Griffin, Estate of Brett vs. Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity and Individual Defendants
University of Delaware student, Brett Griffin, 18, died in November 2008 after drinking and passing out on a night when members of the Delta Lambda chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu celebrated the pairing of pledges with their “big brothers.”
Griffin died with a blood-alcohol level of 0.341, more than four times the threshold for drunken driving, hours after he and other pledges drank heavily at the party. Witnesses had testified about a fraternity tradition that a pledge was supposed to consume a full bottle of alcohol with his fraternity big brother that night.