Two former Chi Psi Fraternity pledges who filed a lawsuit after a balcony at their fraternity house collapsed and left them injured avoided a trial Tuesday after accepting a settlement for an unidentified amount of money.
Nathan Baston and former University student McDaniel Brookman were suing the Chi Psi Fraternity, its local chapter and its associates for about $1.5 million after a second-story balcony they were standing on at the Chi Psi house collapsed and sent them sprawling onto the ground.
Brookman and Baston received an unidentified amount of money in a confidential settlement reached in December 2004, according to the office of their attorney, Neil Lathen.
In the lawsuit, filed in December 2003, Brookman and Baston claimed Chi Psi Fraternity members ushered them onto a second-story balcony at the house at 1018 Hilyard St., along with a group of other students pledging the
fraternity, in April 2002 around
11:30 p.m. The balcony then detached from the building and collapsed, causing several people standing on it to fall to the ground.
Brookman and Baston claimed to have suffered numerous injuries as a result of the fall. Brookman broke his jaw in five places, lost five permanent teeth, cut his tongue and
his chin, suffered “mental upset and anguish” and needed bone graft
surgery, according to the suit. Baston fractured his left elbow, broke his left wrist and suffered cuts and abrasions as well as general stiffness and depression.
Brookman and Baston said the fraternity and its associates were negligent by failing to ensure the balcony’s safety after a recent replacement and by failing to warn the pledges of its maximum weight capacity.
The suit’s defendants included the local chapter of the Chi Psi Fraternity and its then-President David Waterfall, the national Chi Psi Fraternity and its associates, and the Chi Psi Alumni Association and its then-Vice President Bill Stephens.
John Langslet, the attorney for the defendants, did not return the Emerald’s phone calls.

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