusion applies — is discoverable but not voluntarily produced. The international fraternity’s communications about this incident, about prior incidents, and about its anti-hazing enforcement (or lack of it) are also discoverable. These documents show what the national organization knew and what it did or did not do.
The cover-up communication. The lawsuit alleges that the fraternity president called the victim the day after the injury and told him to tell anyone who asked that he had been hit by a beer can while watching an Eagles game at the Fly — the Audubon Park greenspace along the Mississippi River. This instruction to lie is a separate, identifiable piece of evidence. It proves consciousness of guilt. It proves the fraternity knew what happened was wrong. And the witness’s memory of that phone call degrades with every day that passes before it is recorded in a sworn statement.
The preservation letter — the formal demand that freezes these records before they can be legally destroyed — goes out the day you call. Not the week. Not the month. The day.
What a Hazing Injury Case Is Worth in Louisiana
The case value in a hazing injury case is built from the same categories as any serious personal injury, but the presence of a corporate defendant (the international fraternity), a well-endowed university, and an intentional cover-up changes the math significantly.
Economic damages include past and future medical expenses for chronic TBI treatment — neurology visits, neuropsychological testing, cognitive rehabilitation, medication for headaches and mood disruption, and potentially long-term care if the cognitive deficits are permanent. They also include the tuition paid for an education the student was forced to abandon, and the loss of future earning capacity if the brain injury permanently affects the student’s ability to work at the level they were on track to achieve before the injury. A life-care planner builds the cost stream; a forensic economist reduces it to present value. A severe TBI’s lifetime cost routinely runs into the millions.
Non-economic damages cover physical pain, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and the loss of the future the student was building. Louisiana does not impose a general cap on compensatory damages in personal injury cases against private entities like fraternities and private universities. The medical malpractice caps that exist in Louisiana do not apply here.
The cover-up as a multiplier. Louisiana’s punitive (exemplary) damages are generally limited, but the strategic focus is on the gross negligence of the event itself and the intentional cover-up to maximize the general damage award. A jury that hears evidence of a fraternity president calling the victim to feed him a false story — blaming a phantom beer can at a park instead of the hazing ritual that actually happened — responds differently than a jury hearing about an accident. The cover-up is not just a legal claim; it is a trial multiplier for jury anger. And in Orleans Parish, which is historically recognized as a plaintiff-friendly venue with juries that hold large institutions accountable, that multiplier matters.
Based on the severity of the chronic concussion diagnosis, the presence of deep-pocket corporate defendants, and the cover-up evidence, the case value range for a hazing injury of this nature runs from approximately $450,000 on the low end to $2,500,000 or more on the high end, depending on the permanence of the brain injury, the degree of the university’s prior notice, and the strength of the cover-up evidence at trial. Every case is different. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Playbook: What the Defense Will Try and How We Counter It
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He sat at the table where the strategies were built. Now he sits on your side of that table, in English or in Spanish, and the first thing he brings is the knowledge of how the other side thinks. Here are the plays you will see, and the counter to each.
Play 1: “He voluntarily participated.” The fraternity and its insurer will argue that the student chose to attend the initiation, chose to endure the ritual, and therefore assumed the risk of injury. Counter: Louisiana law does not recognize voluntary attendance at a hazing event as consent to be assaulted. A person cannot consent to a battery. The pressure of the pledge process — the desire for belonging, the threat of exclusion, the power dynamic between active members and pledges — is exactly the dynamic the anti-hazing statutes were written to address. Assumption of risk is heavily disfavored in Louisiana as a matter of public policy in hazing cases.
Play 2: “The university had anti-hazing training.” Tulane will point to its mandatory training, its policies, and its public statements about fostering a safe environment. Counter: A policy on paper is not enforcement. The university’s own disciplinary record — a different fraternity suspended for hazing the same year — proves that the training was not working and that the university had actual notice of a hazing culture in its Greek system. Under R.S. 17:1801, the university had a statutory duty to adopt and enforce anti-hazing policies. The existence of training that failed to prevent hazing is evidence of inadequate enforcement, not a defense against liability.
