A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that Fairleigh Dickinson University is immune from liability for the 2005 death of a student who fell from a fourth-floor dormitory window, The Star-Ledger reports. The student, Keith Orzech, 21, had been drinking heavily. The ruling overturns a $260,000 jury award to Mr. Orzech’s family. The three-judge panel cited New Jersey’s Charitable Immunity Act, which protects educational institutions if a plaintiff is a beneficiary “of the works of such nonprofit corporation.”
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3 Responses to University Not Liable for Student’s Fatal Plunge, Appeals Court Rules
22228715 - December 30, 2009 at 5:30 pm
According to another article [see http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-15/1262139309228080.xml&coll=1 the student was not only 21, but actually an RA! It is amazing that the lower court found the U responsible in the first place. Maybe I’m missing something in the details of how summer housing and staff training were run, but… wasn’t it reasonable for the U to expect the RA to enforce the policy? If the man had survived, he would have undoubtedly had his employment terminated, so how does his behavior reflect on the U? Must be more to the story…
greenhills73 - December 31, 2009 at 3:12 pm
It doesn’t reflect on the University at all. It reflects on the general acceptance by society in general of drinking. Young people will always want to do what is perceived to be adult activities. And God only knows why getting drunk is considered funny or amusing or cool by a large segment of the population. Traditional college-age students are probably the largest group to buy into this ridiculous, immature attitude. No matter how many students plunge to their deaths from dormitory balconies (and this is not the first time or place this has happened)that attitude prevails. On top of that is the widespread failure to accept personal responsibility. I’m sorry for the young man’s family, but he chose to get drunk and then did something stupid, as drunks often do. I am SO tired of this story because it happens over and over and over again, every year, all across the country…a stupid, tragic waste of a life.
swish - January 4, 2010 at 10:28 am
It happens over and over again. To people under 21, or under 18, who are supposed to be protected by our laws. We protect the hell out of them, until it’s no wonder they go on a binge in any brief unsupervised moment. And it happens to people over 21, who, by law, are supposed to have become suddenly “mature.”There’s no way to learn freedom and responsibility except by having it and using it, over time. Our drinking age (and other laws intended to protect young people) prevent that process from happening.