Do Frat Bros Owe Others A Duty Of Care Not To Fire Bottle Rockets Out Of Their Butts?
Look for this fact pattern on your next torts exam.
It takes a certain kind of personal-injury lawyer to look at the facts of this glittering night and wrest from them a plausible plaintiff and defendant, unless it were possible for Travis Hughes to be sued by his own anus.
— Caitlin Flanagan, regaling readers with the tale of Louis Helmberg III v. Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity and Travis Hughes, in a hard-hitting piece documenting her investigation into Greek fraternity houses and their “endemic, lurid, and sometimes tragic problems.”
In the Helmburg case, the plaintiff sued for his injuries after falling off ATO’s deck and becoming wedged between it and an A/C unit. Prior to his fall, Helmsburg reportedly attempted to use his cellphone to film Hughes shooting a bottle rocket out of his ass. Instead of soaring into the air, the bottle rocket exploded in Hughes’s rectum. Helmberg was so startled he tumbled off the deck.
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(Special things like this happen at frats regularly. Read on to see the complaint.)
Complaint: Helmburg v. ATO and Hughes
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The Dark Power of Fraternities [The Atlantic]