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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

WSU is liable in Sam Martinez hazing death, appellate judges rule

Appellate judges this week reversed an earlier dismissal and instead ruled that Washington State University could be held legally responsible for not helping protect a student who died during a hazing event in 2019.

The alcohol-poisoning death of 19-year-old Sam Martinez sparked outrage over hazing, and his parents sought changes in his name in an effort to protect future students . That led to new state laws and the passage of the federal Stop Campus Hazing Act.

Martinez’s parents, Jolayne Houtz and Hector Martinez, sued WSU after their son’s death, but a judge ruled in 2022 that the university held no “special relationship” that would create a duty owed by WSU to Martinez. The judge then dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice.

Houtz and Martinez appealed, and that earlier decision was reversed this week by the Washington State Division 1 Court of Appeals.

“In sum, while WSU did not have a statutory duty or any remaining common law duties to protect Sam, it does have a duty arising from its special relationship with its recognized fraternities,” the decision states. “So, WSU had a duty to use reasonable care to control (the Greek system) and protect Sam from the foreseeable harms of hazing and alcohol misuse.”

The decision moves it back to Superior Court for further proceedings “consistent with this decision.”

The case stemmed from an incident that followed Martinez’s enrollment in Pullman in the summer of 2019.

On Nov. 11, 2019, Martinez joined other Alpha Tau Omega pledges to the live-out house. Fraternity members surprised them with the annual “Big-Little” event where they traditionally gave their “little” brothers names, according to court files.

During the ritual, Martinez drank straight from a half-gallon bottle of rum, he later tried to shotgun a beer and drank clear-hard alcohol. He eventually passed out on a couch.

Fraternity members at one point tried to induce vomiting to no avail. Martinez was placed on a couch where he remained through the night. At 9 the next morning, he was found face down and unresponsive.

As a result of his death, some 15 members of the fraternity were charged with crimes related to the incident. One pleaded guilty to furnishing alcohol to Martinez, and 14 other defendants were charged with furnishing alcohol to other pledge members of the fraternity.

His family successfully lobbied for laws in Washington and joined forces with other parents to push for national change.

“There’s a lot of brave families behind this who have really taken their profound grief and channeled it into lifesaving legislation to help others,” Houtz told The Spokesman-Review last year. “It won’t bring back our children, but it is comforting to know that we may prevent another hazing death for another family.”

The federal law forces every college and university in the U.S. to publicly disclose incidents of hazing at their institutions on their websites. Schools are to include hazing incidents in their annual security reports that detail other crime statistics on their campuses. The bill also requires institutions to create campuswide hazing education and prevention programs.

“My heart aches for Sam every day,” Houtz said. “He’s the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing at night. I so wish that his life would have been spared and that this law would have been in place, because I think it would have saved him.”

A result of Sam’s family’s advocacy, the Washington Legislature passed a law that increased the penalty for hazing in 2023 and in 2022 another that requires hazing education at universities and for them to disclose investigations of hazing on their campus, similar to the federal version .

Houtz and the elder Martinez founded and operate the organization HazingInfo.org, which includes a database of hazing incidents around the nation in a “one-stop source” for parents and students. It’s shining a light on the secretive, often swept-under-the-rug culture of hazing so others have more information than Houtz did.

“Hazing is always something that has happened in darkness. I think about Sam’s experience, literally in a basement with the lights off and being forced to drink alcohol until he died,” Houtz said. “I think there’s no better way that I can think of to bring that behavior into the light than to share this incident data with families that can use it to make decisions for themselves and their children.”