Yale Frat Guys Sued for Fatal Tailgating Accident

A whole bunch of Yale frat dudes have been slapped with a lawsuit in connection with a fatal tailgating accident at the Harvard-Yale football game.

Back in 2011, a student driving a U-Haul full of kegs for Sigma Phi Epsilon’s tailgating festivities took a corner too fast and hit three pedestrians, killing one and injuring two others. Thanks to an “accelerated rehabilitation” program, the charges against the driver were erased after probation and community service.

Now come the civil ramifications.

According to the AP, the family of the woman killed and one of the women injured first sued the driver, the national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization, Yale and, for good measure, U-Haul. They filed against 86 current and former members of the college’s chapter upon learning that part of Sigma Phi Epsilon’s defense would be to wash its hands of the whole thing with the claim they “didn’t sanction the tailgating event at the game and its insurance company doesn’t cover non-fraternity events.”

What exactly would qualify as a fraternity event remains a mystery.

The Yale chapter isn’t a legal entity and doesn’t have insurance, so there’s probably not a dime to be gotten there.

Basically, this is a game of legal hardball. One lawyer for the plaintiffs told the AP:

“It’s a completely unnecessary effort we’ve gone through that caused unnecessary agitation to all of the individuals we had to sue and no doubt their families.”