Manhattan College Hazing Lawyer

Hazing injuries rarely look like what the student handbook warned about, and they almost never feel like a crime to the person it happens to, because the victim was usually told it was a tradition, an honor, or the price of belonging. Mark David Shirian P.C. represents students and families hurt at colleges and universities across Manhattan, from Morningside Heights and Washington Heights to Greenwich Village and Lower Manhattan, as well as throughout New York City, Long Island, Westchester, and the wider New York region. A Manhattan college hazing lawyer at the firm approaches these cases as what they are: preventable injuries caused by people and institutions who knew, or should have known, what was going on.

New York treats hazing as a crime in its own right. First-degree hazing, a class A misdemeanor, covers conduct during initiation into or affiliation with an organization that creates a substantial risk of physical injury and actually causes an injury. Second-degree hazing, a violation, covers the same risky conduct even when nobody is hurt. A 2018 amendment made explicit that the offense includes making physical contact with a person or requiring physical activity of them, which closed a gap that defendants once used to argue that forced drinking, forced exercise, or confinement was not “conduct” aimed at a victim. For a civil injury case, though, the criminal statute is only the starting point. The real questions are who owed a duty to keep the student safe, what the organization and the school knew in advance, and how to prove it before the evidence disappears.

Manhattan has one of the densest concentrations of colleges in the country, and hazing here takes many forms: a fraternity event in a walk-up apartment, a team initiation at an athletic facility, or a club retreat that leaves the city entirely. A case arising in Manhattan is typically filed in New York County Supreme Court, while incidents at off-campus apartments, bars, or out-of-town retreats can bring in other counties or even other states. Hazing cases tend to involve more than one defendant, from the individuals who carried out the ritual to the national or local organization behind it to the property owner who hosted it, and sorting out those layers is where careful legal work begins.

Colleges and Universities in Manhattan

Manhattan’s private universities include some of the largest student communities in the country. New York University’s Greenwich Village campus supports fraternities, sororities, club sports, and varsity athletics. Columbia University and Barnard College in Morningside Heights have Greek life, Ivy League teams, and a long list of student groups. Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus, The New School, Pace University in Lower Manhattan, and Yeshiva University in Washington Heights add thousands more students, and conservatories and art schools such as Juilliard and the School of Visual Arts have performing groups and clubs with their own traditions. Claims involving a private school are generally brought in New York County Supreme Court, and the school’s conduct records, prior complaint files, and federally required hazing transparency reports are often central evidence.

Manhattan is also home to several City University of New York campuses, including Hunter College, Baruch College, the City College of New York in Harlem, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. CUNY schools apply the Henderson Rules for campus conduct, and damages claims against CUNY belong in the Court of Claims under strict notice deadlines, so a case involving a CUNY campus needs attention quickly. Serious hazing is not limited to residential campuses. In 2013, a Baruch College student died after a fraternity initiation at a retreat in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, a case that led to criminal convictions of several members and of the national fraternity itself. An event held outside New York can raise questions about which state’s law and courts apply, which is one more reason to get advice early.

How Hazing Claims Are Built Against Students, Clubs, and Schools

A hazing lawsuit is a negligence case, sometimes paired with claims for assault and battery, and the strength of the case depends on tying each defendant to a specific failure. Individual members who handed out alcohol, ordered a physical ordeal, or restrained a pledge are the obvious targets. Fraternities, sororities, athletic teams, and clubs can be responsible too, either directly or through a national organization that sets the rules, collects dues, and has a history of similar incidents. Landlords and venue owners who knowingly let a dangerous event take place on their premises can also be named. A school may be a defendant when it had notice of prior hazing, ignored warnings, or failed to enforce its own conduct rules.

The statutory framework helps establish what a reasonable institution should have been doing. New York requires colleges to adopt written rules for maintaining public order on campus, and the federal Stop Campus Hazing Act requires institutions to publish a Campus Hazing Transparency Report listing organizations found responsible for hazing, along with the violations, sanctions, and investigation dates. That federal definition reaches initiation, affiliation, and maintenance of membership in a student organization, and it applies regardless of whether the student agreed to take part. Those records are valuable in discovery. A pattern of earlier violations by the same chapter, followed by little or no consequence, is often the clearest proof that the injury was foreseeable.

Consent is the defense you should expect first. Defendants will say the student volunteered. Under New York’s pure comparative fault rule in CPLR 1411, a plaintiff’s own conduct, including so-called assumption of risk, does not bar recovery in an injury case; it only reduces damages in proportion to the fault assigned to the injured person. The newer 50 percent fault bar applies only to motor vehicle injury cases, not to hazing injuries. That matters because it means a student who drank too much or went along with a ritual under intense social pressure can still recover. The real fight is over how a jury views the power imbalance between a pledge desperate to belong and the upperclassmen controlling their access to the group.

Why Choose Mark David Shirian P.C. for a Hazing Injury Case

Mark David Shirian P.C. is a New York litigation firm that represents injured people and families throughout New York City, New York State, Long Island, Nassau County, and Westchester County, and accepts matters from Suffolk County, Rockland County, and other parts of the greater New York region. The firm handles personal injury, wrongful death, catastrophic injury, and claims involving the abuse of young people, and every case is handled by one of the firm’s attorneys rather than a case manager. Consultations are free and confidential, and personal injury cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, so there is no fee unless there is a recovery.