Play 3: “The injury isn’t serious — it’s just a concussion.” The defense will minimize the brain injury, pointing to a clean CT scan, the fact that the student “looks fine,” and the absence of visible physical damage. Counter: A normal CT is exactly what the medical literature predicts in 90% of mild TBI cases — the damage is microscopic, not absent. A chronic concussion diagnosed by specialists at a children’s hospital is objective medical evidence, not a complaint. Neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging (DTI/SWI), and the testimony of people who knew the student before the injury will show the jury what the CT could not.
Play 4: “The national fraternity didn’t know.” Phi Kappa Sigma International will argue that the local chapter acted independently and that the national organization cannot be responsible for every chapter’s conduct. Counter: The national organization licensed the chapter, set the pledge process, collected dues, and published its own anti-hazing policies — proving it knew the risk was real. Vicarious liability and negligent oversight theories reach the national organization when it failed to monitor and enforce the very policies it wrote.
Play 5: The quick settlement check. Within weeks, someone from the fraternity’s insurance carrier or the university’s risk management office may contact the family with a sympathetic-sounding offer and a release form. The check will arrive before the full medical picture is clear — before the neuropsychological testing is done, before the chronic nature of the concussion is documented, before the cover-up evidence is preserved. Counter: Do not sign anything. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not accept a check. The first offer is a fraction of what the case is worth, and accepting it waives the right to come back when the full extent of the injury becomes clear. Every offer should be reviewed by a lawyer who knows what the case is actually worth.
How We Build a Hazing Case — From Preservation Letter to Verdict
Here is how a case like this is actually built, step by step, by people who have done it before:
Week one: The preservation letter. The day a family calls, a written demand goes to the fraternity, the university, the individual members, and any third-party platforms (GroupMe, phone carriers) ordering them to preserve every relevant record — texts, group chats, surveillance footage, disciplinary files, insurance policies, incident reports, medical records. This letter is what converts a record that could legally be destroyed into evidence that cannot be touched without consequences.
Weeks two through four: The medical baseline. We work with treating physicians to ensure the neurological evaluation is complete — not just the ER visit, but the follow-up neurology appointment, the neuropsychological testing, the advanced imaging if indicated. The medical record being built from day one is the foundation of the damages case. Gaps in treatment are the defense’s best friend; a consistent, documented treatment timeline is the plaintiff’s.
Months one through three: Discovery and depositions. We serve formal discovery demands on every defendant — interrogatories, document requests, requests for admission. We depose the fraternity members who were present, starting with the lower-level pledges who witnessed the cover-up call and are under less pressure to maintain the silence. We depose the chapter president about the phone call instructing the victim to lie. We depose the university’s student affairs officials about what they knew and when.
Months three through six: Expert assembly. A forensic toxicologist or biomechanics expert calculates the force of a 24-ounce metal can thrown at a face — the mass, the velocity, the impact force, and the deceleration that sheared the brain’s wiring. A life-care planner builds the cost stream for chronic TBI care over a lifetime. A forensic economist reduces it to present value. A neuropsychologist documents the cognitive deficits. A neurologist explains the chronic concussion diagnosis to a jury in plain language.
Pre-trial: Mediation leverage. We approach mediation after deposing the chapter president — because the threat of the cover-up evidence coming before an Orleans Parish jury is the single strongest lever in the case. A jury that hears about a fraternity president calling a brain-injured freshman to feed him a false story is a jury that punishes. The defense knows this. That knowledge is what drives a full and fair settlement — or, if they will not settle, a trial.
Your First 72 Hours — What to Do Right Now
If you or your child was injured in a fraternity hazing event, the actions taken in the first 72 hours can determine whether the case succeeds or fails.
