UVa Fraternity Falsely Accused of Rape Sues Rolling Stone for $25 Million

This lawsuit seems lodged by the collective entity of the fraternity chapter itself.

Three individual members have already lodged suit, back in July.

The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter at the University of Virginia filed a $25 million lawsuit Monday against Rolling Stone magazine, which published an article in 2014 that alleged a freshman was gang raped at the house during a party.

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"The fraternity chapter and its student and alumni members suffered extreme damage to their reputations in the aftermath of the article’s publication and continue to suffer despite the ultimate unraveling of the story," the Phi Psi chapter said in a statement Monday. "The article also subjected the student members and their families to danger and immense stress while jeopardizing the future existence of the chapter."

Rolling Stone retracted the story in April, and the magazine's editor, Will Dana, later resigned.

I'm not clear on who is suing here -- the fraternity chapter, or the fraternity members making up the chapter?

It's an important distinction, as this old Volokh post makes clear, because the organization itself can only recover for strictly economic harm (being a non-human thing), and the strictly economic harm would run into maybe the $10-15,000 range.

You can also sue as a group when the defamation alleged is cast as a small enough group that individual members may reasonably feel implicated. I think that is probably what is being sued for here (at least the bulk of it, to get it to that $25 million figure). However, Volokh also points out that the courts usually say you can't defame individuals in a group by defaming the group, except if the group is small -- 25 or fewer people (sometimes up to 70). I don't know how many people are in the fraternity; this part of the suit could be tough as well.

posted by Ace at 05:41 PM

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