Date: 06-13-2025

Case Style:

Andrew Pampu v. Erin Wingo, David Wingo, and Colin J. Gahagan

Case Number: 2022-001332

Judge: Perry H. Gravely

Court: Circuit Court, Pickens County, South Carolina

Plaintiff's Attorney: Kimberly Lau, James E. Figliozzi, Sarah D. Baum, and Michael A. Timbes

Defendant's Attorney: Mitchell Brown, Jonathan M. Knicely, Madison Caroline Guyton, John M. Grantland, and David Moore

Description: Pickens, South Carolina personal injury lawyers represented the Plaintiff who sued on a defamation theory.

The genesis of this troubling litigation is a night of drunkenness at a college fraternity party on October 24, 2015. Prior to attending this party, Ms. Wingo, a 5'2" Clemson freshman weighing between 114 and 118 pounds, consumed approximately nine 1.5-ounce shots of alcohol at a friend's dorm room. This occurred over the course of approximately one hour. Ms. Wingo then went to the party on the premises of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, a/k/a "the Compound,"[2] at approximately 10:45 p.m. Once there, she found Respondent-Appellant Colin J. Gahagan, with whom she was having a physically intimate relationship, and took two "pulls" from a water bottle filled with vodka.[3] She became upset over something Gahagan said, parted ways with him, and at some point, went to look for Pampu, with whom she had "made out" several weeks before. Both Gahagan and Pampu were also freshmen and were rushing the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Ms. Wingo testified that as she was asking another fraternity "pledge brother," Ben Zboray, to help her find Pampu, she was "feeling the effects of the alcohol substantially." She also testified that she remembered only some of what occurred that night, "like individual snapshots."

According to Pampu's testimony, Ms. Wingo found him in the courtyard and propositioned him with oral sex. Pampu observed that she was drunk. The two then went behind another house on the property, made out, then walked down a path for approximately one-quarter to one-half of a mile, leaving the property. When they arrived at a location between a wooden fence and a shed, they both took a sip from Ms. Wingo's bottle filled with vodka. Pampu testified that they then made out and ultimately engaged in sexual intercourse at Ms. Wingo's suggestion. Afterward, according to Pampu, they were quiet for a while, then had a conversation about Gahagan, re-dressed themselves, and walked back to the Compound.

Pampu also testified that on the way back to the Compound, Ms. Wingo was "extremely emotional" about having "been blown off by [Gahagan] that night" and he realized that she was "on the bad end of drunk" and was stumbling. When they arrived at the Compound's main house, Ms. Wingo sat on the front steps, and Pampu had a private conversation with Zboray to explain why Ms. Wingo was upset. Pampu told Zboray that Ms. Wingo was "looking for [Gahagan]" and that she and Pampu had "just hook[ed] up." Zboray offered to get a ride for Ms. Wingo and a friend of hers, Rachel Corbin, to take them back to their respective dormitories, and Pampu went back to the party. Around the same time, Corbin and another friend, Olivia Pescatore, noticed that Ms. Wingo was crying "hysterically" and repeatedly asking why Gahagan did not love her. Pescatore observed that Ms. Wingo was intoxicated to the point of being incapacitated.

Around this time, Ms. Wingo began sending text messages, some of which were unintelligible, to Gahagan. Ms. Wingo believed that she had "messed up the plan" to "go home with" Gahagan that night. She eventually got into a car with Zboray, Corbin, Pescatore, and Hayley Sinclair. On the way back to, and after arriving at, her dormitory, Ms. Wingo continued crying and talking about Gahagan. She vomited several times after arriving at her dormitory, and the vomiting continued throughout the next day (Sunday, October 25).

At approximately 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, one of Pampu's pledge brothers, Jonathan Stoddart, began sending a series of text messages to Pampu. One of the messages stated, "I hope you killed it on your birthday," meaning "had a good time." Pampu responded, in part, "I ****ed a chick by the garbage thing behind [C]hipotle[,] so I think I definitely did with [that] alone." Without Pampu's permission, Stoddart took a screen shot of Pampu's response and shared it with everyone in their pledge class in a group text. Pampu did not react to this.

According to Ms. Wingo, when she first woke up that morning, she felt confused about why she and Gahagan "had gotten into a fight" and she did not remember most of what had happened the night before, only that she was "feeling like [her] world had changed" and she had a "pit in [her] stomach." At 7:58 a.m., Ms. Wingo began sending a series of text messages to Gahagan over the next few hours, including one that stated, "I cried over you last night. [A]ll night." She also sent a text message to Pampu at 10:04 a.m., stating, "do not tell [Gahagan] what happened." She explained that she had "a gut feeling that something bad happened" and "whatever it was, [she] was worried it was going to hurt [Gahagan]."

