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State wants Virginia Tech shooting damages limited

Posted at 8:03 AM, Apr 04, 2012
and last updated 2012-04-04 11:17:17-04

The state is asking a judge to abide by a $100,000 cap on damages in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of two Virginia Tech students who were among 33 killed on the Blacksburg campus nearly five years ago.

Attorneys for the parents have asked the court to award each family $2 million despite a state cap on damages.

In a filing this week, the state said the court would be acting “without jurisdiction and commit clear, reversible error” if it bypassed the cap.

Jurors in Christiansburg concluded March 14 that the state was negligent when it delayed alerting the campus of the first two shootings April 16, 2007. They were the first in a campus rampage
that was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.