Va. Tech reaches settlement with families of slain students

I was working off of the story, which indicated 32 killed, 24 injured, which gives you 56 parties to the settlement.

I divided $11 million by 56, which is $196,000 to each party. I calculated a 30 percent IRS hit and a 40 percent lawyers fees hit, each taken off of the $196,000, which is roughly $138,000. Leaving about $58,000 per party.

 

There isn't an IRS hit, I believe.

Regardless, people are murdered every day, without compensation. Brutally, savagely. Hell, Virginia Tech isn't even responsible. I just find it odd that Virginia Tech is responsible to the tune of $11 million. For what? What were they guilty of?

 

They're guilty of nothing, which is exactly why they're putting it down on paper for everyone to sign.

 

They're guilty of having the deep pockets to be able to pay. By right, I guess you could say the killer's family should be the one to sue, but they aren't gonna have this kind of jack to pay.

And I'll offer the contrary view in that I was surprised that the amount wasn't much larger. And I say that not in a way where they would be greedily trying to profit from this disaster.

But, to lose a child in a senseless, instantaneous moment like that? A child just beginning to blossom in life--with all the hope and promise in the world ahead of them. I can only begin to fathom the emotional impact that carries. I know if I were to lose a child in that way, I would carry huge emotional scars the remainder of my days.

I'm guessing there are some pretty extensive therapy bills this money could help offset. And even if not, maybe it can serve to do something to make the families happy, to make them smile again. Could use on a charitable endeavor in memoriam, could use it on a new hobby, could use on a trip or vacation or beach house, etc.

Something to help make the pain go away, even if just for a moment, just for an instant. Because smiles and happiness have to be hard to come by for these folks. Forever.

 

Sorry, I don't buy it. XX thousand dollars to make the pain go away? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of families who lose loved ones every day, but because it didn't happen the campus of a major university with deep pockets, they don't sue.

I'm not trying to minimize their pain. I'm sure it's a horrific and heartwrenching thing to lose a child and I can't fathom how much it must hurt.

But the university had nothing to do with it. The kid's family isn't liable for it either. The only person they could sue turned the gun on himself. This wasn't anyone's fault except one deranged person.

And for them to think the money is going to take their pain away (even if only to make them smile for a moment) is naive at best and sickeningly greedy at worst.

I hope the families who can afford it donate every cent of that money to a worthy cause rather than profiting off their children's death.

 

Since VT is a public school, the citizens of the state are paying the $11 million.

 

pern--there's a difference in losing a loved one via illness/disease/accident than homicide. At least there is in my view.

Going back the last 30 years, the US has averaged roughly 20,000 homicides a year; about 17,600 if you factor out 'intinates'--where the killer and victim knew each other/had a relationship. That works out to about 48 a day.

And I would guess many of those result in lawsuits. It certainly did for one Orenthal James as I recall, for example.

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but I would think the killer's family can be sued in a case like this. Perhaps one of our esteemed SportsJournalists.com colleagues in the legal profession can weight in on this point.

 

Should the 9-11 families have received nothing as well then? The only people to blame were the 19 hijackers and they couldn't get money from them, yet they received millions. I don't know, I go back and forth on caes like this. It's true that there are countless families who lose loved ones and get nothing and I sometimes wonder why some get money. But for the most part, when it's such a massive disaster such as this, I have no problem with the families getting payments.

 

Obviously, an illness or something like that is another thing entirely, but I'm not sure I totally agree there is a big difference between a homicide and other sudden deaths (such as someone getting killed by a drunk driver, etc.). There's still an awful lot of anger there.

Many murders result in lawsuits, such as O.J., but usually in those cases, the suit is against the murderer. The Goldmans and Browns, for instance, sued O.J., not the Buffalo Bills. Also, suing O.J. was a case of them going for punitive damages for the murder of their children. I have no problem with seeking punitive damages against the party responsible (the Goldmans buying the rights to OJ's book because they were disgusted by it and then saying they were going to sell it sickened me, though).

Are the VTech families trying to get punitive damages from the responsible party? No, they can't, so they're going to plan B and going after whoever has the deepest pockets. Was the school supposed to know the kid was going to go on a murderous rampage? How could it? Did the school somehow cause it? I'd be shocked if they could find any kind of causal relationship.

This looks like a straight cash grab and that's what bothers me about it.

As for suing the kid's family, they would have show a pretty direct cause and effect relationship that somehow the family spurred the kid to commit this heinous act. And even if they could prove such a causal relationship, I'd be shocked if the family has the kind of coin the state of Virginia has to be worth suing them. Therefore, the family would be left alone (after all, the victims' families are going after money, not justice).

It was a tragedy. They should have just left it as such instead of sullying their good names by A) looking to place blame where it doesn't belong and/or B) trying to profit from it.

 

The distinction I draw in the case of 9/11 is that many families lost breadwinners in that disaster. Again, I don't want to minimize the losses suffered by the VTech victims, but I doubt many (if any) were supporting their families. And that is a huge difference in my opinion.

Also, with 9/11, one could argue that airport security or whoever was negligent in allowing the attackers to bring objects on board that could be used as weapons to hijack the planes. There were things that could have been done to stop the hijackers (and in several cases, was done -- remember, there were a couple who were not allowed on board their flights).

 

I really do not want to go down this road with this thread, but I think the settlement has something to do with the communication breakdown between Tech and the students as the morning progressed.

I do not like this settlement. I just cannot see what good it could possibly do.

I know I might be in the minority on this, but in Virginia this shooting is brought up time and time again. If I had made my peace with what has happened, I'm not too sure I want to see this shooting constantly in the headlines. I know I have no idea how they feel, so I am just going to associate it with what I know.

My father passed away a few years ago, and my wife's mother passed before we met. Certain days and holidays are hard for her because they remind her of her mom. She will get sad for a few minutes and I help her through it. I don't know if I would want her constantly reminded on the news or in other areas about her mom. The anniversary is one thing, but, I don't know. It just seems like too much, IMHO.

 

It wasn't against the law to carry box cutters on board planes at that time.