Newtown Parents Offer to Settle Lawsuit for $5.5M Apiece

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Newtown Parents Offer to Settle Lawsuit for $5.5M Apiece

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DANBURY, Conn. — Jun 14, 2016, 9:40 AM ET

The parents of two children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre are offering to settle their wrongful death lawsuit against Newtown, Connecticut, and its school system for $5.5 million apiece.

The parents of Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner filed the settlement offers Monday in Danbury Superior Court. A lawyer for the town and the school board declined to comment Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges security measures at the school weren't adequate when Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 first-graders and six educators in 2012. The other victims' parents aren't part of the lawsuit.

In another lawsuit, the families of nine victims and a teacher who survived are suing Madison, North Carolina-based Remington Arms, the parent company of Bushmaster Firearms, which made the semi-automatic rifle used in the shootings.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/newtown-parents-offer-settle-lawsuit-55m-apiece-39843653

[HoustonDave]

1. Bad lawsuits

From what I read Lanza broke a supposedly secure window to unlock a locked door to enter the school. While nowadays some schools have security like Hitler's bunker, at the time that was considered more than adequate for foreseeable threats.

Lanza murdered his own mother to get his hands on her rifle to commit a crime. In view of that, and the above, I suspect that legally both lawsuits will have to depend on a overemotional jury to get any traction. Legally they are both pretty much meritless under current law. Of course the parents are offering to settle - most likely they will lose and get nothing.

[onehandle]

2. Use the money they get from the city and school to go after the gun traffickers and gun company.

And I would get very personal about calling out everyone who made a dime on that gun along the way to the shooter.

[Nye Bevan]

3. What are school systems supposed to do, put up electrified barbed wire fences around every school?

I doubt that there's an elementary school in the country where this kind of atrocity could not happen. This is as bad as the lawsuit against the Colorado movie theater where the mass shooting happened. I sympathize with the parents but I hate this "sue everyone in sight" mentality.