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| Abby Zwerner in Court |
Newport News, VA - In the Abby Zwerner case, a jury awarded her $10 million in damages in her civil lawsuit against former Richneck Elementary School assistant principal Ebony Parker. The jury found that Parker was grossly negligent in failing to act on multiple warnings that a six-year-old student had a gun on the day Zwerner was shot.Zwerner's suit accused an ex-administrator in a lawsuit of ignoring repeated warnings that the child had a gun. The jury returned its decision against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Abby Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. She had initially sought $40 million against Parker in the lawsuit.
Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.
Key Decisions and Outcomes
Jury Verdict
Ebony Parker was the only defendant in the civil lawsuit at the time of the verdict. A judge had previously dismissed the Newport News School Board, the district superintendent, and the school principal as defendants due to sovereign immunity laws in Virginia.
The lawsuit alleged that Parker ignored repeated warnings from several school staff members in the hours before the shooting that the student had a gun in his backpack. The jury's decision implied they found Parker's inaction constituted gross negligence and a breach of her duty of care to Zwerner.
Damages
Zwerner, who was shot in the hand and chest, spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries, and does not have full use of her left hand. The $10 million award was less than the $40 million she had sought in the suit.
Parker did not testify in the lawsuit. Her attorney, Daniel Hogan, had warned jurors about hindsight bias and "Monday morning quarterbacking" in the shooting."You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable," Hogan said. "That's the heart of this case. The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person's decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people's decisions at the time they make them."
The shooting occurred on the first day after the student had returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner's phone two days earlier.
"You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable," Hogan said. "That's the heart of this case. The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person's decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people's decisions at the time they make them."
The shooting occurred on the first day after the student had returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner's phone two days earlier.
Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist.
Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction.
The student's mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother's handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom's purse.