A Connecticut lawyer is temporarily withdrawing his request for permission to sue the state for $100 million on behalf of a 6-year-old Sandy Hook Elementary School student who survived the mass shootings last month, the Hartford Courant reports. Irving Pinsky of New Haven is studying new evidence he didn’t describe before deciding whether to renew his request to sue. Pinsky’s claim says the state Board of Education, the state Department of Education and the education commissioner failed to take steps to protect the minor children from foreseeable harm. “As a consequence, the claimant-minor child has sustained emotional and psychological trauma and injury, the nature and extent of which are yet to be determined,” the claim says.
The state enjoys “sovereign immunity” against most lawsuits unless permission to sue is granted. “Usually a fellow like Adam Lanza would have been known as a potential problem to the police,” Pinsky said. He said he filed the notice in order to “freeze” the evidence before insurance adjusters can “shape” it. “This way the state of Connecticut will get the notice and they will have the attorney general’s office and their investigators see what happened and why the school was not protected,” he said.