Justices Reverse Wrongful Death Virginia Tech Verdict

The state Supreme Court has reversed a jury’s wrongful death verdict against the state stemming from the killings of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech in 2007.

In a decision issued Thursday, the justices say the state had no duty to warn students of the potential acts of a lone student-gunman who initially shot two in a dormitory before killing 30 more people. He then killed himself.

Jurors in Montgomery County ruled in March 2012 that the state was negligent in the deaths of two students killed on Tech’s Blacksburg campus in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Jurors awarded the families of both students $4 million each, but a judge reduced the award to the state cap of $100,000 for each family.