Kroger has settled a 5-year-old wrongful death lawsuit with the family of a former worker who claimed alleged harassment by his store managers drove him to commit suicide.
Evan Seyfried, 40, was a dairy manager at a Kroger store in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford, who took his own life on March 9, 2001. His father, Ken Seyfried, filed the lawsuit in July 2021, accusing two managers at his store of harassing his son during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides suing Kroger, he also sued the two managers, Shannon Frazee and Joseph Pigg.
Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The agreement ends the legal action against Kroger, Frazee and Pigg. A dismissal of the case was entered into Hamilton County Common Pleas Court records on July 22.
Seyfried’s attorney, Austin LiPuma, said the case was “resolved to the satisfaction of the parties” and declined further comment. Kroger officials did not immediately respond to comment.
Suicide prompted protests against Kroger, tested Ohio law
Seyfried’s death prompted multiple protests and an anti-bullying group called Justice For Evan.
According to the lawsuit, Seyfried was ridiculed for wearing a mask in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, given the nickname “Antifa.” The harassment escalated to a “campaign of terror” that included alleged sabotaging of his work, harassing him sexually, following Seyfried after work and sending him menacing and obscene texts, court documents said.
Seyfried felt so threatened he moved back home with his parents five days before his death. His father insisted Seyfried see an attorney after his son finally told him all that had been happening. But Seyfried had a mental breakdown the day they visited an attorney’s office and wandered off.
After recuperating briefly, Seyfried and his father talked until late into the evening when the son’s mood darkened again. His father discovered his son dead the following morning.
Kroger sought to invoke ‘suicide rule’
Kroger sought to dismiss the lawsuit, invoking what legal scholars call the “suicide rule” that limits liability following a victim’s death. The law in Ohio, as in most states, essentially faults a suicide victim for their own death – it may not matter what happened (or what was done) to them beforehand. But in Ohio, a party can be held liable if the possibility of suicide is “reasonably foreseeable.”
In early 2023, Judge Christian Jenkins ruled Seyfried’s suicide may have been a result of the alleged harassment and allowed the case to proceed.
Since then, a jury trial has been delayed multiple times as the parties wrangled over depositions and other evidence mostly under court seal. Settlement talks began in 2025.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kroger settles lawsuit over worker suicide
Reporting by Alexander Coolidge, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Alexander Coolidge, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
