ST. LOUIS (Legal Newsline) – A fraternity won’t be liable after a Creighton University student pledging it drank and smoked marijuana to the point of bizarre behavior, then slashed the throat of a female whose dorm room he mistakenly entered.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit made that determination on April 5 in Teresa Spagna’s lawsuit against Phi Kappa Psi and several of its members, but not Wheeler.
Wheeler was participating in a “hell week” in 2017 when he entered Spagna’s dorm room and cut her throat with a pocketknife. She survived and sued, and Wheeler pleaded no contest to second-degree assault and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
But Spagna failed to allege the actions of the fraternity and its members ignored a foreseeable result of her being harmed, the Eighth Circuit ruled.
“While Spagna argues that the defendants’ hazing and initiation activities created the conditions that led to Wheeler’s assault on her, this situation is not one where the defendants should have reasonably anticipated (or were able to foresee) the specific type of intervening criminal event that occurred,” the decision says.
“Rather, Wheeler’s assault on Spagna falls within the type of cases where an efficient intervening cause existed.”
The fraternity “brazenly” violated its probation stemming from incidents in 2016 during the following year’s rush, the court ruled without imposing liability.
Wheeler failed a trivia test on Feb. 3, 2017, to gain initiation, but he was allowed to re-test the next week. Wheeler was still drained from the hazing and excessive drinking, the court said.
He went to dinner with frat members and was told he had to go back to the frat house to get drunk. At the house, he was also required to smoke marijuana.
He was taken back to the Creighton campus around 1 a.m. in a “black-out” state – “Witnesses who knew Wheeler and allegedly saw him on campus that early morning described Wheeler as confused, out of character, and, at times, belligerent,” the decision says.
Spagna left her dorm room door unlocked because she was sick and had asked friends to check on her. Wheeler confusedly entered her room, though the two had never met.
Spagna asked him to leave and handed him keys he’d left behind. He turned and slashed her with a pocketknife, leaving a five-inch wound across her neck.
“Without any allegations that the defendants knew Wheeler had a propensity to assault strangers or they had a special legal relationship that could extend a duty to protect Spagna from harm, Spagna’s amended complaint fails to state a plausible claim under Nebraska law,” the decision says.