Left: Sarah Cox (GoFundMe). Right: The apartment building located at 2 Judge Street in Boston, Massachusetts (Google Maps).
The family of a college student in Massachusetts who fell out of a second-story window during a sorority party says that she has suffered “catastrophic” injuries — and that the Greek organization is responsible.
Sarah Cox was a junior at Northeastern University in Boston when she fell out of a window at an apartment building at 2 Judge Street on March 31, 2023. According to a lawsuit filed by her family members, she has not regained consciousness — and her family still doesn’t know what happened.
In a complaint filed in March, almost a year after the incident, the family says the sorority, Alpha Epsilon Phi, should have known of the risks — and taken steps to protect its members, like Cox. The lawsuit names the national sorority organization, the local chapter, then-chapter President Margaret “Maggie” Scales, property owner Marcia Ramos, and the Ramos Properties company.
The apartment, according to the complaint, “was designated as, and publicly known to be an apartment that Maggie Scales and the Sorority openly used as their Sorority house.”
Cox’s parents, Batul Kazim and William Cox, say that their daughter was at a sorority-related gathering held at the apartment where Scales lived before an upcoming formal when, at some time between 6 and 6:30 p.m., Cox fell approximately 20 feet out of a kitchen window onto a driveway. She has not regained consciousness.
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In a statement of damages, Cox’s family alleges that Cox’s injuries will require intensive — and expensive — care.
“Sarah Cox’s injuries are catastrophic, and she will require one to one care 24 hours per day and 7 days per week on a permanent basis,” the filing says. “Sarah Cox will require a variety of medical devices and equipment to survive.”
The statement notes that the family’s medical bills “already far exceed $200,000.00 and the costs of her care will continue to mount for the rest of her life.”
The sorority filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in July.
“When you cut through the six negligence counts against the Sorority Defendants in the 170-paragraph Complaint, Plaintiffs’ claim is: ‘Sarah Cox fell out of a window onto the driveway below,”” the motion says (citations omitted). “While certainly sympathetic to Cox’s alleged ‘catastrophic injuries as a result of the fall’, the counts against the Sorority Defendants fail under the most basic duty-breach-causation-damages analysis.”
The motion says that Cox’s family makes “generic negligence allegations” against the sorority and chapter president, stating that they had “generalized duties” to prevent dangerous conditions at the apartment.
“Plaintiffs merely allege that all defendants were somehow responsible for the myriad of alleged behavior without any allegation of what actually caused the fall,” the sorority’s filing says.
The property manager, meanwhile, is pointing the finger at the sorority chapter and organization, as well as its president — if not Cox herself.
“If the Plaintiffs suffered injuries as alleged in the Plaintiffs’ Complaint, then said injuries, to the extent not caused by the Plaintiffs’ own failure to exercise due care for her safety, may not have been caused in whole or in part as a result of the actions for failures to act” of the other defendants, a defensive May filing on behalf of Ramos Properties said.
In response to efforts to dismiss the case, family members say they are looking for answers — but potential witnesses haven’t been particularly forthcoming.
“Sadly, Sarah cannot provide any facts or details about it because she has been in a catatonic state ever since she hit the ground,” the filing continues. “Moreover, none of the people present at the party have offered any facts about how it happened, not even her close friends. Despite requests for information made by Sarah’s mother and other efforts to obtain certain facts about Sarah’s fall from the window, nobody was willing to offer any details, so the only tool available to the Plaintiffs is the court and its grant of discovery powers.”
“The plausible suggestion is that there were too many people in the kitchen, people were drinking, some were impaired, and as the crowd moved and swayed in the small kitchen, Sarah was squeezed against the window and could not avoid falling out of the window,” the filing added.
A fundraiser for Cox’s family says she “wanted to be a doctor to help other people her whole life.”
“She had just come back from her third international medical mission trip helping people all over the world who have limited access to health care,” the fundraiser notes.
According to the docket, the next hearing in the case is set for Sept. 11.
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