Attorney General George Jepsen doesn’t believe the $100 million claim made by a 6-year-old client who heard the gunfire and screams of her classmates at the Newtown school massacre was filed in the appropriate venue.
The claim was filed Thursday with the Office of the Claims Commissioner by New Haven Attorney Irving Pinsky.
“As Attorney General, my Office has a statutory obligation to defend this claim,“ Jepsen said in a statement Monday. “Our hearts go out to this family, and to all the children and families affected by the Newtown shootings. They deserve a thoughtful and deliberate examination of the causes of this tragedy and of the appropriate public policy responses.”
“However, the Office of the Claims Commissioner is not the appropriate venue for that important and complex discussion,“ Jepsen concluded.
“Although the investigation is still under way, we are aware of no facts or legal theory under which the State of Connecticut should be liable for causing the harms inflicted at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Nor does the claim letter filed in this case identify a valid basis to support a claim against the state and, by extension, its taxpayers.”
