Parents who sued a school board after a mass shooting at a Florida high school in 2018 are being asked to turn over records of psychiatric visits and receipts from funerals as proof they suffered mental anguish after the attack, according to a story by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Documents filed in lawsuits by parents of students killed on Valentine’s Day at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, also include demands for tax returns to show lost income, the cellphone numbers of the dead students, copies of death certificates and the names and business addresses of any healthcare provider who treated them in the five years before the shooting.
Victims' families are suing the school district, claiming it is responsible for failing to identify the danger posed by suspected gunman Nikolas Cruz.
Among those objecting to the requests is school board member Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter, Alyssa, was killed in the attack. She called the demand “harassing, burdensome” and an invasion of privacy, the Sun Sentinel reported. Alhadeff was elected to the school board after the shooting.
Alhadeff is one of at least a dozen parents of the 14 slain students who are objecting to the request. One parent of a slain student, Fred Guttenberg, shared his frustration on twitter.
(1,6) I struggled with whether or not to post about this but decided I need to take a stand. The @browardschools School District failed in deadly ways. My daughter and 16 others were murdered because of their failures. https://t.co/fhbBaNzSeU
— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) October 7, 2020
Broward Circuit Judge Patti Henning will consider in a hearing Thursday what the victims will be required to answer to move forward in the lawsuit.
In a response last week, the district said it “recognizes the sensitive nature of these records,” but that they are necessary to prove a legal claim involving mental pain and suffering.
According to the Sun Sentinel, the court combined dozens of lawsuits stemming from the shooting and laid out the way evidence would be collected. A 75-page questionnaire that included requests for psychiatric records, tax returns and the other information was what came out of the order.
In addition to the 14 students who were killed, three teachers also were shot and killed.
Cox Media Group
