Family Adds Delta Chi Fraternity to Lawsuit Over 2021 Drowning in Tuscaloosa

The family of a young man who drowned in Tuscaloosa's Black Warrior River three years ago is adding his fraternity to a wrongful death lawsuit they filed in 2022 against a local bar they claim overserved him.

As the Thread covered at the time, Garrett Walker went missing in November 2021 after a night at the Gray Lady bar on Greensboro Avenue in Tuscaloosa.

After days of searching, his body was recovered from the river, the banks of which are a few blocks south of the bar.

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A year after the 20-year-old's death, his parents and the team at Prince, Glover & Hayes sued the Gray Lady and claimed Walker's autopsy showed triple the legal blood alcohol content, suggesting the underaged Alabama student not only drank at the bar but was overserved there.

The original complaint also accuses the Gray Lady of withholding surveillance footage and other evidence from Walker's parents and their attorneys before and after he was found.

Now, three years after the young man drowned, his parents and their attorneys have added the Delta Chi fraternity as a defendant in the lawsuit.

"Although Garrett loved Delta Chi Fraternity with all his heart, International Delta Chi failed Garrett miserably in the days and weeks before his death," they said in an amended complaint filed Friday.

The new lawsuit says Garrett Walker and other fraternity brothers were implicated in what they call "a sham 'investigation' into a hazing allegation which allegedly occurred sometime in the Fall of 2021."

Walker was "banished" from the fraternity although his family said it is without dispute that the hazing conduct did not involve him.

The new complaint says if he had been allowed to remain in the fraternity, he would have been at the Delta Chi house on campus, not Gray Lady, on the night he went missing.

A new count in the lawsuit accuses Delta Chi of Negligence or Wantonness in his wrongful death.

"Defendant Delta Chi, negligently and/or wantonly investigated unfounded allegations of hazing involving Garrett Walker, by among other things, failing to provide due process. As a result, a “No Contact Order” was issued to Garrett Walker, barring him from his normal and customary friends and places to go. This alienation from his normal friend group led directly to Garrett’s tragic and preventable death. As a direct and proximate result of this negligence and/or wantonness, Garrett Walker was served alcoholic beverages while 1) being a minor, and 2) being visibly intoxicated, leading to his death by drowning."

The lawsuit remains in front of Circuit Judge Daniel Pruet. Attorneys for Gray Lady filed a motion for summary judgment to bring an end to the case in August, which is still pending a ruling.