A disquieting accident at MIT.

FOR YEARS, A $26.65 MILLION LAWSUIT FILED BY THE PARENTS OF ELIZabeth Shin, a student who died in a 2000 dormitory fire, against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology attracted national attention. The case against two student life staff members came to an abrupt halt in April when MIT and the Shins settled out of court with an undisclosed payment to the family; the Shins also agreed not to proceed with a case against four MIT psychiatrists. "We appreciate MIT's willingness to spare our family the ordeal of a trial and have come to understand that our daughter's death was likely a tragic accident," said Cho Hyun Shin, Elizabeth's father, in a statement released by MIT.

On the day of the fire, Elizabeth Shin reportedly told two students that she planned to kill herself. She was later found in her room amidst a fire and suffered severe burns that led to her death several days later. David Deluca, a lawyer for the Shin family, recently told The Boston Globe that toxicology tests indicated that Elizabeth had experienced a non-lethal overdose, which might have made her unresponsive when candles sparked a fire.

"I am surprised to see a suggestion that the Elizabeth Shin 'suicide' was an accident.

That muddies the waters," says Gary Pavela, a professor at the University of Maryland and expert on higher education law. "It also means the lower court ruling on summary judgment will be cited rarely, if at all."

The lower court ruling, issued last summer, took an expansive view of schools' liability. Traditionally, non-clinician administrators have not been seen as having a legal "duty of care" in regards to potentially suicidal students. "In terms of viable legal precedents," says Pavela, "the best guidance we have is a state supreme court ruling in Iowa (Jain v. Iowa, decided in 2000) that held there was no general duty of care on the part of non-therapist college administrators to prevent suicide."

Yet, in part due to legal concerns, some colleges maintain policies that suspend or involuntarily withdraw students who pose a threat to themselves or to others. In Washington, D.C., The George Washington University suspended student Jordan Nott through a judicial process after he reported having suicidal thoughts. Nott has sued GWU for violating his rights under federal disability law. According to Tracy Schario, a university spokeswoman, GWU wanted Nott to be safe more than anything. The university is examining its mechanisms for communicating with students who might harm themselves or others (a process that began before the Nott lawsuit).

The Shin settlement has generated myriad questions, particularly in regards to how it will affect policies at IHEs. What's clear now is that MIT and the Shins can move forward from a bad legal tangle.