The claimant sustained a brain injury during the chapter’s philanthropic football tournament. The chapter used University property to set up two football fields. The fields spanned the lateral width of a grassy area with retaining walls at the end zones. The claimant was attempting to catch a pass when he hit the retaining wall and landed on his head and shoulder on a brick sidewalk just passed the retaining wall. The claimant sustained an epidural hematoma and had to undergo an emergency craniotomy. It is alleged that the claimant will continue to experience difficulties associated with his injury for the rest of his life.   

A lawsuit was recently filed against the University and the Sorority. The lawsuit alleges the Sorority failed to exercise reasonable care to make a safe playing field and should have known the dangers of the retaining wall being so close to the end zone. 

The claim settled for $1,500,000. A waiver was not signed even though it was procedure for the Chapter to have them signed for this type of event. We were told that there was a good chance that the wavier would have held up.  

A guest at the chapter’s barn dance fell into the bonfire. The claimant stood on a log near the fire in order to have her picture taken. The claimant slipped and fell into the fire. According to the newspaper, the claimant’s blood alcohol level was 0.14. The claimant was of legal drinking age. 

A lawsuit has recently been filed against the sorority, the owner of the farm and the liquor store that provided the alcohol for the event. It is alleged in the lawsuit that the sorority did not provide the number of event monitor’s required by the University.  

After the bus dropped the members and their dates off, a member’s date allegedly drove while intoxicated and struck a member and her date. The members date was killed as a result of the accident. 

A lawsuit is pending. 

The organization was setting up for a charity event when two members of the organization were pushing a student employee on a 25 foot tallescope ladder. The two women pushing the ladder ran over an extension cord on the floor which caused the ladder to topple over and the student employee to fall 25 feet to the ground. The student employee sustained a traumatic brain injury as well as severe injuries to her face, jaw, and teeth. 

A lawsuit was filed naming the volunteers, organization and the charity. The University was immune from tort liability because it is both a governmental entity and because it provided workers’ compensation benefits to the injured student employee. It was defense counsel’s opinion that a jury would likely place 25% liability on each volunteer/member, 25% liability on the organization and 25% liability on the University. Even though a jury may have apportioned liability to the University, they would not have had to make any payments. It was also believed that the two members would have been immune from liability based on the state’s Volunteer Service Acts.  

The University agreed to waive their subrogation lien of $1,500,000 which aided in the lawsuit settling for $850,000 during mediation. It is unknown if the charity paid a settlement. 

July 2021: Topics include transportation risks, wildfires, mental health, & COVID-19.

January 2021: Topics include planning safer events during COVID-19, COVID-19 employment and vaccine questions and more.

May 2021: Topics include mental health, Covid-19 vaccine, and housing agreements.

Use the Chapter House Self-Inspection checklist to review your property and life-safety risk management.

A sorority chapter was having a co-sponsored event with a fraternity chapter on campus in hopes of raising funds for the fraternity’s philanthropy. The event was held at the fraternity chapter house. Some of the fraternity members setup a make-shift slip-and-slide using tarps and spikes. The individuals that setup the slip-and-slide did not push the spikes all the way into the ground. The sorority chapter women had nothing to do with the design of the slip-and-slide.

About twenty minutes after the event started, a non-member guest went down the slip-and-slide and severely injured her leg on one of the spikes that was sticking up from the ground. The claimant’s estimated medical expenses are nearly $40,000. The claimant’s attorney has requested a settlement of $300,000 from the fraternity and sorority in question and has threatened further legal action if that amount is not paid to the claimant within 30 days.

The fraternity’s insurance company plans to offer the claimant a settlement of $100,000, and the sorority’s insurance company has offered to contribute twenty percent of the proposed settlement amount (equal to $20,000) to the fraternity’s insurance company.  

This claim demonstrates that your chapters, volunteers and members can still be named in lawsuits even when they had little to do with an injury occurring other than co-sponsoring said event. In this case, if the sorority had inspected the slip-and-slide and realized the danger that the metal spikes posed (as well as the risks associated with a makeshift slip-and-slide, in general), the injury may have been prevented. This claim demonstrates that your chapters, volunteers and members can still be named in lawsuits even when they had little to do with an injury occurring other than co-sponsoring said event. In this case, if the sorority had inspected the slip-and-slide and realized the danger that the metal spikes posed (as well as the risks associated with a makeshift slip-and-slide, in general), the injury may have been prevented.

Two members attended a semi-formal event in which alcohol was served by a third-party vendor. Both members were over 21 and reportedly had been drinking at the event. It is believed that they were walking home from the party and became disoriented and lost. One member tripped and fell as she walked into the street. The other member tried to help her up, when they were both struck by a car. One member was killed and the other member sustained serious injuries.

At this point, no charges have been filed against the sorority; however, the statute of limitations in the state in question has yet to expire.

A member attended a party at an “unofficial” chapter house.  The “unofficial” chapter house was actually an apartment, in which four chapter members lived together.  The apartment came to be known on campus as your organization’s chapter house.  The member was very intoxicated, and some other chapter members arranged for a fraternity chapter member to drive her home.  The fraternity chapter member accidentally ran over her as he was backing out of her driveway. 

In the discovery process of the claim, it was revealed that a traveling consultant from the national organization had visited with this specific chapter the week before.  The plaintiff’s attorney found evidence that the traveling consultant had participated in drinking games with the chapter members.

The insurance company settled the claim on behalf of the plaintiff for just under $1M.

One of the more challenging exposures of writing a women’s fraternity or sorority is keeping the insurance and risk management recommendations “contemporary” to the changing dynamics of a campus women’s organization.  As the size of the chapter increase in membership numbers, more and more sorority sisters are gravitating to alternate housing where several of them may live together.  On those campuses where sorority chapter houses are not as common and/or a sorority does not physically have a chapter house, it has been common for some of the sorority sisters to secure housing together.

Irrespective of the reason, the number of “living arrangements” outside of a traditional chapter house is increasing and are being referred to and/or being considered by the campus community as the “X Sorority” chapter house.  We refer to these locations as unofficial houses.

These unofficial houses pose a number of problems to the national organizations and, ultimately, to the insurance coverage.  The concerns include the following:

We have seen a significant increase in claims that are coming from those locations that are not the actual chapter house, but instead from these unofficial houses.

We have identified this concern to your national leadership.  We also know that, as a volunteer, you are more apt to be aware of the existence of these types of housing arrangements.  Should you have one of these types of arrangements on your campus, we would ask that you bring it to the attention of your leadership.  Upon their review, we have encouraged them to involve us, if needed, in addressing the housing situation specifically.