Court overturns verdict in ’05 FDU dorm death

Finding that Fairleigh Dickinson University was protected by the state’s Charitable Immunity Act, a state appeals court panel today overturned a jury award of $260,000 given to the parents of a Fairleigh Dickinson University student who was drunk when he fell to his death from his dorm window in 2005.

The panel’s decision, made public today, reversed the finding of a Morris County civil jury that found the FDU campus in Florham Park-Madison shared responsibility, 50-50, for the death July 1, 2005, of student Keith Orzech, 21.

At the time of trial, a Superior Court judge rejected FDU’s claims that it was protected under the Charitable Immunity Act by opining that Orzech’s fall was alcohol-related and FDU’s public safety department allegedly failed to enforce alcohol policies. The case proceeded to a jury trial under wrongful death, negligence statutes.

The appeals court, instead, found that FDU’s negligent failure to enforce its alcohol policy and Orzech’s violation of that police ”do not negate Orzech’s status as a beneficiary of FDU’s educational works at the time of the accident.”

The appeals court said: ”We fail to see how Orzech’s violation of the alcohol policy altered his relationship to FDU as a beneficiary of its works while he was living in the dormitory and thus receiving FDU’s educational benefits….”

The jury awarded total damages of $520,000 but since both FDU and Orzech were found equally at fault, Orzech’s parents were awarded $260,000.

 The young student was from Sudbury, Mass., and was serving as a resident adviser in his dorm during a summer session when he partied through the night of June 30 into July 1, 2005. When his body was found outside under his third-story dorm window, he had a blood-alcohol content of .166 percent.