Why Is The College Of New Jersey Being Held Liable For This?
John Fiocco Jr., who was a freshman at The College of New Jersey two years ago, was last seen alive on March 25, 2006 in his dorm room after returning from an off-campus party where he was said to have been drinking. Soon after, some of his blood was found on a trash compactor, and then police went to a landfill in Bucks County, PA to search for his body, which they subsequently found. No final determination was ever made as to how this young man died- if it was a homicide or an accident.
Now, 2 years later, the boy’s parents have filed a wrongful death suit against the College of New Jersey alleging that the College was negligent in that the trash compacting system was not secured, which resulted in their son’s death.
I find it hard to understand how the college could be held liable for this young man’s death. There are laws that state that some things are an attractive nuisance, such as a swimming pool, and if someone falls in and drowns, the homeowners could be held liable. But, I fail to see how a trash compactor could be considered an attractive nuisance. I empathize with the parents, and if my daughter’s body were ever discovered in a landfill in Pennsylvania, that would be a living nightmare. I just do not understand this lawsuit. If this boy was murdered, then there is no way that the college could be negligent, because obviously the trash compactor had nothing to do with his death. The compactor was just the means the killer used to dispose the body. If the boy was alive and somehow wandered over to the trash compactor and fell into it accidentally, then what most likely caused his death was his own impaired judgment, possbily caused by his own drinking. Suing the college for negligence seems to put the blame for this tragedy on the wrong party.
The drinking age is 21 years old in New Jersey. Now everyone know that college kids, and even high school kids are involved in underage drinking. This young man was drinking off campus, so the college certainly didn’t provide him with alcohol; he got it and drank it on his own. Intoxicated people have been known to get lost, sleep on park benches, and have car accidents that kill themselves and others. If he drove his car into a telephone poll and got killed would the college be liable? Intoxicated people have a bad habit of always being somewhere that they shouldn’t be, and sometimes results in dire consequences.
If this young man’s death was an accident brought on by drinking, there is only one person responsible for this, as tragic as it might seem, and that is this young man. Just because a door is left open doesn’t mean that you have to walk through it. Kids are taught all the time to watch out for cars, to be careful when they are swimming in the ocean, to drive slowly, and surely not to drink and drive. Alcohol can numb the senses, and retard a person’s judgment. Unfortunately this young man may have walked through an open door that led to his death. Is the college to blame? I think not.