She went back to sleep, and after she woke again, her friend Jami Hafner visited her and observed that she was upset over Gahagan and Pampu. Ms. Wingo told Hafner, "I think I had sex with [Pampu]." Ms. Wingo testified that she was not sure about that until late Sunday afternoon, when Gahagan showed her Pampu's text message to Stoddart. At that time, Ms. Wingo was not completely forthcoming with Gahagan, as she told him that she remembered seeing Pampu at the party and she did not remember anything else until she left the party with her friends. Gahagan stated something to the effect of "If you don't remember, it's rape." Ms. Wingo testified that she did not tell Gahagan about the "other things" she remembered because she was embarrassed, she was not ready to tell him, and she "was worried."

At approximately 5:10 p.m., Ms. Wingo sent a text message to Hafner stating that Gahagan knew about Pampu. She also participated in a group text between herself, Pescatore, and Sinclair, in which she stated, "I hooked up with [Pampu] and had sex apparently and I don't remember it," and sent a similar message to other close friends. Closer to midnight, Ms. Wingo sent the following text message to Gahagan:

I need you to tell me it's going to be okay because I'm [lying] here in bed and all I can think about is last night and the crying and how I feel violated because [Pampu] should have known better and I shouldn't get to be upset because I let it happen but I am mad because I screwed up with you . . . and I know we aren't a thing and stuff but you're my best friend and I need to know it[']s going to be okay because right now I feel like I don't deserve it to be okay.

On the following Monday night, Ms. Wingo's roommate reported Pampu's sexual encounter with Ms. Wingo to a resident assistant, who in turn filed a report with Clemson officials the next day. The report included a statement that Ms. Wingo did not want to report the incident. On the same day that the report was filed, Clemson's "Deputy Title IX Coordinator"[4] with OCES, Alesia Smith, asked Ms. Wingo to meet with her. Ms. Wingo recalled that she cried throughout the entire meeting and did not say "a single word." She asked a friend, Ashley Hodge, to pick her up from the meeting and help her "get home." Ms. Wingo apprised Hodge of the reason for the meeting, using the word "rape" for the first time. She later told family members and friends that she had been raped. On Tuesday night, Gahagan sent a text to Ms. Wingo stating that he heard Pampu's "side of the story" and it made Gahagan "feel like [Pampu was] not a criminal[, b]ut he still did make an extreme unforgivable mistake."

Approximately two weeks later, Ms. Wingo filed a formal complaint with OCES, and Smith sent a letter to Pampu advising him that she would be investigating the complaint according to the procedures in Clemson's Student Handbook. Ultimately, an administrative hearing board found that Ms. Wingo was incapacitated and unable to give consent to sexual intercourse and that Pampu "should have reasonably known." On February 29, 2016, the board suspended Pampu for approximately five months, and on appeal, Clemson's President added an additional year to the suspension. Pampu did not attempt to appeal the decision under the Administrative Procedures Act.

* * *

Legal issue Does the doctrine of collateral estoppel preclude a defamation claim when an administrative hearing board has previously determined the inability to consent in a related disciplinary proceeding?
Headnote

TORT LAW. DEFAMATION AND CIVIL CONSPIRACY. The case addresses an appeal involving claims of defamation and civil conspiracy, where the court evaluated whether the plaintiff could be precluded by collateral estoppel from refuting findings of a university administrative hearing that his alleged defamatory acts were false, ultimately determining that the defendants’ alleged defamatory statements were true.

CIVIL PROCEDURE. COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL. The court considered whether the plaintiff was barred by collateral estoppel from relitigating issues resolved by a university administrative hearing regarding the plaintiff’s alleged conduct, highlighting the circumstances under which an administrative tribunal’s findings can have preclusive effect in subsequent litigation.

HIGHER EDUCATION LAW. ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE. The court analyzed whether a university’s disciplinary actions and procedures qualify as a contested case under the Administrative Procedures Act, thus characterizing the university as a state agency whose findings may bind subsequent legal proceedings.
Key Phrases Defamation claim. Collateral estoppel. Title IX proceedings. Administrative hearing board. Civil conspiracy claim.

Outcome: The trial concluded with a jury verdict for Mr. Wingo on the civil conspiracy claim and the following verdicts for Pampu: Civil Conspiracy, as to Ms. Wingo, $2,000,000 in actual damages; as to Gahagan, $1,000,000 in actual damages; Defamation, as to Ms. Wingo, $700,000 in actual damages and $450,000 in punitive damages; as to Mr. Wingo, $230,000 in actual damages and no punitive damages; as to Gahagan,

Judgment not withstanding the verdict in favor of the Defendants.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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