Citing government immunity, the Connecticut Appellate Court ruled against two families who alleged negligence and inadequate school-safety protocols contributed to the deaths of their loved ones during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, reports Law.com. The court upheld a lower court’s ruling in favor of the town of Newtown and its education board. It said the families who sued made no specific allegations against any faculty or staff at the time of the shooting, and that school security guidelines imposed only discretionary responsibilities, not required actions, on the defendants.
The case was filed by the families of Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner, two elementary school students killed in the shooting. They argued that top school officials knew there was a protocol to lock down the school and shut the doors to every classroom, but no lockdown was ordered during the incident in which Adam Lanza killed 20 schoolchildren and six educators. Appellate Judge Thomas Bishop said that, “no reasonable juror could have found that the school security guidelines imposed a ministerial duty upon the faculty and staff.”