DETROIT — The Oxford school district and its employees have government immunity and can’t be sued in the November 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School that killed four students and injured seven others, an Oakland County judge ruled late Friday.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Brennan dismissed all Oxford governmental employees and entities from civil lawsuits relating to the Oxford High School shooting. She concluded that then-15-year-old shooter Ethan Crumbley was the most immediate and direct cause of the mass shooting and dismissed the Oakland County school district and its employees from civil lawsuits brought by Oxford victims and their families.
Even if the Oxford district and employees were grossly negligent in their responses to Crumbley’s behavior, Brennan wrote that “no reasonable trier of fact could conclude that any of the conduct of any of the individual Oxford Defendants was ‘the one most immediate, efficient, and direct cause of the injury or damage’ to the Plaintiffs.”
In ruling that the victims’ claims are barred by governmental immunity, Brennan said Crumbley's act of firing the gun, rather than the alleged conduct of the defendants, was the "one most immediate, efficient and direct cause of injury or damage."
“Because it is undisputed that the school district was a government agency engaged in the exercise or discharge of a government function at all times relevant ... the school district is immune,” Brennan wrote.
The ruling is an initial victory for the school district, which had argued it had immunity under the law. The district couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday night.
But attorney Ven Johnson, who represents several victims and their families, called it a terrible day for his clients, who feel the law has victimized them all over again.
“On behalf of our Oxford clients, we are deeply saddened and disappointed by Judge Brennan’s dismissal today of all the Oxford Community Schools defendants,” Johnson said in a statement. “We maintain that governmental immunity is wrong and unconstitutional, and the law should be changed immediately. We call on the Michigan Legislature to change this law now.”
Johnson said he will appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals, where he will argue that the increased burden of proof imposed on victims who have been injured by governmental employees, namely gross negligence and the proximate cause, violates equal protection under the law and deprives victims of their right to a jury trial.
“Under the law, everyone should be treated the same. No one should have more rights than others just because they work for the government. If this shooting happened at a private school, this case would be sent to trial and none of these defenses would exist,” Johnson said.
The governmental immunity statute is a key hurdle for the plaintiffs in wrongful death cases that have accused school officials of gross negligence.
Lawyers for the victims’ families had said their case meets the standards to deny governmental immunity. Attorneys defending the school, however, moved to have the cases dismissed on the grounds that officials are protected by the state’s immunity law, requiring the judge to rule on the matter before the lawsuits can proceed further.
Johnson had pushed back by arguing the lawsuits have met the burden to overcome the governmental immunity statute.
"We will argue that the increased burden of proof imposed on victims who have been injured by governmental employees, namely gross negligence and the proximate cause, violates equal protection under the law, and often, like here, deprives victims of their right to a jury trial," he said.
Michigan governmental immunity law offers broad protections for officials accused of negligence for acts carried out during the course of their job, making it difficult for the state’s residents to sue public employees or agencies.
In recent legal filings and in court last month, the school’s defense attorney, Timothy Mullins, sought to have the cases thrown out, arguing the claims do not meet the liability standards needed to overcome the governmental immunity law because the teenage shooter, Ethan Crumbley, who has pleaded guilty to all charges in the attack, is the “proximate cause” of the students’ deaths.
Mullins said Crumbley’s actions were “the most immediate” cause of injury and called the shooter’s actions the “ultimate legal breach of duty.”
Nearly a dozen lawsuits have been filed against the school and its officials since the November 2021 shooting, accusing school leaders of gross negligence. The lawsuits argue that school officials failed to take sufficient action to prevent the violence allegedly in the face of ample warning signs of the teen's potential for violence in the lead-up to his deadly rampage.
Crumbley pleaded guilty in October to all 24 criminal charges, including terrorism causing death and first-degree murder, which carry a sentence of up to life in prison. The teen's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are also facing charges of involuntary manslaughter. Crumbley and his parents have also been named in the lawsuits filed by the victims' families.
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(Detroit News staff writer Kayla Ruble contributed to this story.)
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