The Oxford School Board announced on Tuesday, January 16, that the district will sue its insurance company, MASB-SEG. The lawsuit was filed the next day in Oakland County Circuit Court. Photography by Matt Fehr
The Oxford School District is suing its insurance company over potential payouts for injuries claimed among nine lawsuits stemming from the November 2021 shooting at the high school.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Oakland County Circuit Court, seeks a court order to allow the district to award $5 million per injury claim instead from its insurer, MASB-SEG Property/Casualty Pool, Inc. The company says the shooting was itself a single event that should have resulted in a single payout limited to $5 million.
Oxford’s insurance policy provides $1 million “per event of general liability” and $4 million “per event of excess liability.”
According to court documents, MASB-SEG “took the position that the underlying claims allege physical injuries resulting from only one ‘incident’ in an attempt to limit its total liability under the policy to a single set of limits to an aggregate amount of $5 million.”
On Tuesday, the Oxford Board of Education allowed a lawsuit to proceed against MASB-SEG, according to board President Erin Rees.
“We hope that resolving this matter will also enable the district to resolve the lawsuits in the near future, allowing the community to continue the healing process and take our next steps,” Reese said at the meeting.
In the fall of 2023, secret mediations began seeking a resolution to all claims, but no result was reached.
“The mediations failed in part because the insurer was unwilling to negotiate above a single basic and excess policy limit and would not reconsider its coverage position,” the lawsuit said. “Accordingly, Oxford had no choice but to lift this action.”
According to the lawsuit, the vague interpretation of “accident” as written in the policy opens the door to the Oxford definition of accident — where each individual’s injuries are covered as separate “accidents.”
“The insurer’s ‘single event’ stance hampered Oxford’s ability to move forward with potential settlement negotiations,” the lawsuit states.
Finn Johnson, an attorney for the families involved in several lawsuits, said the district’s explanation of events is reasonable.
“Every bullet that (the shooter) fired, every person that he injured and/or killed, you can certainly take the position that this is a separate event,” Johnson said. “Here, the definition of ‘occurrence’ in the insurance contract is not clear and unambiguous as it relates to the facts and circumstances at issue here.”
The November 2021 crash at the high school killed four students — Hannah St. Giuliana, Tate Meyer, Madisyn Baldwin, and Justin Schilling — and injured seven others, including a teacher.
Multiple lawsuits allege the district failed to protect students. The Oxford students and their families claim the district created or increased the danger the shooter posed to students and teachers at the high school.
The same insurance policy interpretation issue was raised in 2022 by Scott Weidenfeller, an attorney for 18 Oxford students who filed a class action lawsuit in the Southern Division of the Eastern District of Michigan.
“They (MASB-SEG) interpret the policy to mean that every individual who has been shot or has PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), that these are not separate incidents, but it’s all just one allegation; Weidenfeller explained that the shooting itself was just an event. “The (insurance) company says there is one amount for this entire class of people.”
That case is still pending.
The case will be heard by Judge Jacob Cunningham.