In November 2006, freshmen Dennis McCaffrey and David Rouse sent the Housing Department into a frenzy when a game of catch in a residence hall accidentally turned into a disastrous episode.
The students unintentionally hit a sprinkler on the third floor of the Living Learning Center North building with a football, resulting in major flooding and more than $40,000 in damages. Many students were forced to move out of the LLC for about a week.
Both Rouse and McCaffrey have been working closely with Housing since the accident, and it has been stressful for everyone involved.
“I would say that (the Housing Department has) been very formal and professional,” Rouse said. “If formal and professional is synonymous with cold and heartless in the minds of some students, then I would say that might be true.”
At the time of the accident, the question remained as to how the cost of the damages would be assessed.
“Normally in a case where we’re able to identify who caused damage, we would assess the cost to the individual responsible,” said Housing Director Mike Eyster. But he also said the $44,383 total is “not the kind of amount that we would just normally assess to a student’s account.”
But according to Rouse, the total cost was split equally between himself and McCaffrey. Their insurance companies are involved, and it’s too soon to tell how exactly the payments will be made.
Multiple insurance agents contacted for this story said the perpetrator would need renter’s insurance to cover any amount of the damage. That liability could carry over from his parents’ policy, if the student is still a dependent of his parents. The University would file a claim and the insurance company would send an adjuster to asses the level of negligence in the accident. If the damage was ruled willful, the insurance would not cover it.
The agents said the coverage also largely depends on the student’s particular insurance policy.
The Housing Department refused to release any information whatsoever pertaining to the two students. Deputy General Counsel Randy Geller cited the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which he said severely limits the University’s power of disclosure.
“With any situation like this there is typically some deductible that someone ends up paying for because it’s not covered by insurance,” Geller said. “There is some possibility that the University will have to cover its share or someone else’s deductible.”
Rouse, however, is not expecting any financial assistance from the University.
“I can understand the mentality behind it,” he said. Still, he thought “the line would have been drawn between an accident and intent. Given that it was an accident I would think that that would be covered in the University’s insurance policy.”
Even if it were, Housing Procedures Section 2a under the 2006-07 Residence Hall Contract forbids the use of sporting equipment in the hall.
The students may be facing the fees themselves because their actions could be considered negligent.
“The individual who caused the damage may have insurance that will pay for it,” said Geller. “We always try to recover for funds that were expended by the state to repair property that was damaged by somebody else. We think that taxpayers and students who pay tuition and housing bills would expect nothing less.”
After the accident, administrators forbade Rouse and McCaffrey from returning to the LLC, to visit or to live.
Shortly after the flooding occurred, Rouse submitted two formal appeals. Both included a written portion pleading his case for permission to visit friends living in the residence hall. He said he never asked to return to the LLC to live.
“There was two or three people who were genuinely upset, and rightly so, and then there was everyone else on the floor who rallied around us and supported us and realized it was a complete accident and wanted us to keep living in the hall,” he said. “We were on good terms with everyone in the hall.”
Despite the warm feelings among students, Eyster was concerned about the undue stress exerted on those forced to move in the middle of a term.
“I actually think that the students who had to be relocated, it was much more inconvenient for them than for (the Housing Department),” he said.
But he said that the department has moved on and is done dealing with it, minus the collection of payment for clean-up.
“We have exposed sprinkler heads in other residence halls and we’ve never had this happen before,” he said. “So it was just bad luck.”
Contact the higher education reporter at [email protected]
Sprinkler incident has two students in limbo
Daily Emerald
February 28, 2007
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