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Call it a twist on that old parental admonishment: If all your friends jumped off the roof, would you do it, too? And if you broke your foot in the process, is it their fault?
That’s essentially the question at hand in a new lawsuit filed against a notorious Arizona State University fraternity. Last spring, ASU student Zoe Pretzer attempted to leap off the roof and into a pool at an off-campus party hosted by Sigma Alpha Epsilon. She missed, landing on the pool deck and fracturing her foot.
On Tuesday, Pretzer sued both the local and national SAE organizations as well as the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees ASU. She claims that all of the defendants were negligent — SAE for encouraging her to jump off the roof and ASU for failing to maintain closer oversight of the fraternity.
Representatives for SAE, ASU and Pretzer did not respond to requests for comment from Phoenix New Times.
The lawsuit is the third that SAE has faced in the past year. The frat was previously sued by a female student who claimed that SAE members passed around a nude video of her that was taken without her consent. Additionally, two former SAE members have sued the fraternity over its hazing rituals, which they claim included being forced to consume alcohol, drugs and extremely spicy cheeseballs. Both lawsuits are ongoing.
ASU is investigating the fraternity over those claims and has suspended SAE. The frat has since been kicked out of its building in the Greek Leadership Village on the university’s Tempe campus.
The party in question occurred on April 12, 2025, according to Pretzer’s suit. SAE was hosting a “Baywatch/SAE Watch” party at an off-campus house in Tempe that is “owned, leased, or controlled by SAE Local and/or its agents,” the complaint says. Maricopa County Assessor’s records suggest the house is a rental property. Per the complaint, Pretzer attended the party and a pre-party at a separate location, where she was served alcohol despite being underage at the time.
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“Despite the ‘lifeguard’ theme of the party, no lifeguards or safety personnel were present,” the complaint states, without apparent irony.
At the pool party, “fraternity members climbed onto the roof of the patio and encouraged attendees to jump from the roof into the pool below,” an activity the complaint claims “was a fixture” of SAE parties at the house. “The roof was often used by fraternity members at SAE on other occasions as a jumping platform into the pool,” the complaint says.
Pretzer claims in her lawsuit that SAE members “pressured and encouraged” her to climb onto the roof and jump into the pool. She did so along with another person, taking the leap at around 5:40 p.m. But she missed, and instead “struck the concrete pool decking, collapsing to the ground and sustaining a severe fracture in her foot and other serious and permanent injuries.” The lawsuit does not specify those other injuries, nor does it say what happened to the person who leapt off the roof with Pretzer.
About a month after the alleged incident, Pretzer posted a series of photos to Instagram that included a shot of her surrounded by friends in a hospital bed with what appears to be a surgical scar on her right foot. Pretzer is seeking a variety of damages, including for future medical care and future lost earnings and wages.
She accuses SAE of negligence for hosting the party, providing alcohol to minors, “encouraging and facilitating dangerous roof-jumping activity,” and allowing so many people into the party that it was “overcrowded, chaotic, and unsafe.” The suit also makes oblique reference to SAE’s other scandals, noting that the frat has “a history of failing to adhere to safety policies.”
For that reason, Pretzer also accuses ASU of negligence, saying the university “knew or should have known of prior disciplinary issues, alcohol violations, and unsafe conduct involving SAE.”
The complaint also — rather confusingly — takes ASU to task for “fail(ing) to take any measures to notify and/or warn Plaintiff Zoe Pretzer and the general public, as well as other subcontractors of the dangerous worksite conditions, and dangerous instrumentalities utilized to perform the work at the site which caused the incident that led to this injuries sustained by Plaintiff Zoe Pretzer.” The relevance of “worksite conditions” to Pretzer’s suit is not clear.
