Suit filed against KU in ’03 death

Freshman died after falling from dorm's ledge

An Illinois couple has filed a wrongful death suit against Kansas University following the 2003 death of their son, who fell from a ledge outside his seventh-floor dormitory room.

In their suit filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., John and Donna Wellhausen claim the university created the dangerous conditions that precipitated their son’s fall.

“It was a tragic accident involving alcohol,” said Lynn Bretz, a KU spokeswoman, “and we have not yet received the lawsuit.”

Eric J. Wellhausen, of Mount Prospect, Ill., was a freshman when he fell from a ledge outside Oliver Hall about 1 a.m.

KU police said Wellhausen had fallen after either leaning out of his window or being on the ledge while smoking. He had been drinking.

About 5 feet beneath each window at most of the halls is a ledge designed to block sunlight from windows beneath them.

The windows open from the inside and have a screen. Despite warnings, residents have been inclined to open the screen, especially to smoke outside their rooms, where smoking is banned.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. It claims the ledge was accessible and unprotected.

The Wellhausens could not be reached for comment.

Their attorney, Andrew Protzman, of the Overland Park firm Shapiro & Protzman, said he expected KU to be served with the lawsuit within 10 days.

He declined to discuss the particulars of the case.

“At this point, it’s probably in my clients’ best interest not to comment,” he said.

A month after the accident, KU housing officials announced they would place warning stickers on all dormitory windows, which also would say that students would have to pay a $125 fine if the screen was removed.

A second sticker was placed on the screen and window frame. If students tamper with the screen, the sticker will break.

Bretz said there have been a couple of fines since, but she did not have a specific number.

“I think students are taking the warnings very seriously,” she said.

She said the dorms were built in the 1960s, and the concrete ledges were part of the structures and could not be removed.

She said welding the windows shut would violate fire codes.

Wellhausen’s death was not the first time a KU student fell from a residence hall window.

In 2001, two 19-year-old students fell while taking smoking breaks outside their rooms. In May of that year, Matthew Ward, a freshman from Kingman, fell from the eighth floor of Hashinger Hall, shattering both ankles. In October of that year, Saad Saifeddine, a freshman from Morocco, fell from the fourth floor of McCollum Hall but suffered only minor injuries.

The previous death resulting from a fall was in 1994, when Scott McWhorter, a freshman from Dallas, fell from the fourth floor of Corbin Hall. Authorities suspected he had been sleepwalking when he kicked out the room window’s screen. He also had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.

Some students said the warning stickers on the windows didn’t do much good.

“The screen is sealed, but it can come off,” said Meghan Skornia, a freshman who lives in Oliver Hall.