COLUMBUS — Nearly three years after the fraternity hazing death of Bowling Green State University sophomore Stone Foltz, his family’s litigation has resulted in about $12 million in settlements and is down to a single defendant.
Every one of the original 15 defendants named in the lawsuits, including the university and Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, has settled with the exception of Daylen Dunson of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, president of the fraternity chapter at the time.
A Feb. 29 hearing is scheduled to set damages, marking the first time the case has seen the inside of a courtroom.
“The reality is we sued the university, the national and local chapters of the fraternity, the officers of the chapter, and everybody who participated in the Big-Little event,” Foltz family attorney Rex Elliott said. “We had them legally dead to rights.
“It’s extraordinarily rare to sue that many defendants and come out of it with that many defendants resolving the case or not being dismissed,” he said.
Mr. Dunson has already been found by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Julie Lynch to be liable for damages after neither he nor an attorney responded to three different iterations of the complaint. He’d previously been sentenced in Wood County Common Pleas Court to 21 days in jail after pleading to reckless homicide, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, hazing, and failure to comply with underage alcohol laws.