SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Today, the U.S Federal District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez issued a verdict against the United States Government in the total amount of $230,000,000 for the Government’s role in causing the shooting at Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church on November 5, 2017.
This is the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history as twenty-six people perished and twenty-two more were seriously injured. The verdict will compensate more than 80 family members of victims and survivors who filed suit against the government.
In April of 2021, Judge Rodriguez ruled that the Air Force was 60 percent responsible for the shooting. Through his investigation, Rodriguez found that for more than thirty years, the Air Force negligently and dangerously failed to report thousands of violent felons into the FBI criminal background check system.
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), is designed to prevent convicted criminals from purchasing or possessing firearms. One of those felons illegally purchased an assault rifle with multiple high-capacity magazines and used it to commit the shooting at Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church.
“These families are the heroes here. While no amount can bring back the many lives lost or destroyed at the hands of the Government’s negligence, their bravery in obtaining this verdict will make this country safer by helping ensure that this type of governmental failure does not happen in our country again," said the lead trial counsel, Jamal Alsaffar.
Judge Rodriguez wrote a 185-page opinion in which he evaluated each of the victims’ losses and rendered a verdict that family legal representatives agreed fell within settled law in Texas state and federal courts for similar instances of grievous loss.
“The losses and pain these families have experienced is immeasurable. Our civil justice system only allows us to rectify these kinds of losses through money damages," said Judge Rodriguez. "Valuing human life, pain, and suffering is a task that our justice system has imposed on judges and juries, and the methodology used by both has been varied…. Ultimately, there is no satisfying way to determine the worth of these families’ pain.”
The Court rejected the Government’s approach to limiting the victim’s recovery:
“Its effort to obfuscate its responsibility by attempting to import a no-fault damages model into a case in which the Court has already found liability is wholly unavailing.”
Further resources, including the Judge’s full liability and damages opinions, can be found at this link: https://nationaltriallaw.com/sutherland-springs-shooting-law-suit/.
