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= Chad Meredith (hazing lawsuit) = Chad Meredith was a freshman Kappa Sigma pledge at the University of Miami who drowned on November 5, 2001 while attempting to swim across Lake Osceola with two fraternity officers. His death sparked national outrage about hazing practices at fraternities, eventually leading to the first law to make hazing a felony in Florida. Kappa Sigma was eventually banned from the University of Miami for four years from 2009 to 2013 for "social and alcohol violations contrary to their codes of conduct." His death also resulted in one of the largest verdicts ever levied against a fraternity for a hazing event.

The hazing incident
Chad Meredith was an eighteen-year-old freshman at the University of Miami. Meredith was a 'pledge,' or a prospective member, of Kappa Sigma. The night of November 5, Meredith had come back from a concert to the fraternity house, where he started drinking with two high-ranking Kappa Sigma officers : Travis Montgomery (president) and David May. After getting drunk, the group attempted a swim across Lake Osceola. Due to a hurricane warning that day, the lake was windy and choppy when they began. While Montgomery and May swam across, Meredith drowned 34 feet from the shore with a BAC of .13. Montgomery and May both denied pressuring Meredith into swimming across the lake and claimed that the swim was not a fraternity-sanctioned event. While the police ruled out hazing as a cause of death two days after the incident, the lawyer for the Meredith family believed there should have been further criminal investigation into the fraternity's role in Meredith's death. “This was a needless death in a fraternity hazing event," David Bianchi, attorney for the Meredith family, told the Herald Tribune.

"They tell you, 'you don’t have to do it,' but you know that you’ve got to do it. You’re supposed to do it,” said William Meredith, Chad's father. William Meredith testified that his son had told him about being hazed as a pledge prior to his death.

Civil trial
The parents of Chad Meredith filed a lawsuit against Travis Montgomery and David May for their role in Chad's death. Their suit alleged that the two men were negligent and breached their duty to aid and/or rescue, among other claims. The trial lasted four days, with Bianchi asking the jury for a $10 million verdict against the fraternity officers. After deliberation, the jury returned with a $14 million verdict. The jury found Chad Meredith 10% at fault for the event, so Montgomery and May were liable to pay the Meredith family $12.6 million. The money was paid out from the fraternity's insurance.

The Chad Meredith Act
In 2005, Florida lawmakers made hazing which results in injury or death a third-degree felony. Florida's anti-hazing statute was named after Chad Meredith in his memory. David Bianchi, the Meredith family attorney, helped draft the Chad Meredith Act alongside Rep. Adam Hasner, a lawmaker from Delray. Governor Jeb Bush, who was reportedly moved by the Meredith family's story, signed the Chad Meredith Act into law on the University of Miami campus where he died. Recent hazing deaths and injuries, particularly the death of FSU student Andrew Coffey in 2017, prompted a bipartisan effort to toughen the anti-hazing statute led by Sen. Lauren Book and Rep. Chip LaMarca. Both lawmakers are sponsoring amendments to the Chad Meredith Act drafted by Bianchi and Michael Levine, both attorneys for the Coffey family. The amendments are currently pending in the Florida legislature.

The proposed amendments would allow law enforcement to prosecute the organizers and recruiters for events where hazing takes place, even if those parties are not present. It would also grant immunity under the anti-hazing law to the first person to call 911 on behalf of a person injured by hazing, provided the 911 caller cooperates with investigators. The amendments were written in response to previous hazing incidents where absentee fraternity leaders would claim no responsibility for people harmed at their events. The immunity amendment is intended to provide an incentive for students to call emergency services as soon as possible when someone is seriously harmed by hazing. This amendment was written in part as a response to the circumstances of Andrew Coffey's death: when he was discovered, fraternity pledges delayed calling 911 for eleven minutes out of fear of what would happen.