Latest news with #VenJohnson
CBS News
28-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Michigan Supreme Court declines to hear Oxford High School shooting civil cases
Civil litigation by families of the victims of the Oxford High School shooting has ended, per order of the Michigan Supreme Court, with Michigan's government immunity law appearing to be the sticking point on whether the case was viable. Attorneys Ven Johnson and Chris Desmond, who have been working on behalf of the Oxford families, spoke to the news media Wednesday afternoon on the case that was pending against the school district. The others on the Zoom call were family members, Meghan Gregory, the mother of Keegan Gregory, who survived the shooting, and Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre, who was one of the fatality victims. All four of them expressed their frustration and disappointment after the Michigan Supreme Court issued its order Wednesday. The justices had said in a brief statement that "we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court." "This case should have been allowed to proceed to trial," Johnson said. The attorneys explained that taking a case to the Michigan Supreme Court is much more difficult than taking a case to the appeals level. The Supreme Court does not have to hear a case, nor do the justices need to explain why or why not. "This is an incredibly sad day in the life of this case," Desmond said. "The Michigan Supreme Court doesn't necessarily have to tell you what they think." The Oxford High School shooting in November 2021 resulted in the deaths of four students and injuries to seven others. The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 years old at the time, was charged as an adult in Oakland County and is currently serving his criminal sentence. The case earned national attention as it was one of the first school shooting cases in which authorities sought charges against both the shooter, who was a student at the time, and his parents. The Michigan Supreme Court decision is the response to a Michigan appeals court ruling issued in September. The original lawsuit was filed in an attempt to hold school employees accountable, the families would have needed to provide evidence that the school district was primarily responsible for the deaths and injuries that day. But the appeals court agreed with a lower court's ruling that the circumstances did not overcome the existing threshold for governmental immunity. That was the topic that the lawyers and family members focused on during their remarks on Wednesday. Michigan's government immunity law dates back to the 1980s. Given the political realities of asking the Michigan legislature to rewrite the law, those speaking at the press conference think their options for what happens next are limited. One idea under discussion is a rally in Lansing to bring public attention to the matter, the details and date to be determined. "We've got to address this immunity thing. Our government is not above the law," Myre said. "These kids deserve justice," Gregory said. Earlier this month, an appeals court rejected an effort to overturn the most serious of the criminal convictions against the shooter. The shooter's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were convicted in 2024 of four counts of manslaughter for their roles in the circumstances.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘We have not forgotten you' – Residents remain without relief 5 years after failure of Edenville Dam
Attorney Ven Johnson stands in front of the Midland County Courthouse for a press conference marking the five year anniversary of the Edenville Dam failure on May 19, 2025. | Screenshot Marking the five year anniversary of the 2020 Edenville Dam failure, a host of residents whose homes were damaged by the dam's collapse gathered outside the Midland County Courthouse Monday, calling for the state to step up and make things right with those impacted by the flood. 'Not a single dime has been collected. Let me repeat that, not a single dime has been collected by these folks behind me, the true victims and survivors, nor on behalf of their attorneys. Not a single dime has been offered by the state of Michigan to step up to do the right thing,' attorney Ven Johnson told reporters, arguing the state's response to residents seeking accountability through the courts had been to 'defend, delay, deny.' Johnson recounted the past 5 years of legal proceedings, as residents impacted by the flooding seek damages from the Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources, alleging the state knew the dam was not safe for continued operations, but still authorized the dam operator, Boyce Hydro, to raise the water levels within the lake created by the dam. The state attributes the dam's failure to 'historic levels of rainfall.' More than 11,000 people and 2,500 structures were damaged due to flooding, with the state's initial estimate for damages coming out to $250 million. While a federal judge later found Boyce Hydro responsible for the dam's failure, ordering the dam's former owner Lee Mueller to pay $119 million in environmental damage, Johnson argued the state had yet to properly respond to the complaint filed by residents shortly after the dam collapsed. He pointed to an order filed by Court of Claims Judge Douglas Shapiro in October 2023, which notes 'this case was filed over three years ago and that no Answer has ever been filed and that no discovery has yet occurred.' Shapiro called the state's repeated requests to reverse a previous order, which partly denied the state's effort to resolve the case without bringing it to trial, 'time-consuming and unsuccessful.' While Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford last week denied another request to resolve the case in favor of the state without going to trial, Johnson predicted the state would appeal the decision, noting that the government retains an automatic right of appeal. Johnson said he would be objecting to that request, as would the attorneys standing beside him at the conference. 'Sadly, this is a months, plural, long process,' he said. Johnson repeatedly compared the state's legal approach to the way it handled legal proceedings in the Flint Water Crisis where the state was ordered to pay $600 million to Flint residents and property owners whose water was contaminated. 'There's your blueprint for how the state of Michigan deals with infrastructure failure. No one went to jail, no one was prosecuted, and it was the Civil lawyers who did what they did and exactly what we're doing in this case to try to bring some semblance of justice,' Johnson said. 