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Estate of Ruben A. Hernandez v. Arizona Board of Regents11/29/1991
This case presents the issues of the validity of A.R.S. § 4-312(B) and the potential liability of members of a University of Arizona fraternity, the local fraternity chapter, its house corporation, the national fraternity, and the Arizona Board of Regents for the serious injury and subsequent death of a motorist involved in a collision with an
underage, intoxicated fraternity member who had recently driven away from a fraternity party. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of appellees, and the personal representative of the deceased motorist's estate appeals. We affirm.
Because the case was decided on summary judgment, we view the facts in the light most favorable to the personal representative, the party opposing the motions. Gulf Insurance Co. v. Grisham, 126 Ariz. 123, 613 P.2d 283 (1980). On August 27, 1988, appellee Epsilon Epsilon Chapter of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, Inc. (Epsilon Epsilon) at the University of Arizona held a bid party to welcome pledges who had been through "Rush Week" and had agreed as of 6:00 p.m. that evening to join Epsilon Epsilon.
Approximately 63% of the members of the fraternity that fall semester were under the age of 21, the legal drinking age in Arizona. A.R.S. § 4-101(16). The fraternity kept records of its members' birth dates. All members, regardless of age, could contribute to a fund maintained by the social fund chair. The chair, a member over 21, kept the members' contributions in a separate checking account outside the normal operation of the fraternity's treasury and used the money to purchase alcohol to be served at fraternity parties. For the fall semester 1988, each member who contributed to the fund paid $80. All members who contributed to the fund, regardless of their ages, were entitled to drink the purchased alcohol at fraternity parties; they were not permitted to take their own alcohol.
Extensive discovery was conducted in this case. The evidence was that the fraternity purchased between six and eight kegs of beer for the party on August 27. It owned the equipment to have four kegs operating at the same time. A member testified that the fraternity generally began its parties with four kegs operating and then served from two kegs at a time the rest of the evening. Several hundred people generally attended the fraternity's parties, most of them underaged females.
On August 27, John Rayner, a fraternity member, was twenty years, five and one-half months old. He attended the party and was seen drinking there. The party ended at 1:00 a.m. At 1:45 a.m., Rayner's vehicle crashed into a vehicle driven by Ruben Hernandez. Rayner was traveling at least 43 miles per hour in a 25 mile-per-hour zone. His blood alcohol level at 2:30 a.m. was .15 per cent. Hernandez was rendered blind, brain-damaged, and quadriplegic. He died in July 1990.
Hernandez sued Rayner for his injuries, and Hernandez's three adult children sued for their loss of consortium. The complaint was later amended to add as defendants each member of the fraternity who had contributed to the social fund that fall semester; Epsilon Epsilon; Epsilon Epsilon Educational Foundation, the corporation formed to lease the property on which the fraternity house is located; Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, the national fraternity organization; the Arizona Board of Regents; and Steven Hare, a university student assigned to Epsilon Epsilon pursuant to a university program aimed at reducing alcohol problems among fraternities and sororities. After Hernandez's death, his personal representative was substi
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