A nasty rift between the most seriously wounded survivor of the 2018 Parkland school massacre and some families of the 17 murdered erupted in court on Thursday in a fight over dueling lawsuit settlements each side recently reached with the shooter as opposing attorneys accused each other of lying.
The immediate fight is over a June agreement survivor Anthony Borges and his parents reached with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz that would give Borges rights to Cruz’s name and image, approval over any interviews he might do and a $400,000 annuity left Cruz by his deceased mother.
Attorneys for the families of slain students Meadow Pollack, Luke Hoyer and Alaina Petty, and survivor Maddy Wilford, quickly countered with their own $190 million settlement with Cruz.
But as Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips learned Wednesday, the mutual animosity started during negotiations over a $25 million settlement reached in 2021 with Broward County schools when the families of those killed insisted Borges receive $1 less than they would as an acknowledgement that they suffered the greater loss.
Grief can be hard but wtf. The parents of the deceased didn’t suffer more than the person who survived. You can’t quantify suffering like that and that’s pretty shameful. I understand their worlds have been upended but that’s so petty. $1 less in settlement to acknowledge they had children who were murdered while this person has to deal with what is probably an enormous amount of ptsd among other things.
I agree - huge lack of empathy I think coming maybe from jealousy. If that was their kid who had survived, i imagine they’d want extra help for them, financially or otherwise. Just sad that’s the only kid left and they have to be horrible to him
you’re making sense but none of us went through what these people have gone through