Treetops Resort to sue UofM Fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu
The saga of vandalism caused by Sigma Alpha Mu at the Treetops Resort in Gaylord last January continues. Multiple media outlets, including the Detroit News and the Michigan Daily, report that Treetops is pursuing legal action against the fraternity and at least individual fraternity members Joshua Kaplan, Zachary Levin, and Matthew Vlasic, all named in the various accounts.
LINK: Detroit News.
LINK: Michigan Daily.
The suit alleges both physical damage and loss to reputation in excess of $430,000. Insurance and a payment of $25k from the Sammies covers some but not all the alleged damage. Interestingly, the Sammies were at Treetops the year prior, and caused in excess of $11,000 in damage. At first blush, this makes you wonder why Treetops would agree to allow them to return. However, according to Treetops, a certain amount of damage is considered normal with large college student groups.
In the January incident, things went south when Treetops management confronted Sammy leaders after their first night, regarding prepayment arrangements that hadn't been met. As a result, Treetops alleges malicious and intentional retaliatory action by many of the Sammies, including urinating on carpeting in all the rooms they were using. According to Treetops, this was the first time they ever had to contact State Police to have a group evicted.
Just saw this in the paper that shall not be named. Apparently, the resort is far from blameless. I'm no MGoLawyer, but "failed to mitigate damages" comes to mind.
Months before the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity trashed the Treetops Resort during a wild winter weekend, it had already established a bad reputation at the resort — but was invited back anyway.
And when it did show up in January, a newly released police report shows, the resort's security guards did nothing to stop the mayhem — which included frat members mooning young children and smashing light fixtures — because management instructed them to "overlook" the bad behavior.
According to the Michigan State Police report obtained by the Paper that shall not be named, the same University of Michigan fraternity that's about to be sued for $430,000 in alleged damages to the northern Michigan resort from a January weekend caused a similar ruckus the year before.
The fraternity paid Treetops $11,500 for damages and for having too many guests in 2014, but the resort still welcomed the fraternity back this year, the report states.
The fraternity accepted. Chaos erupted again. But the Treetops security staff did nothing because it was instructed not to intervene in damage-causing incidents, the report said, noting: "Damage was not a concern, only the safety of their guests."