With lawsuits against Virginia Tech and the town of Blacksburg looming, Illinois attorneys have said that they do not expect a similar situation with Northern Illinois University.
Among the differences in the two cases are the ideas that there were no security failures or communication lapses in the NIU event, contrary to what many feel happened on the Tech campus.
On Feb. 14, 2008, a former graduate student opened fire in a lecture hall at NIU, killing five students and wounding 16 others before killing himself. This came less than a year after the shootings at Tech on April 16, in which a gunman killed 32 others before killing himself. Chicago attorney Kathleen Zellner noted that the principles behind tort immunity could make it difficult for the families of those deceased in DeKalb, Ill., to make a case of wrongful death against the university.
"It gives immunity to schools unless you can show there was willful and wanton behavior on the part of the university for failing to prevent the event from occurring," Zellner said.
Similarly, the lawsuits at Tech focus on wrongful death and personal injury, two concepts that S. D. Roberts Moore, a member of Roanoke-based law firm Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore, views as identical.
"A wrongful death case is no different than a personal injury case," Moore said. "The only difference is that the personal injury caused death."
Moore said that the basis for suit remains the same.
"The whole issue, in any case such as this, is whether or not the death of the person who is the subject of inquiry was caused through the negligence of a third party," Moore said.
Richard Cranwell, a Tech graduate and attorney with Cranwell, Moore, and Emick, P.L.C, said that those wishing to sue a university must go through an lengthy process.
The first step of such relates to an immunity clause rooted in pre-colonial English law, stating that a state cannot commit a legal wrong.
"There are a number of plaintiffs in these cases that have to get through a number of clauses," Cranwell said. "The first of which is the doctrine of sovereign immunity."
Cranwell denied further comment on the potential NIU case and current Tech lawsuits.
NIU officials have reported that thus far no lawsuits or notices have been filed. Though the state of Illinois allows up to two years for a lawsuit to be filed, Zellner said she does not expect any to be processed.
"It has a lot to do with immunity laws, and there are very few cases that survive that defense," Zellner said. "There are too many things that would defeat a lawsuit that a plaintiff could bring in."
Since the immunity clauses state that the plaintiff must shift the blame from the criminal to the university, Zellner thinks that this is a near-impossible task, as a jury would likely tend to place fault on the shooter and not the college's administration.
Though this may be the case at NIU, Zellner noted that it is different at Tech. In addition to different legal standards in the state of Virginia, the case made could be much stronger.
"My understanding of the shooting at Virginia Tech is that there was a delay in the response time, that the university had been notified that he had a mental problem, and that there were all kinds of information relayed to the university that was not at NIU," Zellner said.
At NIU, Zellner noted that the lawsuit would likely be defeated. She added that the university's quick response and lack of background information on the shooter would be significant in the court room.
Moore did not wish to comment specifically on either event, stating that his lack of knowledge on the case would make his response "irresponsible" as an attorney.
He did note, however, the benefit of settling any wrongful death case outside of court.
"If both parties come to the negotiating table with a reasonably clear understanding of the issues, they should be able to resolve the matter," Moore said. "The benefit would be resolution of the matter. Presumably, if you settle out of court, both sides are satisfied."
NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara and attorney Peter Grenier, a member of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Bode & Grenier, representing the families of 25 deceased students on April 16, did not return calls from the Collegiate Times.