Michigan Supreme Court declines to hear appeal in civil suit against Oxford schools, staff

The Michigan Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a civil suit brought by Oxford families against the Oxford Community School District and school officials, accused of failing to prevent the November 2021 Oxford High School tragedy.

The denial is among multiple legal dead ends families have come up against in recent months, including the recent dismissal of federal civil suits against the district. With this newest development, it appears families have very few legal paths left to pursue in their claims against what district officials could have done to prevent the shooting.

Michigan's Court of Appeals in September 2024 dismissed the civil suit brought by the families of Tate Myre and Justin Shilling, two of the students killed in the attack, as well as Keegan Gregory, a survivor who witnessed parts of the shooting. The court held an earlier court's opinion that Oxford school employees were subject to governmental immunity, which largely shields government employees from litigation.

In a news conference on Wednesday, May 28, parents of students killed and traumatized said they were stunned by the two-sentence order. Families have now been enveloped in litigation against the district for more than three years. The process has been taxing, they said.

"Our government is under a different set of laws, they don't operate in the same world," said Buck Myre, Tate Myre's father and one of the plaintiffs in the case, in a news conference May 28. "I'm shocked. I can't believe that a tragedy of this nature, our government could just sweep it under the rug."

Myre lamented not only governmental immunity, but lack of change following the mass shooting.

Ven Johnson, attorney representing the families, blasted the state's governmental immunity laws during the news conference. Johnson said a report by a third-party, Guidepost Solutions, further sheds light on alleged negligence by school staff members in handling the shooter in the days and weeks before the mass shooting. The independent report released in October 2023 concluded the shooting could have been avoided.

"Governmental immunity should absolutely be abolished and ruled unconstitutional," he said.

A federal judge on Tuesday, May 20, dismissed several civil lawsuits claiming Oxford Community Schools' officials could have prevented the attack that left four students dead and seven others, including a teacher, injured. The dismissals were with prejudice, meaning the same case can't be filed again. It follows a March 2025 opinion by a U.S. Court of Appeals 6th District Court panel of judges finding that the plaintiffs did not provide enough evidence to show that school district officials were "so outrageous and so callous in their disregard" of the danger the shooter posed that it violated their constitutional rights.