86 Former Yale Frat Members Sued Over Deadly 2011 Yale-Harvard Tailgate Crash

Eighty-six former members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Yale fraternity are being sued over a deadly tailgating crash that took place at the 2011 Yale-Harvard football game in New Haven. Reports state that a U-Haul truck carrying beer kegs was heading to the Sigma Phi Epsilon tailgating area outside the Yale Bowl when it struck three people, killing one of them.

Brendan Ross, a Yale student and fraternity member, was driving the truck at the time. According to ABC News, he entered a probation program that erased the criminal charges against him. Nancy Barry, 30, of Salem, Massachusetts, was fatally struck, and two other woman were injured during the incident.

NBC Connecticut stated that Barry’s family has filed a lawsuit against Yale, the national fraternity, the event’s security company, U-Haul, and “the individuals who rented the truck and got behind the wheel.” According to ABC News, those lawsuits remain pending.

Berry’s family and Sarah Short — one of the injured women — said through their lawyer that they have filed new lawsuits as of December 30, 2013 against 86 former and current members of the Yale chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

The new suits were filed after the national chapter and its insurer disclosed part of their defense — “that the national chapter wasn’t responsible for the Yale chapter’s actions, didn’t sanction the tailgating event at the game, and its insurance company doesn’t cover non-fraternity events.”

Paul Edwards, the attorney who represents Barry’s family, said the following in a statement:

“The national organization has all but abandoned its Yale chapter, arguing that it’s not legally responsible since the local chapter had not been incorporated and was a voluntary association.”

Because the national organization is absolving itself, that means the lawsuit now falls on the shoulders of the 86 fraternity members. “They did everything the fraternity asked of them and God forbid something unfortunate happens and the national just runs away from them,” Edwards said. “It’s ugly, and it’s unusual.”

Both Edwards and Joel Faxon, Short’s attorney, believe that this move by the national organization is an unnecessary one because it forces them to sue the fraternity members for the events of the 2011 Yale-Harvard tailgate tragedy. “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,” Faxon said.