Mark D. Shirian, Founding Member, leads the firm’s litigation practice and concentrates in personal injury, employment law, sports and entertainment law, and civil and commercial litigation. He has obtained multiple seven-figure settlements and has challenged Fortune 500 companies, school systems, and government entities, which is exactly the kind of opposition a hazing case can involve when a national organization or a college is on the other side. He was named one of The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40, displays the NAOPIA Top 10 Attorney Award, and is a member of the American Association for Justice, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, the New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers, the Sports Lawyers Association, and the Jewish Lawyers Guild. He is admitted in New York and in the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and his work has been featured by NBC, ABC, Fox News, The New York Times, The New York Post, and the Daily News. Shawn D. Shirian, Senior Associate, is a litigator with more than seven years of experience who has handled jury trials and dispositive motions, and who has defended major corporate clients in premises liability matters, which gives him a working view of how the defense side builds its case.

The firm’s results include a $1,500,000 Child Victims Act settlement, a $1,500,000 Transit Authority bus accident settlement, a $1,000,000 wrongful death settlement, and a $500,000 daycare injury to a minor settlement. Those outcomes reflect work against institutions that were reluctant to accept responsibility. Clients describe the firm’s attention to detail, honest and direct communication, responsiveness, and the feeling of being treated like family, and the firm’s Google rating is shown as Excellent based on 96 reviews. In a hazing case, where families are often angry, frightened, and unsure whether to trust the school that is also investigating, those qualities matter as much as the legal strategy.

Where Hazing Injuries Come From and Who May Be Responsible

• Forced Alcohol Consumption: Drinking rituals, timed consumption, and “bid night” events can cause alcohol poisoning, aspiration, falls, and fatal respiratory failure, and liability can reach the individual members, the organization, and any host who supplied the alcohol.
• Physical Ordeals and Endurance Tests: Forced exercise, sleep deprivation, exposure to cold or heat, and paddling or beatings can cause rhabdomyolysis, fractures, head injuries, and organ damage, and the conduct often fits squarely within first-degree hazing.
• Athletic Team Initiations: Rookie rituals on college teams can involve humiliation, binding, forced consumption, or assaults in locker rooms and on trips, and the school’s duty to supervise its own athletic programs becomes a central issue.
• Off-Campus Houses and Apartments: Many events move off campus to avoid oversight, bringing in landlords, tenants, and property owners who allowed a dangerous gathering to continue on their premises.
• Retreats and Overnight Trips: Out-of-town weekends and isolated settings limit a student’s ability to leave or get help, and they raise questions about who organized the trip and who was responsible for medical response.
• Sexual and Degrading Conduct: Initiations that involve forced nudity, sexual acts, or assault can support civil claims for battery and serious psychological harm, and in some cases may overlap with the firm’s work on sexual abuse claims.
• Wrongful Death From Hazing: When an initiation ends in a fatality, the family may bring a wrongful death action, and the personal representative’s appointment affects timing for any claim against a public entity.
• Delayed Medical Response: Members who waited to call for help, moved an unconscious pledge, or tried to hide what happened may add a separate layer of liability to the original conduct.

What to Do in the Days After a Hazing Injury

The first priority is medical care, and the second is preserving proof. Hazing evidence lives in group chats, social media, photographs, video, and the memories of students who may be pressured to stay quiet, and much of it can be deleted within hours. Screenshot messages, save posts and stories, write down names and dates while memories are fresh, and keep every medical record, discharge paper, and bill. Do not post about the incident publicly, and avoid giving recorded or written statements to the organization, its national office, or an insurance adjuster before speaking with a lawyer. Reporting to campus safety, the college’s conduct office, and the police can be appropriate, but those channels have different goals than a civil case, and what you say in them can be used later.

Deadlines depend on the claim. Negligence-based injury claims generally carry a three-year limitations period, while intentional torts such as assault carry only one year, so a case that includes both has to be evaluated with the shorter clock in mind. A lawsuit is started by filing a summons and complaint with the court clerk; a demand letter or a call to an insurer does not stop the clock. A person who was under 18 at the time of the injury generally has three years from turning 18 to sue under CPLR 208, which makes the effective deadline age 21, though that tolling is capped at ten years from when the claim arose in most injury cases. If a public entity is involved, a separate rule applies: a written, sworn notice of claim must usually be served within 90 days, stating the claimant’s name and address, the nature of the claim, the time, place, and manner in which it arose, and the items of damage. A court may allow late service in some cases, but not past one year and 90 days for most municipal tort claims, and infancy tolling does not always rescue a missed notice deadline. If the City University of New York or another State-related entity is a defendant, the claim belongs in the Court of Claims, which has no jurisdiction over private individuals or city, county, or town governments. That means a single hazing event can require parallel proceedings in different courts.

