The parents of Gordie Bailey are understandably upset that their 18-year-old son died from alcohol poisoning during a fraternity "initial function", but who bears the most responsibility?
On the evening of Sept. 16, Gordie Bailey and 26 other Chi Psi pledges were blindfolded and left in the woods near Gold Hill. They were told to drink vast amounts of Ten High whiskey and Carlo Rossi wine, according to police.In my opinion, Gordie Bailey is solely responsible for his own death. Unless someone used force or the threat of force against him, mere peer pressure is not nearly enough to shift blame away from the drinker. I have no doubt whatsoever that the members of the Chi Psi fraternity are pathetic, low-life scum, but Bailey was an adult and knew exactly what he was getting himself into the whole way down the line. You don't drink that much by accident, you do it to impress your newfound "friends" and to get as drunk as possible.By the time the pledges were driven back to the Boulder fraternity house, police said, Bailey was "sick and visibly intoxicated."
By 11 p.m., fraternity members carried him to a couch and gave him a metal bucket. ...
Shortly before 9 a.m., Bailey was found face down on the floor next to the couch and could not be revived. An autopsy shows that he died from alcohol poisoning with a blood-alcohol level of 0.328 percent.
The family has not yet decided whom to name in their suit, Berg said, but are considering the fraternity, the individuals involved and the university.Your kids are killing themselves. Wake up to reality."We still don't see leadership from the university," said Lanahan, Bailey's stepfather. "They have not proposed any change in the system - but the system is killing our kids."
Lanahan said he hopes the fraternity will release the results of its investigation into his son's death. So far, Chi Psi has said it will not release the records.I'm sorry to say so, Mr. Lanahan, but Gordie's death was meaningless."If these things remain secret," Lanahan said, "then Gordie's death meant nothing at all."
Sad. The number one job of parents is to implant the wisdom necessary to survive into their children during the short time they have with them.
I disagree, Michael. If drinking was a required part of the hazing, then the frat brothers bear responsibility. They were in a position of authority, and instructed applicants to consume alcohol in order to obtain something (membership in the fraternity). It's extortionary.
In Bailey's case (and I assume in the case of all the other applicants) that instruction also required them to instruct someone to break the law.
If you don't think it's wrong, consider this. What if Bailey's college professor said "drink this bottle of wine or I won't let you in my class." Would you still say it was all Bailey's fault?
The parents might have taught their child not to idolize members of an organization that makes self-destructive behavior into an art form.
The comparison of a college prof to frat guys is laughable: the prof holds the key to something often useful--a college degree. The frat guys hold the key to more self-destructive behavior.
The parents are shocked that binge drinking goes on at fraternities? Please.
It's a horrible story, but a lawsuit isn't the answer.
Actually, the blame lies with those who prevented marijuana from being the euphoriant of choice. Had the pledges been competing to see who could toke the most, a lethal overdose would have been absolutely unattainable.
"The comparison of a college prof to frat guys is laughable: the prof holds the key to something often useful--a college degree. The frat guys hold the key to more self-destructive behavior."
Fraternities often have their own housing, and no one's going to argue that housing isn't useful.
Something else I should address. This guy's blood alcohol content was 0.328. He didn't just drink a beer or just get drink. He was blotto from the alcohol they provided him.
And again, he could not have legally purchased the alcohol on his own. If for no other reason than that, the fraternity is criminally responsible.
Les Jones is probably right about the legal issue. Serving alcohol to minors is illegal. Presumably, one reason for such a law is because minors lack maturity, might drink too much and suffer injury. So you probably have something like negligence per se.
Another point is that young immature men are, well, immature. They act like idiots. Particularly when they are in groups. Now, it is not true that all young men act this way at all times, but we know it is not an uncommon phenomenon.
With that recognition I would think that we would want to set up institutions and structures that run counter to this tendency - concupiscence - rather than encourage or remain indifferent to it. Imposing liability has the tendency of "internalizing" the costs of institutional behavior which might tend to form more responsible individuals.
Arguing that Gordy was free and responsible is absolutely true and beside the point. Gordy didn't spring into existence fully formed. Certainly his parents and family played a large role, but the moment Gordy could have used the most help was when he was intoxicated and no one stopped him from downing another 9 shots of 151 Rum, or whatever.
Gordie could have walked out of that fraternity the minute they told him he'd have to drink all this booze as part of his initiation. He could have said "It's illegal for me to drink this" (surely he was aware of that fact) or "this is too much for a person to drink" or "you know what, I really don't want to be part of an organization whose main activity is getting drunk." He gambled his life when he decided to drink so much. If his parents hadn't informed him that drinking too much alcohol can kill you, he didn't have very responsible parents.
Nevertheless, the fraternity should have some criminal responsibility here. Who bought alcohol for minors? Who offered it to them? These members should be brought up on charges, and the fraternity should be suspended by the university. But unless the university encouraged the fraternity to engage in illegal underage drinking (which in today's litigious society I'm guessing they did not), the university should not be held liable.
"Arguing that Gordy was free and responsible is absolutely true and beside the point. Gordy didn't spring into existence fully formed. "
No, but he should have reached the age of 18 fully formed, or at least fully formed enough to know better than to poison himself with alcohol. It makes little difference to me that there are ill-advised laws against adults drinking at all; the difference between the amount of alcohol needed to violate that law (a single drop) and poison oneself (unbelievably copious quantities) is such that simply violating the law, or declining to stop someone from violating the law, is not nearly enough to make anyone other than the drinker culpable for poisoning himself.