1. Seek neurological evaluation — even if you think you are fine. A concussion can mask its own severity. The student in this case was “visibly dazed and unsteady” and then lost consciousness — that is a medical emergency, not a headache. If you have not seen a neurologist, do so now. If you have seen one but have not had neuropsychological testing or advanced imaging, ask for it. The medical record being built from the moment of injury forward is the spine of the case.
2. Preserve every digital communication. Screenshot every text, every GroupMe message, every social media post related to the event or its aftermath. Do not delete anything. Do not let your child delete anything. If the fraternity chapter group chat gets dissolved, the messages may be gone forever. Back up the phone. Preserve the device itself — do not replace it without first imaging it.
3. Do not contact the fraternity, its members, or the university about the incident. Do not respond to the “friendly” check-in call. Do not explain what happened to anyone associated with the fraternity. Everything you say can and will be used against you. If the university wants to interview your child as part of a disciplinary investigation, consult a lawyer first — the statements made in a university proceeding can be subpoenaed and used in the civil case.
4. Do not sign anything. No release, no waiver, no settlement offer, no acknowledgment of the university’s code of conduct, no medical authorization that gives the fraternity’s insurer access to your records. If someone hands you a document, read nothing and sign nothing until a lawyer reviews it.
5. Document everything. Photograph any visible injuries. Write down a timeline of the evening — what happened, who was there, what was said, when the president called, what he said to say. Memory degrades. The cover-up phone call is the most important detail in the case, and the victim’s memory of exactly what was said is evidence that must be recorded while it is fresh.
6. Call a lawyer today. Louisiana’s one-year deadline does not wait. The evidence does not wait. The preservation letter — the single most important document in the first 72 hours — cannot go out until someone is retained to send it. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, the call is answered 24/7, and the conversation costs you nothing.
Why This Firm — Attorneys Who Have Fought Hazing Before
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are based in Houston, Texas, and we take catastrophic injury and hazing cases in Louisiana, working with local counsel where required. We are not new to this fight.
Ralph P. Manginello is our Managing Partner, with 27+ years of trial practice. He is lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing lawsuit — Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston — a case that puts him in the middle of the same legal and cultural battle that this Tulane case represents. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the defense is trying to bury. He is a competitor who hates losing, and the people he represents know that about him.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney, a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how the claim-valuation software works, how the IME doctors are selected, how the surveillance is deployed, and how the delay tactics are engineered. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is answered 24/7 by live staff — not an answering service. We have recovered over $50 million for our clients across our years of practice, including over $5 million in a brain-injury settlement and over $2.5 million in a truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes — but the experience behind those numbers is the experience that builds the case in front of you.
If your family has been harmed by hazing — at Tulane, at LSU, at Southern University, or at any school in Louisiana — we are ready to talk. If the worst happened and the hazing took a life, we also handle wrongful death cases with the same intensity.
Hablamos Español. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish. If your family is more comfortable speaking in Spanish, the entire conversation — the legal analysis, the strategy, the next steps — can happen in your language.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if I “voluntarily” went to the hazing event?
Yes. Voluntary attendance at a fraternity initiation is not legal consent to be battered. Louisiana law does not allow a person to consent to a battery. The pressure of the pledge process — the desire to belong, the power dynamic between members and pledges, the threat of exclusion — is exactly what anti-hazing laws were written to address. “He chose to be there” is not a defense to hitting someone in the face with a beer can.
How long do I have to file a hazing injury lawsuit in Louisiana?
One year. Louisiana Civil Code Article 3492 sets the prescriptive period for delictual (tort) actions at one year from the date the injury was sustained. This is one of the shortest deadlines in the United States. For a student injured in late January 2025, the deadline is already close. If the victim was a minor under 18 at the time, the clock is tolled until they reach adulthood — but most college freshmen are already 18. Do not wait to find out if you still have time. Call and we will tell you.
Can I sue the university, or only the fraternity?
