FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ As their hopes dimmed in Tallahassee, family members of 26 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre announced lawsuits Wednesday against the school officials and law enforcement agencies they say failed them in their hour of need.
A wave of lawsuits is being filed in the coming days, 10 on behalf of the murder victims and 12 on behalf of survivors with physical wounds, said attorney Todd Michaels, who represents the families of deceased victims Joaquin Oliver and Scott Biegel as well as injured teacher Stacey Lippel.
Some of the lawsuits cover more than one victim.
Attorneys on Wednesday accused the Broward School Board of undermining the Parkland victims by promising to do the right thing in public while working behind the scenes to sabotage bills in the state Legislature that would create a taxpayer-backed fund to compensate the families. But the bills haven't gotten a hearing, and they aren't likely to pass this legislative session, which ends on May 3.
One of the measures _ sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Lauren Book _ would have created a $160 million compensation fund, which families of the 34 people killed and wounded in the Parkland shooting could have accessed if they signed agreements not to pursue litigation.
The school district responded Wednesday afternoon by taking partial credit for the compensation bills and denying any effort to see them fail.
"Broward County Public Schools has been working to secure a victims compensation fund for the families of the MSD tragedy since last year," said district spokeswoman Kathy Koch. The district "retained GrayRobinson to assist in its advocacy efforts and support of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Victims Compensation Fund.
"At no time has the district or GrayRobinson lobbied against the compensation fund."
It was the school district, she said, that placed the compensation fund on the platform of issues to be raised by the Broward delegation to the state Legislature.
Michaels said the school district's public stance is at odds with what he and his colleagues have heard about what's happening at the state capital.
"The Legislature has been completely cooperative, and they have shown a real desire to do what they can," he said. "The problem is they can't start acting until the school board, until the police department, until the underlying defendants have given them what they need to get to the next step."
The Broward Sheriff's Office declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Michaels said he would welcome the school district's help reviving the bills in the few weeks remaining in the legislative session.
"We invite them to call us and work together to get to Tallahassee to get it done," he said.
Mitch Dworet, whose lawsuit is being handled by attorney Michael Goldarb, said he has been disappointed with the school district's actions since the shooting.
"The first thing they are responsible for is the safety of our children," said Dworet, whose son, Nick, was among those killed. "They failed. They failed me that day."
The Senate bill does not require local entities _ such as the Broward County School Board _ to sign off on the creation of a fund. Payments would come from the state's general fund, not school district money, according to the legislation.
When the legislation was introduced, Book said she wanted to spare families the trauma of further court proceedings by setting aside taxpayer funds they could access. The measure included an admission that "multiple failures at various levels of government" culminated in the mass shooting and contributed to its magnitude.
Such a fund, though, would have been an unprecedented step by the Legislature and would have set an expectation that victims of future national tragedies would be entitled to taxpayer assistance, said Kenneth Feinberg, who administered funds for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
If the families succeed in court, Florida's sovereign immunity law limits the liability of the state and its agencies to $200,000 for a single victim and $300,000 for all victims in the same incident.
The Florida Supreme Court is reviewing whether mass shootings should be treated as one incident or multiple events.
If each shooting is treated separately, each victim would be entitled to a maximum of $200,000. Otherwise, if it's a single event, $300,000 would be divided among all the victims.
Payments above that amount can be authorized through a claims bill, but those bills can languish for years in the Legislature.
Even though time is running out, Bob Kelley, an attorney representing Parkland families, is optimistic a deal can still be reached.
"It's never too late," he said. "There is still three weeks left in the legislative session, and everybody knows that almost everything happens at the very last minute. ... They still have an opportunity to do the right thing by these families and get this resolved and all these lawsuits could be dismissed."
