$127.5 Million Settlement Against the FBI for Failing to Act on Warnings Before the 2018 Parkland School Shooting

On February 14, 2018, a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and wounding at least 17 others. Within days of the shooting, the FBI acknowledged it had received a tip roughly five weeks before the attack, when a caller reported to the agency's tip line that she feared the person 'was going to slip into a school and start shooting the place up.' The bureau conceded that warning was never forwarded to its Miami field office and was not investigated in accordance with its own protocols.

Families of the victims and survivors filed 40 civil claims against the United States government, arguing that federal employees had a duty to act on the intelligence they received and that the failure to do so allowed a preventable attack to proceed. The litigation unfolded under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which permits civil suits against the government for the negligent acts of its employees.

Kristina Infante of Podhurst Orseck served as lead counsel across the 40 consolidated civil cases. The firm, long established in complex federal litigation out of Miami, took on the coordination of claims covering 16 of the 17 families of those killed, along with survivors who sustained injuries in the attack.

The Department of Justice reached a settlement of $127.5 million in November 2021. The agreement covered the 40 civil cases and was formally announced publicly in March 2022. The DOJ stated the settlement did not constitute an admission of fault by the United States. No information suggests the amount was reduced on appeal.

The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, pleaded guilty in October 2021 to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. The federal settlement addressed a separate and parallel question: whether the government bore civil liability for the warning signs its agents received and did not act on before the attack.