You can sue both. The university has a statutory duty under Louisiana R.S. 17:1801 to adopt and enforce anti-hazing policies. If the university had mandatory training that failed to prevent hazing — and especially if it had prior hazing incidents at other fraternitions on campus — it can be liable for negligent supervision and failure to enforce. The lawsuit in this case names both Tulane University and the fraternity as defendants, and that is the correct approach.
What if the district attorney did not press charges?
The civil case does not depend on the criminal case. The criminal standard — beyond a reasonable doubt — is much higher than the civil standard, which is a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not). A DA’s decision not to prosecute does not mean the conduct did not happen or that it was not wrongful. In this case, the Orleans Parish DA declined to pursue charges citing an incomplete police investigation but specifically said the office could still prosecute if more evidence emerges. The civil lawsuit proceeds independently.
What is a “chronic concussion” and how is it proven in court?
A chronic concussion — also called persistent post-concussion syndrome — means the symptoms of a brain injury have lasted beyond three months and may be permanent. It is proven through objective medical evidence: neuropsychological testing that documents cognitive deficits, advanced imaging (DTI and SWI) that can detect microscopic brain damage a standard CT cannot see, the treating neurologist’s clinical findings, and the testimony of people who knew the person before the injury and can describe the changes. A defense lawyer will try to minimize it as “just a headache.” The medical literature and the right experts make that argument untenable.
What should I do if the fraternity president called and told me to lie about what happened?
That phone call is one of the most important pieces of evidence in your case. It proves consciousness of guilt — the fraternity knew what happened was wrong and tried to cover it up. Write down everything you remember about the call: when it happened, who called, exactly what they said, and what false story they told you to tell. Do not delete any text messages related to it. Do not contact the person who called. Tell your lawyer immediately, because the memory of that conversation is evidence that degrades with time, and a sworn statement should be taken while it is fresh.
Will my hazing case go to trial or settle?
Most personal injury cases settle before trial, but hazing cases with cover-up evidence have unique leverage. The threat of a jury in Orleans Parish — a plaintiff-friendly venue — hearing about a fraternity president who called a brain-injured freshman to feed him a false story is what drives serious settlement discussions. We prepare every case as if it will go to trial, because that is what produces the strongest settlement — and because some cases do need to be tried. The decision to settle or try is always the client’s, made with full information about the risks and the value.
How much does it cost to hire a hazing injury lawyer?
Nothing up front. We work on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial and 40% if it goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is free. You pay nothing out of pocket. If there is no recovery, you owe us nothing. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — the line is answered 24/7 by live staff, not an answering service.
What if my child was too injured to make decisions about suing?
If the injured student is unable to make legal decisions due to the severity of the brain injury, a parent or legal guardian can act on their behalf. In Louisiana, a tutorship (guardianship) proceeding may be necessary if the injury has impaired the student’s capacity to manage their own affairs. If the student has died from hazing injuries, the family has a wrongful death claim under Louisiana law. In either case, the one-year prescriptive period still applies — so the family must act quickly.
Can the fraternity’s insurance deny coverage for hazing?
Yes, and they will try. Many commercial general liability policies carried by fraternities include assault-and-battery exclusions, which means the insurer argues the hazing was an intentional act not covered by the policy. This is one of the biggest coverage fights in a hazing case. The counterarguments include whether the hazing was an “occurrence” (accident) under the policy, whether the national organization’s separate coverage applies, and whether individual members’ homeowners policies can be reached. This is exactly the kind of fight that requires an attorney who knows how the insurance industry works from the inside — which is what we bring.
If you are still reading, you already know what happened was wrong. You already know the people who did it are counting on your silence. And you already know that the headache that will not stop, the words that will not come, the classes you can no longer focus in — those are not excuses. They are injuries, and the law was written to address them.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And the first thing we do — the day you call — is send the letter that freezes the evidence before it disappears.
The culture of silence only survives when people stay silent. You do not have to.