Dive Brief:
- The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Virginia Tech did not act negligently in the April 2007 mass shooting that killed 32.
- The decision reverses the verdict of a wrongful-death suit against the school over allegations that the university could have done more to protect students following the fatal shootings of the first two victims in a residence hall.
- In the unanimous Thursday ruling, the court said that officials believed the shooter had fled the area and posed no further danger, and that they therefore didn't have a duty to warn the campus because they could not have reasonably foreseen the second series of shootings.
Dive Insight:
The civil lawsuit overturned by Virginia's supreme court was filed by the parents of victims Erin N. Peterson and Julia K. Pryde on the basis that a warning would have led the two girls to take precautions and change their schedules. Regardless of whether it could have been prevented or not, and it's hard to argue that the school could have foreseen that second series of shootings, that what happened at the school on April 16, 2007, was still a tragedy that left families devastated and lives forever altered. As VT Spokesman Lawrence G. Hincker said, "There is no joy. [The verdict] doesn't make anybody feel better."