$40 million civil trial resumes in suit filed by teacher shot by student. Here’s what we know

Jurors returned Monday morning for more testimony in a $40 million lawsuit filed by a former Virginia elementary school teacher shot in her classroom by a 6-year-old student with a history of disciplinary problems.

The jury first heard from an expert witness for the defendant, former Assistant Principal Ebony Parker, who is accused of ignoring red flags that might have averted the 2023 shooting. Lawyers for the teacher, Abby Zwerner, rested their case last week.

The civil trial could set a precedent for holding school officials accountable for gun violence on campus and comes ahead of Parker’s criminal trial next month on eight counts of felony child neglect.

Parker argues she had no duty to intervene

Parker, who resigned two weeks after the shooting, argues she is not responsible for the student harming his teacher and had no legal duty to intervene, CNN’s Jean Casarez reported. Damages are not warranted, Parker argues, because Zwerner has moved on with her life.

Parker’s lawyers pressed Zwerner and other witnesses last week about claims the shooting left the former teacher afraid to go out in public, citing Instagram messages about her attending a Taylor Swift Eras tour concert.

They also sought during cross-examination to undermine claims Zwerner is physically hindered by her wounds, asking her how she managed to attend and graduate from cosmetology school since leaving teaching after the incident.

Zwerner’s pain and suffering have been the focus of the trial so far, and Parker’s defense team this week is expected to continue to press Zwerner on whether there was more she could have done between learning of the possible gun threat and when she was shot.

Defense experts from outside Virginia are expected to testify this week, Casarez reported.

Zwerner’s lawsuit alleges Parker ignored “warnings from teachers and staff that students had seen the firearm” and the student had “removed an object that was likely a firearm from his backpack before it was searched.”

Poor decisions led to the “avoidable” shooting, a grand jury report found last April.

Teacher said she thought she was going to die

Zwerner on Thursday testified she thought her wounds were dire.

“I thought I was dying. I thought I had died,” the former first-grade teacher said as she recounted being shot in the hand and chest while sitting at a reading table in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

Zwerner has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychiatrist testified, and her hand will never be normal, even after six surgeries, an orthopedic surgeon said.

Zwerner also has changed since the shooting more than two years ago, her twin sister said.

“She’s just not the person that she was,” Hannah Zwerner testified last week.

Parker also faces criminal charges

As school shootings continue to plague US campuses, this civil trial could serve as a roadmap for the upcoming criminal case against Parker, which itself could set a broader precedent.

Attempts to hold school officials criminally accountable for school shootings are rare, said Darryl K. Brown, a law professor at the University of Virginia.

It is also rare for civil cases to precede criminal ones, but it could be strategic in the case of Parker, who faces eight counts of felony child neglect in her trial next month, legal experts say.

“I suspect that defense would want the civil trial to go forward first, because they’re not going to be able to avoid it, and it gives them a lot of information about what would come in at the criminal trial,” Brown said.

Already, the mother of the child who shot Zwerner has been sentenced to two years in prison for child neglect, the school board voted out the superintendent and the principal was reassigned to another school.

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