This is America, so it wasn't going to be long before some lawyer tried to cash in on the Sandy Hook tragedy. An attorney has filed a notice asking permission to sue the state of Connecticut on behalf of a 6-year-old Sandy victim -- not even one who died, mind you, but a little girl who survived, but who heard the shootings over the loudspeaker. Because of this, lawyer Irving Pinsky says, the girl is emotionally traumatized. He is asking for $100 million. I have no doubt every single person who made it out of Sandy Hook Elementary School alive was traumatized, but it was also by the grace of someone having the wits about them to turn on the loudspeaker that many lives were saved.

The state is immune from most lawsuits unless permission is granted, so there's still a long way to go here. But Pinsky says he'd like to prove that the massacre was "foreseeable" and that the state could have stopped it, but didn't. Apparently the state should be psychic about these things. "Usually a fellow like Adam Lanza would have been known as a potential problem to the police," Pinsky told the Courant. Since Lanza had no criminal record, this is a pretty brazen statement.

From a picture on his Facebook wall, Pinsky is seen in front of a van proclaiming "Big Cases. Fast Settlement." You can be sure he booked to Newtown moments after he heard of the tragedy. The grotesque thing about these lawsuits is that the lawyer usually ends up with the vast majority of the cash. Additionally, this is taking $100 million from people in old folk's homes, hospitals, mental care facilities, you name it. The state pays for a lot of this. At a time when we're all nervous about the mentally ill going untreated, leaving them without state funds because of lawsuits isn't going to help matters.

No doubt this won't be the last lawsuit we hear out of Newtown. I get that everyone is traumatized and looking for someone to blame (as long as that "someone" has loads of cash). But taking money out of the mouths of the poor people of Connecticut will not help matters. And I don't see how millions of dollars will erase the girl's memory of the shootings.

Additionally, it's setting up a precedent where staff members at offices or schools may not want to warn people of danger because they are simultaneously "traumatizing" them. What if they hadn't warned anyone? Then they'd be sued for that!

What do you think of this lawsuit?

 

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