A Baton Rouge jury on Wednesday awarded $6.1 million in damages to the parents of an LSU student who died in 2017 shortly after being hazed at a university frat house.
Stephen and Rae Ann Gruver prevailed in their wrongful death lawsuit, which centered around the loss of their 18-year-old son Max Gruver.
Max was a freshman journalism student vying to become a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity when he went through a torturous ritual dubbed “Bible Study.” Members of the fraternity spent nearly two hours grilling Max and other pledges about the frat’s history and forcing them to drink excessive amounts of a high-volume grain alcohol known as Diesel when they answered incorrectly.
Max died of alcohol poisoning and aspiration Sept. 14, 2017, less than 12 hours after the ordeal ended. He had a blood alcohol level of 0.495, more than six times the Louisiana legal limit.
A jury found that Ryan Matthew Isto, one of the frat members who participated in the Bible Study event, was 2% at fault for Max’s death. They deliberated more than 4½ hours after listening to three days of testimony in the civil trial against Isto inside the U.S. Middle District Court in Baton Rouge.
The panel of five men and three women determined Max’s parents should be compensated $6 million for the loss of their son and another $100,000 for the pain and anguish Max suffered during the hazing and afterward in the final hours of his life.
“This definitely sends a message to would-be hazers across the country to take pause and think about what you’re doing,” Gruver’s father, Stephen, said outside the courtroom moments after the verdict. “Think about the dangers of hazing, think about how it can harm people and how you’ll be held accountable.”
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