DENVER — Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains can be sued for liability in the 2015 mass shooting at a Colorado Springs clinic that left three people dead, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Monday.
A "reasonable juror could find that [the shooter] was not the predominant cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries and that therefore PPRM’s action or inaction was a substantial factor in causing those injuries,” wrote Justice Richard L. Gabriel for the court’s majority.
Victims of the Nov. 27, 2015 shooting and their survivors sued Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains after Robert Dear allegedly killed one person in the clinic’s parking lot, another inside the building and a police officer who responded. Dear, who proclaimed himself to be a “warrior for the babies,” has not been tried in state court due to a finding of incompetency.
In December, U.S. Attorney Jason R. Dunn pursued 68 charges against Dear or the federal crime of blocking the entrance to a clinic before the statute of limitations expired.
A state district court dismissed the liability lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, saying that no violent crimes had previously occurred at the Colorado Springs clinic, and that there was no indication of an imminent threat.
>>Read the full story at Colorado Politics.
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