Jury verdict in Virginia Tech wrongful death case overturned
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The Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a jury verdict in a wrongful death suit against the Commonwealth of Virginia that favored the families of two students killed in the 2007 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The ruling overturns a March 2012 verdict that found the state had a duty to warn students about the potential for criminal acts by third parties. The jury awarded each family $4 million, with that amount later reduced to $100,000 per family under state liability caps that limit government damages.
The state appealed the lower court verdict, and the high court justices ruled that under the facts of the case, there was no duty for the state to warn students about the potential for criminal acts by third parties, reversing the Montgomery County, Va., Circuit Court verdict.
The April 2007 shooting rampage left 33 dead. In their suit, the families of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde argued that if Virginia Tech had alerted the campus about the gunman immediately after the first two victims were shot in a dorm, the lives of others later killed in a classroom building might have been saved.
But in writing the court's opinion, Virginia Supreme Court Justice Cleo E. Powell said, “Based on the limited information available to the commonwealth prior to the shootings in Norris Hall, it cannot be said that it was known or reasonably foreseeable that students in Norris Hall would fall victim to criminal harm. Thus, as a matter of law, the commonwealth did not have a duty to protect students against third-party criminal acts.”
