The family of Sarah Cox, a Northeastern University student who fell from a second-story apartment window in 2023, has filed a lawsuit against her sorority and a property manager, alleging negligence.
Sarah Cox, a junior at Northeastern University in Boston and a member of the Phi Omega chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority, sustained “catastrophic” injuries after falling from a second-story window during a party in March 2023.
Cox’s family is suing the property manager of the rental house where the incident occurred, as well as her sorority, its student president, and the sorority’s Northeastern chapter.
According to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk County, the accident happened between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on March 31, 2023, during a gathering of sorority members at a rental home on Judge Street in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood. The group was preparing for a formal event later that evening when Cox fell out of a kitchen window.
“The kitchen was crowded with party guests and Sarah Cox fell out of a window onto the driveway below, a distance of about 20 feet,” the lawsuit states. As a result of the fall, Cox sustained severe injuries and was in a coma for months, according to her family’s GoFundMe page.
In December 2023, Cox’s family provided an update on her condition, stating that she “is the same sweet and cherished presence in our lives that she always has been.”
“We are in the Pediatric Rehab now. This place offers intensive and specialized therapies that will, inshallah (God be willing), expedite Sarah’s recovery. Our days and nights merge into a blur as we take care of our precious daughter,” they wrote.
The lawsuit claims that around 30 people were present in the house at the time of Cox’s fall. The plaintiffs accuse the property manager, Marcia Ramos, and Ramos Properties of negligence, specifically failing to warn tenants about the low windows from which someone could easily fall.
The complaint alleges that Ramos did not ensure the property was safe and failed to prevent tenants from allowing more people into the apartments than could be safely accommodated. It also contends that Ramos should have anticipated potential safety issues related to crowding and alcohol consumption by college students.
The plaintiffs also accuse the Phi Omega chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority at Northeastern and its student president at the time, Maggie Scales, of negligence and failing to provide adequate warnings.
“POAEP had a duty to keep those lawfully within the apartment, when used for sorority-related activities, from any dangerous uses and conditions caused by those members of the sorority,” the complaint alleges. It further claims that the sorority failed to warn its members who hosted events in their apartments about the dangers and the potential for injury, particularly when alcohol consumption and overcrowding were involved.
All defendants named in the lawsuit have filed motions to dismiss. The sorority defendants argue that the complaint “fails to state facts sufficient to support any negligence theory against the sorority defendants.”
They also contend that the complaint does not clarify how Cox fell out of the window or why. “When you cut through the six counts of negligence against the sorority defendants in the 170-paragraph complaint, plaintiffs’ claim is: ‘Sarah Cox fell out of a window onto the driveway below.’ While certainly sympathetic to Cox’s alleged ‘catastrophic injuries as a result of the fall,’ the counts against the sorority defendants fail under the most basic duty-breach-causation-damages analysis,” their motion to dismiss states.
The sorority defendants further note that the Cox family’s complaint does not allege that Sarah Cox consumed alcohol, that she was served or coerced into drinking, or that alcohol was “even present that night.”
“Plaintiffs fail to show how, why, or what caused Cox to fall, or how any defendant … is legally responsible for it. Rather, plaintiffs just assume all defendants must be somehow liable,” the defendants’ filing adds, criticizing the plaintiffs’ “scattershot pleading style.”
Cox’s family has stated that she will require 24-hour care, seven days a week “on a permanent basis” due to her “catastrophic” injuries. They also reported that her medical expenses have already exceeded $200,000 and will continue to rise for the rest of her life.
Both the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ attorneys have declined to comment on the case at this time.
