chain of causation and proximate cause of death and contributing factors, who is liable?

A gentleman was pledging for a fraternity at a college. his pledge was to climb the campus water tower which had proven to be graffittied before. while he was climbing the tower it was storming, he had been drinking and the steps were slippery. Half way up he is eletrocuted by a short circuit mechanism. It concluded that the college knew of the short circuit but it had only fried pigeons in the past. Failure to perform maintenance on the tower was deferred to pay other employees higher salaries.