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Torts Keyed to Prosser
Commonwealth v. Peterson
Citation:
286 Va. 349, 749 S.E.2d 307Facts
On the morning of April 16, 2007, police at Virginia Tech discovered two gunshot victims in one of the campus’s dormitories. The police informed the President of Virginia Tech that two students had been shot, the shootings appeared targeted and likely domestic in nature, and that the shooter had likely left campus. An email was sent to the student body informing them of the shooting that morning. Approximately thirty minutes after the email was sent, a second mass shooting began on another part of campus. The police identified the shooter and connected DNA evidence and the murder weapon with the earlier shooting. The administrators of the estates of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde, two of the murder victims from the second shooting, filed wrongful death suits against the shooter’s estate, the Commonwealth, and various Virginia Tech officials. After the consolidation of cases and several motions, the Commonwealth was left as the sole defendant. The Commonwealth argued: (1) it did not have a special relationship with Peterson and Pryde, and (2) even assuming, arguendo, that there was a special relationship, there was no duty to warn of third party criminal acts. The circuit court found that a special relationship did exist and the Commonwealth failed to warn the students of a shooter on campus. The Commonwealth appealed.
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