Key elements of a lawsuit alleging Virginia Tech and top officials failed to do their jobs to prevent the April 16 massacre can go ahead, a circuit court judge ruled today.
The families of Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson alleged enough facts about gross negligence by the university, president Charles Steger and former executive vice president James Hyatt to allow a case against them to proceed, Judge William H. Alexander II ruled.
Under Virginia law, only when government entities and officials are grossly negligent may they be sued. Otherwise, a concept called "sovereign immunity" protects officials from being sued for simple mistakes or oversights.
The judge said the families' allegations against four other Tech officials, all members of the Policy Group that coordinated Tech's response on April 16, did not state a sufficient cause of action against them.
The judge also ruled that three employees of Tech's counseling center were not protected by sovereign immunity, noting that they were responsible for providing mental health services to Seung-Hui Cho, the Tech senior who killed 32 students and staff on April 16.
Because of that duty of care, the families' allegations against the three need to go to trial, he ruled.
The judge dismissed the families' charges against the area Community Services Board and its staff.
The judge's rulings are not a finding of fact or fault, but simply that the allegations are clear enough to warrant a trial.
Other victims and families of the people Cho killed settled with the state in 2008.
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