Subject:  Columbine news story |
Author:
Chris
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 02/23/05 5:55pm
It still is pretty amazing that an assistant of Fieger's could make this HUGE a mistake.
Final suit rejected by court Parents of Columbine victim to get similar settlement as others
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News
February 23, 2005
The last remaining lawsuit filed on behalf of a Columbine High School victim ended Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review efforts by the family of a slain student to reject a settlement agreement.
The parents of Isaiah Shoels, who was killed, contended that a letter written by their lawyer's assistant wrongly committed them to share, with more than three dozen other families, in about $1.5 million from insurance
companies for the parents of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Harris and Klebold attacked their school with guns and homemade bombs in April 20, 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher, and injuring more than 20 others, before taking their own lives in the nation's deadliest school
shooting.
The insurance money was divided by a retired federal judge and the precise amounts awarded to each family were kept secret, but Michael and Vonda Shoels, parents of Isaiah, are expected to receive between $22,000 and $25,000 under the settlement agreement, as did other families of slain
students.
Families of severely injured students reportedly received more money than the families of those who were killed. In addition, some families who were entitled to share in the settlement refused to accept any money.
An April 2001 letter from the Shoelses' attorney, Geoffrey Fieger of Michigan, to a Colorado lawyer working on settlement negotiations said the Shoelses agreed to the proposal.
The Shoelses then learned that some other families had rejected the settlement. Those families eventually did settle with the Klebold and Harris parents.
Fieger later said his assistant sent the letter agreeing to the settlement and that it was a mistake. The Shoelses refused to sign the settlement agreement and dismiss their lawsuit.
But Colorado U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock decided that the Shoelses were bound by the agreement, and in July the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
There were no trials in any of the 17 lawsuits filed by victims of the school tragedy. All were either settled or dismissed. Many of the settlements were confidential.
Some families received settlements without suing. Some families were awarded settlements but turned down the money.
Those named in suits included school officials, law enforcement officials, the manufacturer of a drug prescribed for Harris, gun dealers and three
young people who helped the teen shooters obtain guns, in addition to the killers' parents.
The largest single settlement made public, $1.5 million from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, went to the family of teacher Dave Sanders, who bled to death in a classroom while law enforcement officials waited
outside for hours, refusing to let Sanders leave or medical professionals go to his aid.
Injured student Patrick Ireland, who became known as "the boy in the window" because of his dramatic escape lowering himself from a Columbine High School library window, settled with the Jefferson County sheriff's department
for $117,500.
The families of about three dozen Columbine victims, including slain and injured people, shared in another $1.5 million settlement from the companies insuring the Harris and Klebold families. Individual amounts, which
were not equal, were not disclosed.
Numerous families also settled with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department and Jefferson County Public Schools for about $15,000 each.
Smaller settlements also were paid by insurance companies for three young people who helped Harris and Klebold obtain guns.
Several families unsuccessfully sued Jefferson County Public Schools for refusing to mount tiles in school halls that they painted after their children were killed. The tiles depicted religious themes, which school
officials, in inviting the community to paint tiles, had prohibited. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up that case.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 