Topeka ? The state Supreme Court refused Friday to reinstate a lawsuit against a Kansas University fraternity over a 1997 incident that left a student in an alcohol-induced coma.

Matthew Prime filed the lawsuit against Pi Kappa Alpha in 1999 in Douglas County District Court, seeking more than $375,000 in damages.

Also named as defendants were several leaders of the fraternity at the time, the fraternity’s national organization and the Mount Oread House Corp., which holds title to the house.

In his lawsuit, Prime said he had attended a February 1997 event at the house that was a ritual in the fraternity’s membership process. He claimed pledges were encouraged or coerced into drinking large quantities of beer and hard liquor.

Prime, then 19, eventually passed out, and fraternity members took him to a hospital emergency room, where he was comatose from alcohol poisoning for 12 hours, according to the lawsuit.

He had a blood-alcohol level of 0.294 percent. The legal limit is 0.08 percent. The university later suspended the fraternity.

But Douglas County District Judge Michael Malone dismissed Prime’s lawsuit before a trial, ruling that Kansas law and court rulings don’t recognize the right to sue over someone furnishing alcohol to underage drinkers. He also said that Prime had voluntarily consumed alcohol.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision upheld Malone’s ruling.

“Kansas does not impose liability on the supplier of alcoholic beverages for harm suffered by a minor due to intoxication,” Justice Donald Allegrucci wrote in the court’s opinion.

The case is Matthew J. Prime v. Beta Gamma Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha, et al., No. 85,861.