making
headlines

Frat to be tried in fatal 2011 Yale Bowl crash, judge rules

The national fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon will be put on trial before a jury in the case of a crash that killed a woman and injured two others at the 2011 Yale-Harvard football game.

Judge Kari Dooley ruled Friday in Superior Court in Waterbury in favor of the plaintiffs, Sarah Short and the estate of Nancy Barry, 30, of Salem, Massachusetts, who was killed in the accident.

On Nov. 19, 2011, Brendan Ross lost control of a U-Haul box truck carrying beer kegs to a tailgating party in the Yale Bowl parking area, crashing into a group of pedestrians before hitting another truck.

Eric Smith, an attorney with the Faxon Law Group of New Haven, who is representing Short, said Monday that in most cases in which a fraternity member is involved, the national fraternity succeeds in being taken out of the case. In this lawsuit, its motion for summary judgment was denied. Smith said a jury will be seated in late December or January.

“They’re trying to cut him loose and distance themselves” from Ross, Smith said of the national fraternity. “If Judge Dooley had granted the fraternity’s motion for summary judgment … the fraternity would have been out of the case.”

Smith said that is what happens in most such cases, but the judge ruled that a jury should hear the argument that the national fraternity be held equally responsible for the accident, because Ross was acting as an agent for Sigma Phi Epsilon Inc.

Ross was “assigned by the executive officers of the fraternity to be a designated driver that day,” Smith said.

“There was enough evidence to allow this question to go to a jury and I think it’s a fairly unique thing across the country,” he said. “A lot of fraternities have … successfully distanced themselves from the negative conduct of their fraternity members.”

Ross agreed to a plea deal in the case and received accelerated rehabilitation and community service, avoiding prison time and a criminal record. He pleaded guilty to driving unreasonably fast and unsafe starting.

Short, a Yale graduate student at the time, suffered “permanent injuries to both legs; one is much worse than the other,” Smith said. He said she was run over by both the front and rear ends of the truck when it accelerated, and suffered “soft tissue trauma.” She now works for a nonprofit organization in Maine, he said.

The second injured person, Elizabeth Dernbach, a Harvard employee, did not bring a claim, Smith said.

Calvin Woo of Verrill Dana in Stamford, who represents the fraternity, could not immediately be reached for comment. The Yale chapter, known as Connecticut Delta, has a house on High Street.

Since the accident, Yale has banned kegs and large vehicles such as box trucks from athletic events, unless driven by authorized vendors.