And here we thought “butt-chugging” was dangerous!

A West Virginia judge has dismissed Marshall University from a lawsuit filed by a student who was injured because of his response after seeing another student shoot a bottle rocket out of his ass at a frat party.

The Marshall University Board of Governors was able to duck the lawsuit on procedural grounds, reports The West Virginia Record. In a nutshell, West Virginia law requires the injured plaintiff, Louis Helmburg III, to notify school and state officials 30 days before filing the suit, which didn’t happen.

The lawsuit will go on against the remaining defendants, though, and the underlying facts are certainly interesting.

At about 1:30 a.m. on May 1, 2011, a party was raging at the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house just off the Marshall campus. Helmburg, a baseball player was at the party. Another guy named Travis Hughes was also there.

In the lawsuit, Helmburg alleges that Hughes got really drunk and tried to “shoot bottle rockets out of his anus on the ATO deck.”

The posterior fracas alarmed Helmburg. He claims that he leaped the wrong way and fell off a deck, landing between the deck and an air conditioning unit.

There was no railing on the deck. Helmburg asserts that the ATO fraternity was negligent in failing to install one. Helmburg also contends that Hughes is obviously to blame for the injuries he sustained because Hughes drank a lot of booze, “which leads to stupid and dangerous activities.”

Helmberg continues to seek damages from the remaining defendants: Alpha Tau Omega, Marshall’s interfraternity council, a local property corporation and the allegedly uniquely talented Travis Hughes.

Marshall University was also recently in the news after journalism professor Christopher Swindell wrote a bizarre op-ed asserting that the National Rifle Association “advocates armed rebellion” and is guilty of “treason” “worthy of the firing squad.”


 
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