State Supreme Court rules against Parkland families
TALLAHASSEE
The Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that state law places a $300,000 limit on how much the Broward County School Board can be forced to pay to families and victims in lawsuits filed after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Justices issued opinions in the Broward County case and in a Florida Department of Children and Families case that dealt with the same legal questions about the potential liability of government agencies in mass shootings.
In both cases, the court said mass shootings should be viewed as a single “incident or occurrence,” effectively placing a sharp limit on how much government agencies can be forced to pay under a state sovereign-immunity law. Justices issued a detailed ruling in the Department of Children and Families case, which stemmed from a man fatally shooting his estranged wife and four of her children and wounding another child in 2010 in Palm Beach County.
“Today’s decision in no way devalues the lives of those injured or killed as a result of mass shootings, or the harm suffered as a result of such tragedies,” the court wrote in the Palm Beach County case. “It is a decision that is rendered within the narrow confines of Florida law relating to the Legislature’s limited waiver of sovereign immunity.”
Justices issued a brief opinion in the Parkland case, citing the legal reasoning in the other case.
Sovereign-immunity laws are designed to shield government agencies from costly lawsuits and set limits on payment amounts.
The Broward County School Board argued that its liability in the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at the Parkland school should be capped at $300,000 because the mass shooting — which killed 17 students and staff members and injured 17 others — was a single incident. But attorneys for families and victims contended that the shots were separate occurrences and that each plaintiff filing a claim against the School Board should be able to receive $200,000.
Under the Supreme Court decision, parents could receive damages exceeding the $300,000 overall cap but would need to convince the Legislature to pass what are known as “claim” bills. In such bills, the Legislature can direct government agencies to pay more than what is allowed under sovereignimmunity law.