More than three years after the hazing death of Nolan Burch, his family finally reached a settlement earlier this week with West Virginia University, Kappa Sigma fraternity, Richard Schwartz, Jordon Hankins, and others. For those who don’t know, Burch “died in 2014, the victim of acute alcohol poisoning.” According to his family’s lawsuit, which was filed back in 2015, “he drank a whole bottle of alcohol in a fraternity hazing incident at West Virginia University.”
More than three years after the hazing death of Nolan Burch, his family finally reached a settlement earlier this week with West Virginia University, Kappa Sigma fraternity, Richard Schwartz, Jordon Hankins, and others. For those who don’t know, Burch “died in 2014, the victim of acute alcohol poisoning.” According to his family’s lawsuit, which was filed back in 2015, “he drank a whole bottle of alcohol in a fraternity hazing incident at West Virginia University.”
Though many details of the settlement are sealed, WVU issued the following statement about the incident:
“We believe bringing those tragic events to a resolution is best for all parties and allows Nolan’s parents to continue the good work they are doing through the foundation in his name.”
So in addition to the university and fraternity being named in the lawsuit, why were Schwartz and Hankins? Well, according to the family’s attorney, Lawlor Quinlan, “Schwartz was named Burke’s Kappa Sigma ‘Big brother’ who gave his ‘Little brother’ a whole bottle of alcohol to drink.” So far Scwartz has “agreed to pay out the largest portion of the settlement.” As for Hankins? Turns out he was the “Kappa Sigma pledge master who, despite the national fraternity revoking their charter, decided to go ahead with the pledge party by hosting it at an apartment, at a complex across the street.” Additionally, when discussing what transpired after Nolan drank the large amount of alcohol, Quinlan said “Hankins also helped Schwartz drag Nolan across the street from the frat party and back to the room where they left him to ‘sleep it off’.”
But how does Nolan’s family feel about the settlement? Well, according to Quinlan, his mother and father “are satisfied with the settlement and think it’s fair and justified.” He said:
“It’s obviously a devastating loss to TJ and Kim. He was their only son. Their oldest child. And unfortunately, again and again, these incidents are happening across the country and it reopens the wound that is never going to heal anyway…They’ve become good friends with other parents who have lost their children due to hazing and fraternities. And they’ve worked together with those folks and they’ve put together a foundation in their son’s name to try to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.”
Since Nolan’s untimely death, his family has “established the NMB Foundation in his memory.” The foundation itself has two missions. First is to “end hazing at college campuses and second, to convince college students to step in and help if they notice someone is intoxicated.” When discussing the foundation, Quinlan said:
“We understand college kids are going to drink, but what we’re trying to do is prevent the situation where kids get extremely intoxicated and don’t get the medical attention that they need. This hazing has to stop. The fraternities and universities all across this country have to learn that you can’t allow this pressure to drink to continue to occur.”
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