The parents of a former University of Missouri freshman who is now incapacitated have sued his classmates and the fraternity he was trying to join for alleged negligence and vicarious liability.
Thomas and Mary Pat Santulli filed their complaint in Boone County Circuit Court alleging that their son Daniel Santulli, 19, is unresponsive and dependent on medical care in a Colorado rehabilitation facility due to members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity allegedly forcing him to drink a bottle of vodka at their fraternity house.
“It’s the worst brain injury I've ever seen and the brain injury is a result of the fact that Daniel Santulli stopped breathing because of the excessive amount of alcohol,” said David W. Bianchi, the attorney who is representing Santulli’s parents.
The young man’s blood alcohol content was 0.0486%, which is more than six times the legal limit for driving, according to the complaint.
“Universities need to adopt a rule that immediately expels every chapter officer if a fraternity pledge is seriously injured or dies as a result of a pledging incident because right now with all of these hazing incidents, the universities typically do very little to discipline the fraternity officers when these things happen,” Bianchi told the St. Louis Record.
However, the plaintiffs did not name the University of Missouri as a defendant because the school has an anti-hazing policy in place.
“You cannot expect the university to babysit all these fraternity chapters every night of the week throughout the school year,” Bianchi said. “They have an appropriate anti-hazing policy and therefore I didn't think they needed to be sued.”
Among the fraternity members who were sued is Ryan Delanty who was Santulli’s assigned ‘pledge dad’ the night he was injured.
“The fraternity officers know that these hazing traditions are going to take place and they know when they're going to occur and they know how they're going to occur and they are the ones in the best position to stop it, but they're not stopping it because so far they've been able to get away with it with impunity,” Bianchi said.
The Santullis are asking for damages in excess of the jurisdictional minimum of the court.
“Whatever we recover will be set up in a trust for Daniel’s benefit and his parents will be the trustees of the trust,” Bianchi added.
So far, no fraternity members have been charged criminally.
“The police department at the University of Missouri conducted a very thorough investigation and they have turned over that investigation to the prosecutor's office, which is standard operating procedure," Bianchi said. "Then, the prosecutor goes through the police report and decides whether or not they're satisfied with the thoroughness of the investigation or whether they think that some more needs to be done. They will then meet with the detective who led that investigation and the prosecutor will decide whether they have enough to file criminal charges.”