SAN ANTONIO - Federal district court judge Xavier Rodriguez issued a verdict yesterday against the U.S. in the amount of $230,000,000 for the government’s role in causing the shooting at Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church on Nov. 5, 2017, a press release states.
Twenty-six people perished and twenty-two more were seriously injured in the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history. 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. Rodriguez found that for more than 30 years, the Air Force negligently and dangerously failed to report thousands of violent felons into the FBI criminal background check system. That 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 to commit the shooting at Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church.
In a 185-page opinion, Judge Rodriguez individually evaluated each of the victims’ losses and rendered a verdict that family legal representatives agree falls within settled law in Texas state and federal courts for similar instances of grievous loss.
He explained: “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. 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.”
Lead trial counsel, Jamal Alsaffar, responded to the verdict with this statement: “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.”
Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs is Jamal Alsaffar and Tom Jacob of Whitehurst, Harkness, Brees, Cheng, Alsaffar, Higginbotham & Jacob PLLC, The plaintiffs are also represented by April Strahan of The Ammons Law Firm, Daniel Barks of Speiser Krause PC, Jason Steed of Kilpatrick Townsend Stockton LLP, Justin Dem-erath of O'Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo, Bob Hilliard & Marion Reilly of Hilliard Munoz Gonzales LLP, Hugh Plummer of the Law Offices of Thomas J. Henry, Den-nis Peery and R. Craig Bettis of Tyler & Peery, Kelly W. Kelly of Anderson & Asso-ciates Law Firm, Brett Reynolds of Brett Reynolds & Associates PC, Frank Herrera Jr. and Jorge A. Herrera of The Herrera Law Firm, Jason Webster of The Webster Law Firm, Erik Knockaert & Joe Schreiber of Schreiber Knockaert PLLC, Tim Maloney and Paul Campolo of Maloney & Campolo LLP, Daniel Sciano of Tinsman & Sciano, George LeGrand and Stanley Bernstein of LeGrand and Bernstein, and Craig W. Carlson and Phillip J. Koelsch of The Carlson Law Firm P.C.