When Colorado lawmakers passed a law in 2015 allowing school districts to be held liable for school shootings, they intended to give both staff and students the opportunity to sue.
“Should our schools have a duty to protect our kids and those who work there? Should our schools provide ‘reasonable care’? Senate Bill 213 says yes,” former state Sen. Bill Cadman said at a 2015 hearing on the bill that created the Claire Davis School Safety Act, named after a Colorado student who was killed in a school shooting.
But more than a decade later, it’s not clear whether the law applies to school staff. Two deans who were shot and injured by a student at Denver’s East High School in 2023 are believed to be the first staff members to file lawsuits. Last month, a judge in one of the cases threw out the Claire Davis claim, spotlighting that the law may contain an unintended loophole…