People are supposed to be able to fend for themselves when they reach adulthood. If they won't, that's just natural selection at work. If they can't, then their parents and teachers have failed, and trying to force them to remain children several extra years is not the appropriate response.
You might be right from a legal standpoint. From moral standpoint, we are all responsible for those we lead astray.
When I was younger, say the same age as Gordy, I would have had zero sympathy for Gordy. As I've gotten older I have stopped expecting people to act like anything other than what they are, i.e., fallible, and occasionally unlucky, human beings.
My legal opinion is that Gordy's frat brothers may have some liability depending on the answers to the following questions: Did they plan/expect to serve strong alcohol to minors? Had they had prior experience with minors drinking at their activities and had they had prior experience with participants being injured? What safeguards did they implement to prevent minors from drinking or to provide emergency support for the impaired? All of these questions fopcus on the element of foreseeability of injury which is a key factor in determining liability for negligence.
But apart from that, is it inconceivable that young men will drink to excess or that when people drink they lose their capacity to exercise prudent judgment? Obviously both points are true and are common knowledge to anyone who has ever been an 18 year old male. Now not everyone succumbs, but, hey, part of the fun in this situation is that one out of a hundred will fall.
The people who set up a situation fraught with peer pressure - the most powerful kind of pressure at that age - to consume a drug that impairs reason and judgment are not the people I sympathize with and worry about imposing legal responsibility upon. They at least were sober when they set up a situation that created obviously was going to create unreasonable risks for the weak and impaired. Even fools like Gordy deserve the protection of society and certainly they require such protection more than those of us who have always been blessed with Aristotelian moderation.
Now, go ahead and show your compassion and your Olympian detachment for how life is actually lived and tell me that Gordy's death was entirely his own fault and that those who were serving the alcohol had no causal connection for the death of a fellow human being. After all Gordy was 18, he was an adult, society has better things to do than protect those among us who take longer to develop prudence, who might be weaker when it comes to peer pressure or alcohol.
I guess this is why I finally left the libertarians. Libertarian theory is great, but humans are fallible and the injunctions were to "Love your neighbor" and "judge not lest you be judged" because, trust me, there is not one of us who doesn't have a day when we look at Gordy and say "there but for the Grace of God, go I."
JT: Well, yeah.
PSB: Well, yeah.
"Now, go ahead and show your compassion and your Olympian detachment for how life is actually lived and tell me that Gordy's death was entirely his own fault and that those who were serving the alcohol had no causal connection for the death of a fellow human being. After all Gordy was 18, he was an adult, society has better things to do than protect those among us who take longer to develop prudence, who might be weaker when it comes to peer pressure or alcohol. "
I do have compassion, not only for Gordy, but for other 18 year olds that do not need or want parental guidance. If we start assuming that 18 year olds are not fully to blame for hurting themselves, then we are assuming that such people must be protected from themselves for their own good. In short, we are saying that childhood must be extended even longer than it already is, and if the "children" don't like it.... too bad.
Childhood is already too damn long, and it's not right to deprive our offspring of the blessings of Liberty for one minute longer than absolutely necessary. To enjoy liberty, we must assume full responsibility for our own actions, and anyone who claims that you are not fully responsible for your own actions and for foolishly hurting yourself is plotting, perhaps with the best of intentions, to deprive you and people like you of their liberty.
Michael-
First of all, a death of someone as special as Gordie, whom you never had the privaledge of meeting, should be mourned, not criticized in a negative way towards him. If you have any clue how offending it is to someone like me who was one of his best friends to hear some heartless fucking asshole critiquing whether it was his death was his fault or not. It hurts. Who the hell are you to try and call my friend out for drinking too much. I am in a fraternity, I am a pledge, I understand how peer pressure works. Not just peer pressure, but FRATERNITY pressure. Can you say the same? Why don't you get a life and mind your own damn business, if you have a problem feel free to call me out on it.
I understand your "job" is to be on the unpopular side of an issue to foster conflict, so I take your comments as intended. I admire you sir if you educated your kid(s) before they went off to college to the fatc that they are totally responsible for their actions, even if it is after only 30 days on campus, and they have not yet learned their tolerance for hard alcohol chased with wine finished in 30 minutes if they want to join the "band of brothers" because they typically drank beer, and they are trusting people thinking no one would do them harm as that was the way their high scholl friends treated them. Unfortunately, most of us parents aren't as foresighted as you, and most of us, even today, do not know you can die of alcohol poisoning. You do a great service to us all to blame it on the 18 year old freshman. That way we, society, don't have to change things, except tell our kids that alcohol can kill, not just while driving a car. I wish we could all truly be as smart as you appear to be. Thanks for simplyfying the answer to our problems.
Michael Lanahan
I am sorry but I think that you are very wrong for putting that Gordie's death was a waste. That is disgusting to me, he has passed, and you are telling his family that his death was worth nothing. Get a clue, get some manners, get a life and start realizing what are the important things in life and in mere stories. To me, you seem like an extremely mean person. I can't even believe that people who would said something like what you said exist, let alone want to broadcast it on the web. WOW!