Topeka ? Family members of Lisa Bland, a Lawrence woman killed in 2000 by a 16-year-old drunken driver, asked the Kansas Supreme Court on Monday to allow them to sue Kansas University and the fraternity where the teen drank alcohol.

According to Kansas law, people furnishing liquor to a driver have no civil liabilities for injuries caused by the driver’s intoxication.

But Daniel Church, an attorney for Bland’s husband, James, and their daughter Michaela Renee Rodriquez, said, “People furnishing alcohol to minors is a distinction that needs to be drawn.”

Bland, 39, was killed in a collision with Sean Scott on Sept. 16, 2000, on Kansas Highway 10 east of Lawrence. Scott had been drinking at Phi Gamma Delta, then at The Wheel, 507 W. 14th St., and again at the fraternity before getting in his car to drive home to Shawnee.

In August 2001, Scott was sentenced in Johnson County District Court to five years of probation after pleading no contest to charges of involuntary manslaughter.

A lower court dismissed the Blands’ lawsuit because Kansas law doesn’t recognize a claim for negligence against people other than the drunken driver.

Attorney Paul Hasty Jr., representing Phi Gamma Delta, said that’s how it should stay.

“This is a direct attack on the court’s decision over and over again,” he said. “If this is a policy problem, it should be addressed by legislators.”

But Church said the court didn’t have to overturn its precedents on liability to allow this lawsuit to go forward.

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The fraternity and KU had assumed liability by establishing policies aimed at stopping illegal drinking, he argued.

The extent of liability against KU and Phi Gamma Delta can’t be known until the case goes forward and attorneys can investigate whether there had been problems before with drinking at the fraternity, he said.

Attorney Sara Trower, representing KU, said the university had little oversight over fraternities.

That prompted some sharp questioning from Justice Robert Gernon, who said KU was trying to “distance itself” from the situation.

Gernon asked why KU allowed tailgating before football games when drinking alcoholic beverages on state property is illegal.

Trower said KU received special permission from the Kansas Board of Regents, linking tailgating with fund-raising.

“You can go from car to car and people are drinking. So we’re winking at it?” Gernon asked.

The court said the earliest it might issue an opinion in the case is May 14.