Students walk near the Chinook Student Center at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington State University did have a duty to protect a freshman who died during hazing at a fraternity, the state Supreme Court has ruled, even though the house was not on WSU property.
The court on Thursday found a relationship between the university and the Greek system that benefits both, opening WSU to liability for the death of Sam Martinez. He died in November 2019 during a Gammi Chi event that involved hazing, the court wrote, from acute alcohol intoxication.
Fraternities can use the WSU name and trademark in marketing materials and receive a list of names of incoming freshmen with contact information, plus other perks like philanthropy funds. WSU, in exchange, can impose risk-management policies and emergency protocols that allow it to exert some control over entities it would otherwise not have.
Those policies were violated in the case of Martinez. Fraternities and sororities are supposed to limit alcohol use to students 21 years old or older and social events on chapter property must be alcohol-free.
WSU already knew that those rules were being broken, Justice Salvador Mungia wrote, and Gamma Chi has a history of “alcohol issue and hazing.” It shared a live-out for members who couldn’t find room in its main house with the fraternity Sigma Nu called “Delta Chi.”
In 2018, WSU investigated two separate incidents of underage drinking at the live-out, received other reports and was told by a parent that Sigma Nu was hazing pledges with alcohol there.
WSU punished Sigma Nu with a year-long probation on holding new member activities and on hosting or attending social events with alcohol. Parties continued there, the ruling says, and “WSU did no more to address the known concerns at that point.”
Martinez’s mother found no information on disciplinary actions against Gamma Chi as her son was preparing to pledge, and she alleges WSU did not share information it had “about what we later learned was a culture of excessive alcohol consumption and hazing prevalent in the WSU Greek system.”
Martinez was invited to Gamma Chi’s “Big-Little” event. Drinking alcohol was part of a ritual there, and Martinez showed signs of heavy intoxication in the chapter house before dying early that morning. The school terminated Gamma Chi’s recognition through May 2026.
The court found WSU and Gamma Chi’s long0standing relationship allowed the school to foresee the tragedy.
“Sam Martinez was the type of victim WSU was aware needed protecting,” Mungia wrote. “Not only was WSU able to identify potential victims of alcohol abuse and fraternity hazing, but it did in fact identify the class of students who were at risk of harm.
“WSU had documented the heightened risk of alcohol abuse for first-year recruits to Greek life organizations, especially first-year men, years prior and had taken some action to address this danger. Sam was a foreseeable victim of the dangers posed by Gamma Chi’s hazing that involved alcohol.”
The majority opinion reversed the trial court’s dismissal of WSU from the lawsuit, though Justice Barbara Madsen dissented, pointing at a previous rape case at WSU decided in 2024 that held the university had a special relationship with its students when they are on campus or participating in university-sponsored and controlled events but not at an off-campus apartment.
“A university’s duty is limited to where a student is on campus for school related purposes or participating in a school activity,” that ruling stated. Madsen wrote in Martinez’s case that WSU didn’t have sufficient control over Gamma Chi to impose a duty to protect.
WSU’s control was mostly limited to responding to violations and had minimal preventative measures, she said.
“The majority conflates WSU’s ability to discipline fraternities for their off-campus conduct with control over their off-campus conduct,” she added.