'That took them eight and a half years before the State of Michigan stepped up and began to take responsibility and pay for the damage….But even so, that litigation, in many respects, is ongoing even today.' While the state pursued several state officials, including Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder for their role and response in the Flint water crisis, the efforts failed to return any convictions after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2022 the charges were invalid. The residents pursuing the state for the dam collapse are scheduled to go to trial in January 2026, Johnson said. However, if the case is allowed to proceed, he expects the state will take the case all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. In the meantime, Mike and Lisa Callan, whose home was destroyed by the flooding, said the burden is getting greater and greater each year. 'We have a couple mortgages we're still paying on this property. And, you know, now, now we have a water assessment coming. You know, my water assessment is about $48,000 for a piece of property that has absolutely, you know, nothing there,' Mike Callan said. Carl Hamman, a member of the Sanford Village Council, warned that residents could lose their homes over the assessment fees the state is requiring to rebuild the Edenville, as well as the Sanford Dam, which was located downstream. 'If they're living on —and I'm on Social Security — If you're living only on Social Security, I can't afford another $5,000 a year tax. Can't do it. I'll have to walk away from the place that I've been at for 35 years,' Hamman said. Kevin Carlson, another attorney working on residents' behalf, said the dam failure was not just a natural disaster but a failure of government and a breach of trust. 'What the state officials knew here, by January of 2020 at the very latest, was that the Edenville Dam did not meet the minimum safety requirements for a dam to continue operating in the state of Michigan…. The people behind me, the people that live downstream from this dam, they didn't know that,' Carlson said. 'They couldn't take matters into their own hands and start evacuating early. They count on the state acting behind closed doors to know that when a dam is unsafe for continued operation, there's one thing you shouldn't do to it: load up the lake behind it with more water. That's what the state authorized the dam operator to do.' Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Attorney General, which is representing EGLE and the DNR, said the failure of the dam was tragic, but noted it was not a state-owned dam and that survivors of the flood had already sued the dam owner and forced liquidation of their assets. 'Despite the claims of plaintiffs' attorney Johnson today, the litigation still pending in the Court of Claims is nothing like the Flint water litigation, and there is no appeal pending in it,' Wimmer said. 'Plaintiffs in this litigation already lost their lawsuit against the county governments because they did not have evidence to back up their allegations. We expect the same thing will happen in the Court of Claims. The plaintiffs do not have the evidence to support their allegations. Instead, the evidence confirms that the state agencies are not responsible for the dam's failure,' Wimmer said, before noting the department's sympathies lie with those affected by the dam failures. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Midland area floods: Victims still searching for justice 5-years-later
The Brief It has been five years since the historic floods raged from a dam system failure around Midland. Five years later most victims say they still have not received justice. The Attorney General's Office said in a statement that the plaintiffs have already lost their lawsuit against the country's governments due to lack of evidence. DETROIT (FOX 2) - Five years ago Monday night, many in Metro Detroit with property in the Saginaw and Midland areas lost everything as historic floods raged from a staggering dam system failure. The backstory Five years later most victims say they still have not received justice. And a local attorney is shining a light on the problems that remain. Attorney Ven Johnson hosted a press conference in Midland outlining what he says have been massive failures in state government to do right by the many victims of those devastating floods. While there is an eventual trial date for January 2026, many say it's not so simple with so many delays already. What they're saying Nearly everything Kurt Yockey owned and loved at his house in the Great Lakes Bay Region was lost to raging waters in the 2020 dam failures that caused never-before-seen flooding in Midland, Saginaw and Gladwin Counties. "The entire lower level was full of water and than up to about your waist on the first floor," he said. "Everything had to get thrown out. Furniture, most of the clothing, but in particular things like the pictures of kids and I had pictures of every high school team that I had ever coached from 1973 through the time of the event - all that, lost." He says he's among many victims still waiting for justice, five years later and followed the press conference hosted by Detroit Attorney Ven Johnson, a Saginaw native, who says several state agencies keep kicking the can down the road. "The state has completely waived taxpayer money and time by trying to file motions to get out of the case and appeal every adverse ruling that they've gotten," Johnson said. It is something that he says, and does not seem to be changing with what he calls another adverse ruling handed down. "Because they are a governmental entity, and they have an automatic right of appeal that the rest of us don't enjoy. If we were in a lawsuit - but they do because the law says they can - which needs to change right away - it's despicable," he said. What's next Things have worked out a little better for Autumn Pontseele's family since the historic flood. "I know my mom is still making changes to the house. She's always showing me pictures of what she's doing," she said. "It came out to be an okay situation. At the end of things, thankfully, with the grant that we got, we were able to rebuild." But that's not the case for so many others who would like to see a fund created to help with long-term recovery, like what took place after the Flint Water Crisis. Johnson says there should be a process that fairly compensates the victims for the right value of their losses. "We're five years and, we're really not that close to getting a trial date," he said. The Attorney General's Office said in a statement that the plaintiffs have already lost their lawsuit against the country's governments due to lack of evidence. We expect the same thing will happen in the Court of Claims. The plaintiffs do not have the evidence to support their allegations. Instead, the evidence confirms that the state agencies are not responsible for the dam's failure.
