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.

– Delaware Superior Court, New Castle County, C.A. No. 09C-04-067-JAP