Private defendants in a Manhattan hazing case are generally sued in New York County Supreme Court, although a case may belong in another county, such as Bronx, Kings, Queens, Nassau, or Suffolk, depending on where the parties live and where the events took place. Federal claims arising in Manhattan are heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and appeals from New York County Supreme Court go to the Appellate Division, First Department. Early in a case, we typically send preservation demands to the organization, the national headquarters, and the school so that chat logs, membership rosters, event planning records, and prior complaint files are not lost. The common mistakes are waiting for the school’s investigation to finish, agreeing to a quick settlement with an organization’s insurer, and letting evidence disappear because everyone assumed the matter would be handled internally.

Recovery, Criminal Charges, and the Limits of Campus Discipline

A civil case can recover medical expenses, future care, lost earnings, and compensation for pain, suffering, and lasting emotional harm. For a student, the damage often extends beyond the injury itself: a lost semester, a ruined athletic career, a scholarship in jeopardy, or a diagnosis such as PTSD that follows them into adulthood. In the most serious cases, a catastrophic injury or wrongful death claim has to account for a lifetime of care or the loss of a family member. Our approach is to document each category early, working with treating providers so the record reflects what the injury actually costs.

Criminal charges and campus discipline run on their own tracks. A district attorney may pursue hazing or assault charges, and a college may suspend or expel members or sanction a chapter, but neither process compensates the victim. A criminal conviction can help a civil case, yet an acquittal or no charge does not end it, because the civil standard of proof is lower. Likewise, a school finding that an organization violated hazing rules can support a civil claim, while a finding of no violation does not bind a court. We treat those outside proceedings as sources of evidence and leverage, not as substitutes for a lawsuit.

Questions Students and Families Ask About Hazing Cases

Is hazing a crime in New York?

Yes. First-degree hazing is a class A misdemeanor when risky initiation conduct actually causes physical injury, and second-degree hazing is a violation when the conduct creates a substantial risk of injury even if no one is hurt. Both are found in Article 120 of the Penal Law.

Does it matter that I agreed to take part?

It does not erase your claim. The federal Stop Campus Hazing Act defines hazing without regard to a person’s willingness to participate, and New York’s comparative fault rule only reduces damages by whatever share of fault a jury assigns to you rather than barring recovery.

Can I sue the college as well as the fraternity or team?

Possibly. A school can be liable when it had notice of earlier hazing, failed to enforce its own rules, or did not supervise a program it controlled. The strength of that claim depends on what the school knew and what it did about it.

How long do I have to file a hazing lawsuit?

Negligence claims generally have three years and assault claims one year. If you were under 18 when injured, you generally have three years after turning 18, with a ten-year cap in most injury cases. Claims against public entities can require a notice of claim within 90 days.

What if the school is part of CUNY or another State-related institution?

Claims for damages against the State and certain State-related entities, including CUNY, belong in the Court of Claims, and strict notice rules apply. Those claims need to be evaluated quickly because the timing is different from a suit against a private organization.

Will my parents have to be involved if I am over 18?

As an adult, you control your own case. Many families work with us together, and we take direction from the injured student, but we can only speak with other family members about your case with your permission.

What if the hazing happened off campus or on a trip?

Location does not end the case. Off-campus houses, bars, and retreats can add landlords, hosts, and venue owners as defendants, and an organization’s responsibility for an event does not depend on whether it took place on school grounds.

Can I recover if my group chat messages were deleted?

Often yes. Messages can sometimes be recovered from other participants’ phones, social media platforms, or cloud backups, and a prompt preservation demand helps. Deleting evidence after a claim is anticipated can also be used against a defendant.

Will my health insurance cover treatment while my claim is pending?

You should use your health insurance and get care without delay. Insurers or other payers may later assert reimbursement rights from a recovery, and part of our work is keeping those liens organized and negotiating them when appropriate.

How much does it cost to hire the firm?

Consultations are free and confidential, and personal injury cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, so there is no fee unless there is a recovery.

Is it worth pursuing a claim if the injury seemed minor at first?

Often it is. Hazing injuries such as head trauma, kidney damage from extreme exertion, and psychological harm can surface days or weeks later. Getting evaluated and preserving evidence early keeps your options open while the full picture develops.

Representing Hazing Victims Across Manhattan and Beyond

We represent students and families throughout Manhattan, including Morningside Heights, Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, Midtown, Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Lower Manhattan. Our work extends into the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, where many Manhattan students live and commute from.

We also serve clients on Long Island, including Nassau County communities such as Hempstead, Garden City, Mineola, and Great Neck, and in Westchester County, including Yonkers, White Plains, Mount Vernon, and New Rochelle. The firm accepts matters from Suffolk County, Rockland County, and other parts of the greater New York region. Since hazing victims often attend school far from home, we are used to working with families who live in one county while the injury happened in another.

Speak With a Manhattan College Hazing Attorney

If your child or you were hurt during an initiation, the most useful thing you can do is talk to a Manhattan college hazing attorney before evidence is lost and before the organization or school shapes the story. Mark David Shirian P.C. offers free, confidential case evaluations, and every case is handled directly by one of the firm’s attorneys. Call to schedule a consultation and learn what claims may be available, who may be responsible, and which deadlines apply to your situation.