The lawsuit against the parent company of Spectrum News 13 for the 2023 killing of reporter Dylan Lyons was dismissed \u2014 this time, for good \u2014 after a federal judge ruled that it again failed to show the TV station was responsible for his death.<\/p>\n
Lyons\u2019 family sued Charter Communications \u2014 the parent company of Spectrum News 13, an Orlando Sentinel news partner \u2014 claiming the station failed to protect Lyons the day he was shot by the suspect in a Pine Hills murder scene he was assigned to cover. The lawsuit cited in part his brief professional career and a lack of safety training and equipment.<\/p>\n
But in a 12-page opinion issued late Friday, Senior District Judge Anne Conway, who initially dismissed<\/a> the family\u2019s first filing in October, said the lawsuit failed to demonstrate Lyons was unaware of the danger posed by the crime scene with the shooter still at large, nor did it claim that his editors hid that fact from him.<\/p>\n \u201cLyons\u2019s lack of experience is irrelevant to whether the danger was apparent and whether Defendant concealed or misrepresented the danger of the crime scene to Lyons,\u201d Conway wrote in her decision.<\/p>\n The ruling further relied on a \u201cvirtual certainty\u201d standard, meaning Charter would have to know Lyons would be hurt or killed based on prior incidents or explicit warnings, which the lawsuit failed to establish.<\/p>\n The complaint filed in federal court in Orlando was dismissed \u201cwith prejudice,\u201d meaning Lyons\u2019 attorneys can\u2019t bring it again. A spokesperson for Charter Communications, which denied wrongdoing, declined to comment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw an injustice and, despite the odds, took this case on knowing the difficult task that was in front of us,\u201d attorney Mark NeJame, whose firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lyons\u2019 family, said in a statement. \u201cHowever, a young man was needlessly killed, a family grieved, and that was a cause worth fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been three years since Lyons was fatally shot in his news van while covering the killing of Natacha Augustin, 38, who had been shot hours earlier by the same gunman, then-19-year-old Keith Moses. Moments before Lyons was shot, investigators said, Moses had emerged from a nearby house where he also shot and killed 9-year-old T\u2019Yonna Major.<\/p>\n Moses currently faces trial for the three killings and, if convicted, could face the death penalty. His next hearing is scheduled Sept. 1.<\/p>\n