Family Sues Cal Poly Fraternity in Student's 2008 Hazing Death
The family of an 18-year-old Austin honor student who died in an alcohol related hazing incident on December 2, 2008, has filed a lawsuit against the Sigma Alpha Epsilon and other parties they believe responsible for their son's death.
Carson Starkey of Austin, TX died December 2, 2008 after binge drinking with his fraternity. According to police reports from the incident in San Luis Obispo County, Starkey, a Cal Poly freshman, and other Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledges were taken to an off-campus location and given a bag of alcoholic beverages to consume. The pledges were given 90 minutes to drink the alcohol. Starkey was later found unresponsive. Fraternity members claimed they had intended to take Starkey to the hospital, but when he vomited, they took him home instead. He was pronounced dead several hours later. An autopsy revealed his blood alcohol level was between 0.39 and 0.48.
Starkey's family filed the wrongful death lawsuit seeking unspecified damages against the national Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, the SAE chapter at California Polytechnic State University, and nine individual fraternity members. The suit also seeks an injunction preventing the SAE fraternity from subjecting future fraternity members to dangerous hazing rituals. The suit names other examples of fraternity chapters nationwide being involved in hazing incidents that have led to serious injury and death. A jury ordered Sigma Alpha Epsilon to pay $16.2 million in the hazing-related death of a University of Texas student in 2006.
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