Carol King v. Kappa Sigma Fraternity, et al.

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania personal Injury lawyer represented the Plaintiff on a wrongful death claim.



In 2019, Justin P. King (the decedent) attended a sorority party thrown by the Beta Nu Chapter of AST at Bloomsburg University, where the decedent was a freshman. It is alleged by Plaintiff that after being urged by sorority members to drink several highly alcoholic beverages, the decedent got lost on campus and fell down a steep slope, resulting in fatal injuries. The Beta Nu Chapter was suspended by the university due to the role its members had in that incident.



Plaintiff filed suit in 2021, alleging that AST, and its members who attended the party at the Beta Nu Chapter house, were liable for the decedent's death. In the ensuing litigation, Plaintiff learned that, soon after the incident, but before the suit was filed, AST's representatives had interviewed 15 of its members who were present at the Beta Nu Chapter party. All of those members were later named as AST's co-defendants in Plaintiff's

action, and each of them attended their respective interviews with their own counsel.



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Key Phrases Interlocutory appeal. Sorority party. Attorney work product doctrine. Attorney-client privilege. Discoverable redacted notes.

The communications memorialized in the redacted version of the interview notes were not privileged communications made between AST and its counsel. The facts asserted by AST instead establish that the communications were made by and in the presence of independent third parties (Beta Nu members) to AST's representatives (AST's CEO, COO, and lead counsel), and that counsel was not informed of any confidential information through AST's redacted interview notes. Thus, the redacted version of the interview notes is discoverable, and the trial court's order requiring their disclosure to Plaintiff must be upheld.