Cocktails on Campus: Are Libations a Liability?

Alcohol abuse on college campuses is not a recent development unique to the current generation of college students. College freshmen have been surveyed annually since 1966, and the data shows that the number of students who report drinking "frequently" or "occasionally" has in fact slightly declined in recent years. In 1966, 53.5% of all freshmen reported drinking beer frequently or occasionally, and 44.4% reported drinking wine. Beer drinking increased during the late 1970s and early 1980s; specifically, in 1978, 73.2% of all freshmen said they drank beer, and in 1982, 75.1% reported having drunk beer. That figure dropped to 48.3% in 2000 and to 35.0% with the entering class of 2013 (the most recent data). The students who drink to excess attract attention and cause other students to perceive that heavy drinking is fairly common on campus, but statistics show that a relatively small percentage of students are binge drinkers. Nonetheless, excessive drinking by those students does lead to significant problems, as demonstrated by the 67% increase in hospitalizations for eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds due to alcohol overdoses from 1999 to 2008. Litigation over alcohol-related incidents on college campuses arises from various situations, including injuries that result from intoxicated students falling, injuries suffered during parties and hazing rituals involving alcohol, and injuries from other assaults that occur after alcohol has been consumed on campus. One expert in the field of education law summarizes the situation in this way: "[T]he battleground over competing visions of the modem university is the high-risk alcohol culture and its epidemic primary and secondary effects." The victim of an alcohol-related assault or accident may attempt to establish the liability of a college or university by asserting a negligence claim. In order to prove the college or university was negligent, the plaintiff must show that the university owed a duty of care to the victim, the university breached its duty, the victim suffered injury or damages, and the university's breach caused the victim's injuries or damages. At the outset, this article introduces the elements of a negligence claim that could be brought against a university when an alcohol-related incident has resulted in a student's injuries. Part II addresses the elements of a negligence claim and breaks the various arguments into subparts. Much of this part of the article is focused on the element of duty, as courts have generally concluded that there is no duty in these cases. Thus, analysis of the other elements is often unnecessary and negligence claims often fail. The analysis in Part III provides a discussion of the tension between the expectations of "helicopter parents" with regard to the caretaker role of the university versus the well-established rule that universities have no custodial relationship with their adult students and have no legal duty to supervise or protect them from harm. This article argues that it would be detrimental to return full circle to the notion that a university should act in loco parentis. A vital part of the higher education process involves the maturation of students into full, productive adulthood. As part of this process, students must learn to take responsibility for themselves. Part IV of this article concludes that universities are not and should not be liable for the tragic injuries that result from rampant alcohol abuse in most instances. Moreover, the obligation to ensure that students do not abuse alcohol cannot be assigned solely to university administrators who have no legal duty to monitor the students' private lives. Rather, shaping students' values and influencing the choices that adult students make must also come from the students themselves-as well as parents and community leaders through preventive programs, leadership, and peer-to-peer guidance.