A state judge has ruled that Southern University is not liable for a former student band leader’s off-campus hazing activities that sent two marching band members to the hospital in fall 2008.
District Judge Tim Kelley ruled Thursday the school may still be on the hook for alleged on-campus hazing activities involving band members that occurred earlier that year.
The Advocate reports a lawsuit filed against Southern and a former student section leader in the band in 2008 is set for trial May 4.
The November 2008 hazing incident, which took place at private East Baton Rouge Parish residences before that year’s Bayou Classic football game, was part of an unsanctioned initiation into the band’s unofficial French horn fraternity — Mellow Phi Fellow. The hazing involved bandmembers being struck by 2-by-4-inch boards.
Attorneys for Marcus Heath and Cameron Taylor, the two former band members hospitalized following the off-campus hazing, said they will ask the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal to reverse state District Judge Tim Kelley’s ruling Thursday. Read Full via NOLA
