## Facts

- Brian Yost, an 18-year-old Wabash College freshman and Phi Kappa Psi pledge, was injured during an incident at the fraternity house.
- Wabash College owned the fraternity house but leased it to the local Phi Kappa Psi chapter.
- Around 1:00 a.m., Yost and other pledges planned a prank involving carrying an upperclassman to a nearby creek.
- Upperclassmen decided to carry Yost toward a shower to run water on him; during this, fraternity member Nathan Cravens placed Yost in a chokehold.
- Yost went limp, was dropped to the floor, and suffered physical and mental injuries that led to withdrawal from school.
- Yost alleged the incident was hazing and claimed the college and fraternity entities had anti-hazing policies but failed to prevent the injury.

## Issues

1. Whether Wabash College owed Yost a duty to protect him from injury arising from fraternity activity at a house it owned but leased to the local chapter.
2. Whether the national fraternity organization owed Yost a duty based on its relationship to, and policies governing, the local chapter.
3. Whether the local fraternity chapter owed Yost a duty (including an assumed duty), making summary judgment improper.

## Decision

- The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Wabash College.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for the national fraternity organization.
- The court reversed summary judgment for the local fraternity chapter and remanded for further proceedings because material fact disputes remained as to duty and breach.

## Legal Principles

- In Indiana negligence actions, duty is a legal question; summary judgment is proper when the undisputed facts show no duty as a matter of law.
- A property owner that leases premises and relinquishes day-to-day control generally lacks a duty to protect against harms arising from the tenant’s activities on the premises.
- A college–adult student relationship, without more, does not create a broad duty to protect students from peer misconduct during private social activity outside direct institutional control.
- General anti-hazing policies and enforcement efforts do not, without a specific undertaking directed to the plaintiff, create an assumed duty to protect a particular student from a particular incident.
- A national fraternity’s promulgation of rules and risk-management policies, without operational control over day-to-day chapter conduct, is generally insufficient to establish a duty to protect individual pledges.
- A local chapter’s close control over the premises and pledge environment can create triable questions on duty and assumed duty, precluding summary judgment when the record permits competing inferences.

## Conclusion

The court held that the college and national fraternity were too removed—by lack of control and absence of a specific undertaking—to owe Yost a legal duty on these facts, but that the local chapter’s proximity and control created fact questions on duty and breach requiring further proceedings.


Yost v. Wabash Coll., 3 N.E.3d 509 (Ind. 2014)