Church shooting lawsuits to be consolidated
All federal lawsuits filed by victims or relatives of the Sutherland Springs church massacre against the U.S. Air Force are to be consolidated and handled by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra said Wednesday. Four lawsuits have been filed, but more are expected — some of them within the coming two weeks. The suits filed so far accuse the Air Force of negligence over its failure to report convictions of the shooter that would have prevented him from buying the guns he used to kill 26 parishioners and injure many more. “This is akin to a mass tort case,” said Ezra, who had two lawsuits assigned to him. There will be “a lot of plaintiffs. The facts are relatively identical. We had a crazed individual who, without reason or justification of any kind, came in and began to massacre people in the church.” “This court has great sympathy for the victims and their families,” Ezra added. “It makes no sense to have these cases spread out.” He said he consulted with Chief U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia and Judge Rodriguez before deciding Rodriguez could provide the required time and attention the cases deserve. Ezra, who also handles cases on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals aside from his work on the Western District of Texas, has one of the busiest dockets in the country and has spent more than five months in successive trials this year alone. “This isn’t judge shopping,” Ezra said, noting the grouping is necessary to ensure justice is served. Shortly after Devin P. Kelley entered the First Baptist Church on Nov. 5 and mowed down his victims with an assault-style rifle, the Air Force admitted it failed to report his past crimes to a federal database, which allowed him to pass a background check and obtain guns, including the one he used in the slayings. Despite the admission, the suits could encounter a number of hurdles, including claims by the feds that no matter how glaring its mistakes were, whoever was responsible is shielded by governmental immunity. Due to the doctrine of sovereign immunity, it’s nearly impossible to sue the federal government. But under the Federal Tort Claims Act, people can seek damages in limited cases if they can prove direct negligence on the part of the government. Several have filed administrative claims with the Air Force seeking redress outside the court. Under the tort claims law, they are required to give the government six months to try to respond. Those who haven’t gotten anything more than cursory responses from the feds have proceeded to lawsuits, including attorney Jamal Alsaffar, who is handling three separate lawsuits. Alsaffar represents Margarette Vidal, who survived after being shot in the knee and in the back. He also represents the relatives of Tara McNulty, 33, a mother of two, and Sara, 68, and Dennis Johnson Sr., 77, who were among those killed. Lawyers Rob Ammons and April Strahan represent Joe and Claryce Holcombe, who lost nine family members in the massacre and were the first to sue earlier this year. “It’s been almost a year since this horrible thing happened, and the government has done very little to move this case. In fact, they’ve done nothing,” Alsaffar said after Wednesday’s hearing. “The quicker we can get the cases together and move forward so that these families’ cases can be addressed openly and transparently … the better.” Lawyer Justin Demerath told Ezra he represents several victims or their relatives and is likely to file suits on their behalf. Another attorney, Dennis Perry, told Ezra he is representing the family of slaying victim 16-year-old Charlene Uhl, and is also expected to sue. Daniel Sciano, an attorney representing the family of Ricardo Rodriguez, who was among those killed, said he expects to file suit soon. Kelley, an Air Force veteran, had a history of violence. In 2014, he received a bad-conduct discharge after he was convicted of beating his first wife and seriously injuring his stepson. Two years earlier, he had escaped from a mental facility where he was admitted after threatening to kill his superior officers. The crimes normally would have put Kelley on an FBI criminal database and barred him from legally owning guns.